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Electronic Arts for half the price. Good catalogue. That would help establish some competitive alternative to the Microsoft hegemony in gaming.
I'm sorry but this makes so sense. Half the price on what basis? EAs sports franchises like FIFA, madden, UFC alone make billions every year. Not to mention Battlefield, Battle front, Star Wars franchises the Sims etc and so many more.

And how does Microsoft have a "hegemony in gaming"? Once this deal is complete, they'll still be third in terms of revenue. Behind Sony and Tencent. And for consoles, PS4 had 2/3rd the market share of the last generation and in the current generation its around the same ratio.
 
Meanwhile Apple makes most $$ in gaming of all of them.

But it’s ”stupid” mobile gaming unfortunately.

Apple doesn’t have any pressure to get or create triple-A games when they can make massive $$ with mobile gaming.
 
But that's my point... Microsoft could sell games on PC, XBox *and* Playstation. Why cut out the largest console?

It just seems weird to limit the places to play these games. But I guess they have their reasons.

As someone said earlier... maybe Microsoft could bring their subscription service to Playstation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sometimes it’s not about making maximum profit, but making people switch and stay on your side. Just look at nintendo, they sell their games only on their devices and they don’t care about putting Mario in competitor consoles. Plus, this might help MS get a stronger market hold on the Asian market or expand more pc gamers.
 
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1. Yet more consolidation. Never good for anyone but the executive class and major stock holders. This is bad for the industry, the market, game developers, the customers, etc. Same with subscription-everything, really.

2. There would be no point in Apple buying a company like this, unless the game catalog they were buying actually ran on Mac OS and Mac hardware.
 
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It is not running well for me on a couple of PCs.
What are your system specs?
I've noticed a quality dip every time something major happens at Blizzard.

Jokes aside, it looks like they are buying them for the technology and platform delivery tech. So they are going to go the way of Epic and Valve, and just be a software gaming technology company. In 10 years a wait for a blizzard-developed game will be like the wait for half-life 3.

What will probably happen is they will milk their cash cow (world of warcraft) as much as possible, outsource their IP to unknown Chinese mobile developers, slap a Blizzard/activision/microsoft label on the front, and call it a day. Yeah, it will be called Star Craft 4, but it will be insanely forgettable.

RIP Blizzard.
I don't think MS bought ActiBlizzard for their tech or at least there isn't anything ActiBlizzard is doing tech wise that other teams in MS Games isn't doing.
1. Yet more consolidation. Never good for anyone but the executive class and major stock holders. This is bad for the industry, the market, game developers, the customers, etc. Same with subscription-everything, really.

2. There would be no point in Apple buying a company like this, unless the game catalog they were buying actually ran on Mac OS and Mac hardware.
I think Apple could buy a major publisher to keep them independent and to foster porting some (maybe even exclusively) IP to Apples platform. The AppleTV could use it's own version of Uncharted as a "system mover".
 
Even with DLSS and FSR? You have to say more about your "couple of PCs" for people to actually better emphasize with you.
Yeah I watched a YT of someone running it on an AMD iGPU, it looked like a potato but averaged ~20fps with FSR set to performance.

 
Meanwhile Apple makes most $$ in gaming of all of them.

But it’s ”stupid” mobile gaming unfortunately.

Apple doesn’t have any pressure to get or create triple-A games when they can make massive $$ with mobile gaming.
I don't consider the mobile market stupid, its making Apple and others money hand over fist. I think its apples and oranges. Mobile game's strength is its leisurely pace, console and PC gaming is its depth, graphics and immersion. One is not better then the other, just different.
 
Yeah I watched a YT of someone running it on an AMD iGPU, it looked like a potato but averaged ~20fps with FSR set to performance.

So you're also trying to run the game with an AMD iGPU? I haven't had issues with the game using a 3090 (as expected) as a GPU nor even pro AMD GPU cards that aren't ideal to game on.
 
1. Yet more consolidation. Never good for anyone but the executive class and major stock holders. This is bad for the industry, the market, game developers, the customers, etc. Same with subscription-everything, really.

2. There would be no point in Apple buying a company like this, unless the game catalog they were buying actually ran on Mac OS and Mac hardware.
1. This is naive either-or logic, especially about subscriptions. Many people feel differently about that. The average person have false sense of ownership with physical media anyway: In current-gen consoles–especially with Day 0 patches in mind–a disc is merely a license to play the game with a means to initiate a license verification process via disc drive that you have the right to play the game.

It's great for those who won't play with ideal internet conditions for a modern consumer of the internet and people who want to willingly play license cost lottery to play the game outside the console manufacturer's digital marketplace. Those are minor concerns for a meaningful amount of consumers since discs aren't very green, tedious to breakage in addition to disc drives, and take up unnecessary amount of space arguably with the more efficient means of playing and buying games digitally. The average gamer is in their 30s now and more than affluent at that point to both comfortably afford a modern console and pay whatever needs to be paid to play a particular game digitally on their terms that saves them time that's more a premium to them than younger gamers.

2. The only major game company I could think of that aligns with Apple's values of media consumption/creation they'll invest and market in a global way without huge change to their existing structure is Nintendo. I don't think it's legal for Japan companies to be bought by a foreign company, so it's TBD if it can happen.

