If these two IPs get revived, the developer must obtain the licensing for the real cars and racing circuits as well.

For the Call Of Duty players on PlayStation consoles, don't worry, this franchise is confirmed that it will continue on the PlayStation consoles.

Microsoft has a desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, Phil Spencer says - Polygon

I would not take that statement to mean that Call of Duty games will continue to come out on PlayStation. "Intending" to "honor all existing agreements" basically means that Warzone will stay on PlayStation and whatever deals already made for the next one or two Call of Duty games will hold. Going forward the "desire to keep Call of Duty" on PlayStation might just mean that Xbox would like to bring Game Pass to PlayStation but if Sony won't agree then oh well.

Oh, I see, I've heard PlayStation is currently being arrogant just like their PS3 days, for the Project Spartacus (PlayStation's equivalent to Xbox Game Pass), I'm unsure on how is it going to be, but oh well, we have to wait.

Edit: Anyway I still prefer Halo and Battlefield more than the COD series because of the gameplay that I prefered.

Imagine the fallout if this backfires and fails.

• July 2013: Xbox One announces with DRM stuff.
• July 2013: Microsoft about-turn on that DRM stuff. The damage is already done.
• A litany of planned exclusives fail to materialise.
• The ones that do come out are poorly received (Sea of Thieves, Crackdown, Sunset Overdrive)
• In part, some of that is due to underwhelming sales of Xbox One hardware.
• So they put the boxes on sale.
• And got rid of Kinect.
• And put it on sale again.
• June 2017: Game Pass is born. Seemingly signalling a pivot to a more service-oriented approach.
• All first-party output is to debut as part of the monthly subscription service.
• Still got to pay for Gold, though.
• Insomniac leave for Sony and Sunset Overdrive goes with them.
• In an effort to gain more exclusives, Microsoft acquire Ninja Theory and Double Fine
• And Obsidian
• Then they buy Bethesda
• And Activision Blizzard
• Oh, they also have Mojang.
• All while this is going on, PS4's outsell Xbox Ones 7:3.
• 30 million units shy of the 360's eventual haul.
• In terms of this generation, PS5 sales almost double that of the Series X/S.

I think we've seen the last hardware the Xbox division will ever make.

On the plus side, I had no idea Sunset Overdrive came to PC.

@shindig: it's honestly a bit crazy to me how scattershot the shit that comes to Xbox PC. If there is one thing I am kinda hoping for with this whole potential nightmare is hopefully shit gets put out in the PC more often.

@shindig: The take that Microsoft just spent Nintendo's market cap in cash to acquire Activision and even prior to that Sony was preparing a Game Pass competitor because things are going badly for Xbox seems very wrong to me. If your competitor is in trouble you don't respond by copying their business model. Other stuff in your list is also wrong. Insomniac didn't "leave" Microsoft to go with Sony, Insomniac had a very long business relationship with Sony making exclusive games (Spyro and then Ratchet & Clank) and made one game for Microsoft, which was not successful, and then went back to making games for Sony and was acquired by them.

The studio acquisitions were not about "exclusive" games (Forza Horizon 5 launched on Steam, not just Xbox platforms) but rather about acquiring content for Game Pass specifically.

The recent numbers on Xbox Series (over 12 million) are much closer to PS5 than most people previously thought, and Series X is still out of stock (as is PS5) so we don't really know what the demand comparison is yet.

The Xbox division is doing well right now and that's why Microsoft invested this money. They see Game Pass as a business that has huge long term potential and the possibility of dominating the market sector and they are moving aggressively, not out of desperation.

Sony's planned response shows that Microsoft is not the only one thinking this way.

Hey, the UK just blocked this. Is that the first domino to fall?

"I assume Kotick is out"

Amazing that we still believed in consequences for the rich just a year ago!

@undeadpool: The deal hasn't closed so I wouldn't expect Kotick to be gone yet anyway. Generally the way it works is the old management is gone after the deal is done. But being ousted wouldn't really be a consequence for Kotick who is a billionaire and seems more passionate about threatening underlings than making video games.

@shindig: There's still an appeals process but assuming that this deal doesn't close it's not clear where Xbox goes from here. The hardware sales that were good a year ago have fallen off and their studios continue not to be able to actually produce games. Part of the problem is that they've had a backlog of multiplat commitments so that Bethesda has JUST started releasing exclusives for them but at this point Microsoft has a track record of buying studios and their productivity falling off a cliff. I am less certain now that there will be a next XBox, though Microsoft won't get out of games entirely (but might go third party or focus on streaming.)

