Sony would have to make adjustments, take out loans and whatnot to acquire a company like ABK where as Microsoft doesn't have to do that unless they want to. The main differences is that I don't see Sony acquiring any publisher for two reasons - first, I don't see them spending around $10B+ and that's not taking into account a potential bidding war and second, I don't see them wanting to take on the cost post close. Kotick reportedly went to Facebook first and they said no. He then went to Microsoft which is a smart decision. You're going to go a rich company if you're valuable and looking to sell.
But someone on Twitter, who has an account here IIRC, provided some postings showing MS took out a loan from Goldman-Sachs not too long ago, probably for the ABK acquisition. Even if that isn't true, essentially we're debating about the means one company has to make that type of acquisition vs another but at the end of the day, they can BOTH make the purchase. One would just have to do a few extra things, that's all.
As for the event there was a bidding war, well MS specifically waited until ABK's stock started deeply declining, and the bad press was circulating, before making the buy. They waited until the stock price was devalued enough to make the purchase as cheap as possible within the timeframe they were up for sale that was most opportune for Microsoft without any other serious bidders. So I'm willing to be $69 billion is the most MS were willing to pay for ABK.
As ridiculous as it may seem for several reasons, if Sony for some reason decided buying ABK fit their long-term gaming strategy, and got the case to buy them for more than $69 billion, even if that included loans and stocks as payments, there's a non-zero chance Microsoft would have decided the ABK purchase wasn't worth it, and not increase their bid. That's not also considering other things Sony could have leveraged, such as their ties into other entertainment spaces like film, television, animation, and music, presenting opportunities to make a film franchise out of COD hiring a talent like Denise Villanueva to make them (imagine something like a cross between Sicario and Blade Runner 2049), etc.
Which, in such a case, ABK could actually consider the lower offer even if Microsoft bid higher, though that would come down to what the board wanted, and I'll admit the chances of them taking that route would have been very,
very slim.
I understand having certain expectations but I see every generation like I do with a new season in sports. It doesn't matter what you did the season before because it's a clean and fresh slate. Things also don't stay the same so if major and massive changes are made like Microsoft acquiring Bethesda and now, ABK, a normal person is going to take that into account and readjust their expectations.
Only issue with that is, this is the first time in probably ever where it's not a REAL clean slate, due to how digital everything is now with the ecosystems. Purchases from the PS4 or XBO carry forward to PS5 and Series X/S. PS5 and Series are BC with their previous consoles and virtually every generation of console of their product line. You can also trade in your old PS4 or XBO (or the Pro models) to get credit and money towards buying either of the new consoles!
This has in a lot of ways been the softest generational reset in the history of gaming, and I think if chip shortages weren't such a terrible problem earlier on this would've been made more clearly. However I think those same problems have incidentally helped this new gen act as more of a fuller reset than it otherwise would have, to the benefit of Microsoft and not so much to the benefit of Sony.
Perhaps. Of course, im someone who's switched primary consoles three generations in a row and not attached to any single company so when I see Microsoft acquire Bethesda and look into it, their history together makes them a perfect fit and ZeniMax was going to close down Arkane, Tango Gameworks and Machine Games in that order and I like all three of those studios so Microsoft acquiring Bethesda was the far better outcome. This deal also exposed Google with Stadia as I gave them two years. They lasted like 15 months. And I know Stadia still exists but shutting down your internal studios, allowing everyone to leave, etc. tells me you're basically done.
Yeah I don't think there's any disagreement that MS acquiring Zenimax works out a lot better than Google having done so, if we're talking about studio management and whatnot. Although that still doesn't give them leeway to just keep the status quo with Zenimax teams. Those studios, every single one, should see some real growth this gen and that will ultimately be up to how Microsoft manages them.
While Sony had dominated Microsoft and Xbox two out of three generations, they still had a war with 360/PS3, both losing to Nintendo with Wii and now, Nintendo is on fire with Switch and Microsoft has easily bounced back from their Xbox One disaster. If anything, E3 2018 should have told PlayStation fans this isn't the same Microsoft and the same Xbox. You acquire 4 studios, startup another and then 6 months later, acquire 2 more studios. If that's not waking up a PlayStation fan coming into this generation, then the Bethesda acquisition definitely should have to where now, nothing should be a shock or surprise.
E3 2018 already signaled things were turning for MS. However, there was little in terms of massive industry shakeups since the studios MS acquired at that time were all simply developers. None of them were massive developers, let alone publishers, and it's not like Sony and Nintendo hadn't made multiple studio purchases over the years prior to that.
I think where some feathers started getting ruffled, among the non-fanboys, was MS buying Zenimax while many were still waiting to see the results from the acquisitions they had purchased two years prior. And while we saw some results, like Bleeding Edge, they weren't very good. And so now two years after that, they announce yet another acquisition, several magnitudes larger than even Zenimax...but Xbox gamers had yet to see anything from those Zenimax teams before another announcement.
Yes, PS gamers did, but not Xbox. And arguably, Deatlhloop and Ghostwire were pretty much games from Zenimax pre-Microsoft acquiring them, as in, very little of the design of those games was done directly under Microsoft Xbox management. So for some people it's less about MS getting more aggressive than it is doing bigger & bigger purchases while having very few results to show from purchases they just previously made. It's part of the reason why for me, if they announced yet another publisher acquisition in the span of the next 3 years, I would personally be pretty strongly against it.
Not because I don't want MS to improve their gaming division; that's always a good thing. But because it will just seem greedy to me considering we still need to see how Starfield fully shapes up, how Everwild and Perfect Dark shape up, how RedFall shapes up, how Hellblade II and Fable shape up, The Outer Worlds II & Avowed, etc. All of these being games that normally should've been out by 2025, but some of which will probably be 2026 at this rate, and they were shown off all the way back in 2020 and even 2019. Meanwhile the only updates we have for many of them are mentions from insiders claiming they've played the game or gotten word on it, yet we never hear anything from the actual developers to officiate these things or set some real expectations.
That is honestly frustrating.
When I saw the ABK acquisition, I wasn't thrilled because im not an ABK fan and would have preferred Ubisoft, WB or EA in this order instead but business wise, ABK blows all three of them away so I understand why they acquired them. As for the games being multi-platform for years/decades, yeah, I get it but at the same time, first, it's business, second, shit changes every generation and people should know this already and third, regardless of if you're an Xbox fan or not, you still have the option to play those games if you so choose. In my mind, gamers limit and restrict themselves as opposed to companies limiting or restricting them.
All I'm saying is, we already have seen how MS may treat an acquisition this large by looking at Mojang; Mojang were even able to stipulate some of the terms of the buy including their multiplatform status!
If they can do that, and ABK is operating as a separate branch under Microsoft Gaming, what makes you think they can't negotiate/stipulate similar terms? That they haven't done so already? And again back to Minecraft, that IP has been doing better than ever and part of that is thanks to staying multiplatform. MS will want something very similar for COD and a few other ABK IP like Tony Hawk (if that ever comes back), Crash/Spyro, Overwatch etc., so it very likely doesn't make financial sense for them to cut PlayStation out of the loop with those...
...especially when they already expressed interest in bringing COD to the Switch x3. Anyway there's a lot I still have to reply to
, but I'll have to do that tomorrow. Getting late here; looking forward to doing so for the rest tho dude
But what parallel world do you live in? How are they above Nintendo? In console sales? No!, In 1st party software quality! No!, In terms of 3rd party support? No!, Number of exclusive titles? No!, Software sales? No!, Likeability? No. Phil worshippers? Yes il give you that! Big up to the idolatry! 