Their family-friendly IPs fits Apple's existing products/services perfectly.

It's Apple responsibility, not developers, to create a hardware and developer ecosystem more friendly for AAA games. They simply do not currently, and it's a factor developers don't even bother with Vulkan nearly as much as consumers think they would to ensure their games are playable easier on Linux and MacOS: They'd do that effort more for MacOS vs. Linux but MacOS doesn't ship mainstream hardware or APIs that rival what's available on Window machines and DX12.
 
So you're also trying to run the game with an AMD iGPU? I haven't had issues with the game using a 3090 (as expected) as a GPU nor even pro AMD GPU cards that aren't ideal to game on.
Oh god no, I have the game on my PS5. Not buying it again, lol. My PC (for gaming and mining ETH on the side) has a 6900XT so I don’t play PC games in potato quality, lol.
 
Phil Spenser almost single handedly saved Xbox from its deathbed. This isn't the Steve Ballmer era Microsoft.
Not almost, He did!
They were close to killing off the xbox due to disastrous Xbox One rollout

Seems like Microsoft is overpaying on this one, compared to the Bethesda purchase.
Yeah it does, doesn't it, but people seem mostly positive on this move ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
I'm sorry but this makes so sense. Half the price on what basis? EAs sports franchises like FIFA, madden, UFC alone make billions every year. Not to mention Battlefield, Battle front, Star Wars franchises the Sims etc and so many more.

And how does Microsoft have a "hegemony in gaming"? Once this deal is complete, they'll still be third in terms of revenue. Behind Sony and Tencent. And for consoles, PS4 had 2/3rd the market share of the last generation and in the current generation its around the same ratio.
Electronic Arts has a market cap of around $38 billion, so it should be far cheaper to buy than Activision Blizzard. Activision Blizzard has a higher revenue.
 
Meanwhile Apple makes most $$ in gaming of all of them.

But it’s ”stupid” mobile gaming unfortunately.

Apple doesn’t have any pressure to get or create triple-A games when they can make massive $$ with mobile gaming.
It seems like Apple is not really interested in the market for AAA games.

It makes sense. AAA games require high-end hardware (especially video cards) and the audience is very sensitive in terms of cost-benefit. Apple is not willing to offer high-end video cards to general consumers, as they consume a lot of energy and are expensive. Apple will not make larger desktops and laptops and will not make high-end hardware affordable. And these are two requirements for entering the AAA gaming market and Apple is probably not interested.
 
I'm sorry but this makes so sense. Half the price on what basis? EAs sports franchises like FIFA, madden, UFC alone make billions every year. Not to mention Battlefield, Battle front, Star Wars franchises the Sims etc and so many more.

And how does Microsoft have a "hegemony in gaming"? Once this deal is complete, they'll still be third in terms of revenue. Behind Sony and Tencent. And for consoles, PS4 had 2/3rd the market share of the last generation and in the current generation its around the same ratio.
It doesn't? Sorry. Just comparing the market caps of both companies -- around $37 billion versus $64 billion. Are you looking at a different valuation metric? Also, PC gaming is pretty much synonymous with Windows. Blizzard is one of the largest PC gaming video publishers in the world -- hence the word "hegemony" after the merger.
 
"Seems like Microsoft is overpaying on this one, compared to the Bethesda purchase."
No its note overpaying considering next, late year they probably had to pay over 76B (inflation included). So let the high up people who takes everything, cost , in consideration do their jobs, they clearly know better
 
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"Seems like Microsoft is overpaying on this one, compared to the Bethesda purchase."
No its note overpaying considering next, late year they probably had to pay over 76B (inflation included). So let the high up people who takes everything, cost , in consideration do their jobs, they clearly know better
Microsoft is paying $68 billion for a company that is worth $64 billion (market cap). So, it is not overpaying. Whether it is worth it or not, this is another question. But that is the market value of the company.

Apple overpaid for Beats. Beats was valued at $1 billion in September 2013 after Carlyle's $500 million investment. Apple bought it for $3.2 billion in May 2014, which was a huge premium.

Google overpaid for YouTube back in 2006. YouTube was worth something around $600-700 million and Google paid $1.65 billion for it. YouTube would be worth something around $200-500 billion if it were an independent company, according to different valuations. It was overpriced at the time of the sale, but totally worth it!
 
Apple invested some $500 million to launch Apple Arcade.

Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Prior to that, it bought several other companies, including Rare (2002, $375 million), Mojang (2014, $2.5 billion), ZeniMax (2020, $8.1 billion). Sony also has its share of big acquisitions.

How is Apple ever going to compete without major IP acquisitions?

They're already beating them.

Apple earns more from gaming than Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Activision combined​

 
"Seems like Microsoft is overpaying on this one, compared to the Bethesda purchase."
No its note overpaying considering next, late year they probably had to pay over 76B (inflation included). So let the high up people who takes everything, cost , in consideration do their jobs, they clearly know better

Well, consider the franchises they are actually getting. Call of Duty, and the rest is mostly Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch which all come to PC anyway. The Bethesda purchase had more value, in Fallout, Doom, the Elder Scrolls, and Starfield.

I rather suspect EA would have beaten Activision Blizzard in franchises, with EA Sports and BioWare, Battlefield, the Sims, etcetera.
 
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