It's also telling that any success they have is undermined by the fact it's on gamepass for a pittance. 2 million players for Hi Fi Rush translates into 'dissapointing' sales. They're undermining themselves just to get users on the board.

To appeal in the UK is a very very high bar, MS would have to show the CMA were irrational in their thinking but even then it would land right back to the CMA, the process is also very long were looking at 12-18 months.

I don't see MS leaving the hardware business unless rivals allow Game Pass on their platforms, its quite clear GP has reached its ceiling on console and isn't driving hardware at all.

None of MS smaller stuff seem to be moving the needle, I don't see them putting out big titles regularly enough to make a difference any time soon.

MS better get out their checkbook, Sony will given their strength atm especially seeing how much MS is willing to spend.

@shindig: This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the business they want to be in. That's like saying that Netflix is undermining itself by putting movies on streaming, or that Disney+ is undermining Disney's TV and DVD businesses. Microsoft wants to be in the Game Pass business not the retail games sales business. If they could do so without alienating users I would bet they'd just stop selling at least some games altogether. The question is whether the Game Pass business is enough to sustain the video games division and right now the answer is looking like it might not be. But Microsoft is still dedicated to it because if it does take off it will be a massive profit center, and Microsoft would rather bet big on a potential huge hit than eke out small gains from the gaming division, which is a small part of the company. That's the biggest difference between Microsoft and Sony/Nintendo. Nintendo is all gaming. 1/3 of Sony's revenue comes from gaming, and at times it has been over half. For Microsoft gaming is a tiny percentage of what they make, and they want to be in a different business regarding gaming.

@thepanzini: We'll see. Microsoft has been signaling that they think the appeal has a decent chance and they have very expensive UK lawyers.

Microsoft owns Windows and if they think that they can really make game streaming work longer term they may end up going all in on that and also getting the streaming app onto TVs and other devices. They've had some success there. The Xbox Series probably has at least 3-4 years left in its lifespan, the real question is whether streaming can be a viable alternative within the next hal decade. It's looking like no, but then again TV streaming took over very quickly. I wouldn't be surprised to see them make a Series X-2 or whatever but given that they can always sell their games on PC and other consoles the question becomes whether that actually makes sense.

They could get Game Pass on apple devices and possibly Nintendo Switch2 if they cut Apple and Nintendo in on sub revenue through those devices. They may be more interested in that than putting out another Xbox to do middling in the market. The Series X/S has no real problems per se and isn't even inferior to PS5 in any meaningful way but it's still just not doing very well, and part of that may be the software line up but part of it is probably just that people are used to Sony and Nintendo and are in those ecosystems. Xbox 360 may have been an anomaly due to it launching earlier than PS3 and PS3 being such a series of own goals at launch.

@bigsocrates: Yeah, I think next few years are going to be critical shaping Xbox's future.

Hogwarts sold basically like an exclusive for Sony, you can see them going hard on third party deals to snowball MS, especially after seeing how much MS is willing to spend.

I think Xbox is probably going to end up in a weird spot at some point if they're saying they don't expect Game Pass numbers to grow much past where they are now, but keep spending billions on acquisitions, along with higher costs of operation to maintain all these new studios post-acquisition.

@brian_: That weird spot may just be third party publisher. They already are that to some degree (Minecraft Legends came out on PS4 and Switch, and they recently licensed a bunch of ID Software games to PlayStation Plus) and it's a totally viable business model. It's not like you can't earn back Forza Horizon 6's development costs selling it on PS5 and Steam.

I think long term they believe that streaming is the future and that's where they want to go, but does selling physical consoles help get them there? Xbox Series X was designed in part to be able to easily make a server version to run games in the cloud, so maybe Xbox Series X-2 is just an update to the server blade version, or just a standardized PC server blade for streaming.

MS did say to the CMA they plan to not use Series X server blades, probably brute force emulation.

The key problem would be timescale MS themselves have said cloud usage was lower than expected even with F2P Fortnite.

Console hardware has been flying off the shelves even with a much higher price for Sony/Nintendo, MS might be up-selling only to their corner of the market.

@bigsocrates: If Xbox did own Activision-Blizzard, on top of Bethesda and seemingly every other major U.S. game studio, I think 3rd party publishing could work without Xbox having to do a whole lot of downsizing. But I do wonder if there's a significant audience out there that wants to play Halo on a PlayStation. Is there enough of an audience in the middle of people that don't already have an Xbox, with the S being a relatively cheap way to go, or a PC, and die-hard brand loyalist idiots that would "never play an Xbox game on my PlayStaion".

I also wonder if some of it is a perception thing. I wonder if the Xbox One pre-launch stuff has scared them away from making the first move in doing anything that isn't keeping up with the status quo in terms of just continuing to make a traditional video game console.

@brian_: Will people play Halo on an Xbox? The series feels long in the tooth. Honestly I think Halo and Gears might be a little tough to transfer over, but assuming they put collections out so people can catch up I don't think it will be too hard. Forza might be tough because Gran Turismo already exists but Forza Horizon would likely move over fine.

All the Bethesda and Obsidian stuff would move over with no issue. Obviously if Activision Blizzard gets bought that stuff moves over. It's really only Halo, Gears and Forza and those aren't even Microsoft's biggest franchise (I think that Minecraft is with Forza Horizon probably #2 at this point; Halo peaked on Steam Charts with 6,000 players recently and Forza Horizon with 26,000, and FH also tops Halo on recent Xbox Live players charts).

I think Microsoft has stayed in the console business because ultimately they want to own their distribution and Xbox is good for Game Pass, but ultimately I think they see the future in streaming and subscriptions. Of course having a console around still might be of use to them and they can afford to do it as long as they want even if it's a money loser. They're Microsoft.

@bigsocrates: I don't think the Netflix comparison is entirely apt. Obviously Microsoft's ambition is a Netflix of gaming but Film and TV have other ways to generate revenue outside of streaming. Box sets still sell. People still go to cinemas. And they're way better at being marketed. TV generates way more word of mouth that games can. I'll even suggest people revisit TV and Movies far more frequently than games, giving them a reason to buy a boxset or sign up to stream a movie again.

If a game is on GamePass, someone will play it once and be done with it. If it's a game they're really interested in, they may skip buying the game outright in favour of Gamepass' cheaper option. Whether it's a Microsoft studio or not, that studio misses out on revenue. We don't game like we watch TV.

The last thing is access. I can watch Netflix on my phone, my TV, my PC, my PS3, PS4, PS5, 360 .... It is insidious everywhere to the point where most people will have at least three ways to watch.

It's an incredibly steep hill GamePass has to climb. I don't see any subscription service for games pulling it off. There are simply too many hurdles to overcome. I'll offer some hope, given how long Netflix was around for a decade before the pivot to streaming. Microsoft have the money to play that long game. Whether they have the patience remains to be seen.

@shindig: This is not an accurate description of how people play games. I mean you're arguing that more people rewatch a movie like "Bright" than boot up Minecraft over and over, and we both know that's not true. The constant slate of remasters and re-releases proves that people replay games quite often, and often play the same games for years straight. Additionally claiming that games have no ways to monetize outside being sold in our age of DLC and microtransactions is just odd. DLC makes a lot more money than things like Bluray releases of Netflix movies.

Whether or not Gamepass streaming will work in the long run is not clear. There are hurdles. But Microsoft is conspicuously trying to make it accessible from everything (thus the browser integration) and they have made great strides. Will they ever defeat the biggest issues of latency and bandwidth? Unclear. But the threat of them dominating streaming is why the UK blocked the Activision deal.

The biggest hurdle to Game Pass is most people don't play a lot of games.

If you look at Sony they have 105 MAU about halve are PS Plus members which has been steady for several years, the revamp to PS Now has just been monetizing existing users further.

Looking back at Gold on Xbox was a similar story, Xbox One sold an estimated 50m units and they have around 25m Game Pass subs. Using napkin math it looks like GP is up-selling to existing users not expanding beyond the platform much.

Even if GP was on every device outside Nintendo/Sony they'd have the issue, the broader audience isn't interested in a lot of games and the core would be put off by the latency.

@thepanzini: I think it's pretty clear that Microsoft's intent was to draw significant number of PC gamers (which it may have, we don't know the exact breakdown) and other non Xbox gamers, like possibly some mobile gamers who don't want to buy a console but might sign up to a streaming service. This was also Google's goal with Stadia to some degree. It's a market that doesn't seem to have panned out yet. Will it ever? I can't say. But the goal of Game Pass is not to be limited to Xbox gamers, which is one of the reasons that the Xbox console business is in tension with the Game Pass business.

Setting aside the deal for a moment, I don't really get why being market leader in cloud gaming is any different from Sony being market leader in physical media through owning Bluray. Both have alternatives but I don't hear anyone else talking about other physical formats besides DVD and the odd Laserdisc. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can explain it to me.

one aspect that i think that is frequently under-discussed is Azure (Microsoft's cloud infrastructure). i presume Sony owns physical media manufacturing, but you have to imagine that's a component of the product chain that is in less demand/in decline, and probably has many alternative providers such that it isn't a potential barrier or super power.

cloud infrastructure, on the other hand, is expensive and widely acknowledged to be kinda locked up at this point. there's Amazon, Google, and Microsoft- and the amount of dosh you'd need to drop to compete on their level is probably insurmountable (unless you had say, a trillion dollar valuation).

so if the CMA concern (well considered or not) is access to growth potential in cloud gaming, owning the pipes would be tremendous advantage for Microsoft.

@mellotronrules: That makes sense. Though even if there are other manufacturers Sony always gets a piece and I'd love to know how they handle any up and coming competition who would also likely need some hefty financing to break through. But I guess it is easier having less physical formats to deal with.

Cloud gaming still seems pretty green, all things considered. Someone is always gonna lead the charge. It seems like any other big tech advancement that starts at the top somewhere and trickles downward. MS could totally invest in VR but they don't. So why not let the big players spend the money on the cloud and create all the infrastructure, similar to physical media. Money is still the driving force so it seems like trying to stop MS is really halting everyone's progress to some degree. Especially if other companies rely on Azure. I've probably got that a little backwards lol.

the other thing to bear in mind is there's always been a tension in regulatory bodies when those who own the infrastructure take a stab at content creation- particularly through M&A. although status quo (especially in the USA) is to do nothing, there was some saber-rattling when the Comcast/NBC merger was happening, as well as AT&T/Time Warner.

but again, in the USA the oversight tends to be all smoke and no fire.

@spacemanspiff00: Its often very difficult for a regulator to step in once a market has been established, acquisitions are often the best chances they have to intervene.

The CMA was recently given stronger powers to protect future markets and particularly ones in the digital space.

Its doesn't matter if MS is the leader in cloud which the CMA states in its report, as cloud gaming is very early and developing.

The thought process for the CMA is COD has been a very big driver in console sales thus it could also be a strong influence in the cloud space.

MS were advised to deinvest Activision because they believed with Blizzard and its associated IP would be too strong.

The deed is done.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/10/13/xbox-activision-blizzard/

Blizzard is already going downhill. This won't change that. In fact, I believe this deal will incinerate Blizzard's downfall.

Kotick staying on for now, though it seems to hint that it might only be until the end of the year.

Disappointing but not necessarily surprising. It would have been better if they had asked him to resign immediately but as a practical matter a transition period makes sense.

If he's still there in a year it will reflect very very poorly on Microsoft and Spencer.

@bigsocrates: I’ve seen (on VGC) that he gets a one year period where there’s a hefty severance payout if he’s jettisoned in any way. After the lengthy effort to get it approved through the various regulatory bodies, I could see MS having little appetite to pay that severance package. That being said… it would be in MY best interest to see Kotick kicked to the curb, figuratively and literally.

My biggest concern with this deal is that MS just laid off over 10,000 people earlier this year. How many people will be “redundant” in their cynical estimate? This “agile” horseshit is being cited by every corporation, and it feels like it’ll be applied to a bunch of ABK employees before too long.

Microsoft didn't get where they are by being a bunch of Embracers. People are out the door with absolute certainty.

I bet Kotick could get away with sticking around at Microsoft. The time to kick his ass out was two years ago. The general discourse of his scumbaggery has been buried under this sale for the last two years.

The business machine will continue to do what it always does, regardless of how of affable Phil Spencer is on a stage or in interviews. There will be layoffs. They will keep Kotick around if they think there's still value in him being there. Hell, if all these years of dumping billions and billions of dollars into Gamepass doesn't pay off, I wouldn't rule out the darkest of all timelines, where Spencer is replaced with Kotick. I have absolutely no faith in a business to do what's right over being just slightly more profitable, and that's because most execs will tell you themselves that that isn't their job.