Time to call a spade a spade. Buying Bethesda was a colossal waste of 7 billion

[flaccidsnake]

I don't think they bought Activision for the games. Just for the cash flow. And specially king on mobile which is not talked that much.Even if they leave everything as is, they will make a crap ton of money

Their games aren't particularly exciting to me but can't deny they sell a lot.

Time will tell. They've talked a lot about Activision catalog IP, but it'll take intentional strategy to pair up strong IP with strong talent. I doubt the original creatives behind any classic Acti franchises exist as a coherent team.

As for Call of Duty's ongoing revenue stream, of course it is massive, but 69B is a massive acquisition cost. On its own, it will never pay off. The value is in exclusivity and keeping Xbox alive as a brand.

You could be right about King. I don't really know or care about their work. Maybe their revenue streams go further than I know to justify the 69B. But this whole acquisition saga would not have dragged out for over 2 years if MS was mainly interested in King.

 

[Vertigo]

It’s not a waste really. Bethesda is still more competent at actually releasing software than any at Microsoft Game Studios.

Activision and Bethesda are meant to replace the empty husks of devs left behind.

Will Microsoft’s institutional decay spread to Bethesda and Activision… of course it will.

 

[reziel]

We all know it was a test to see how far Microsoft could push into buying future publishers which is what they just proved with ABK case.

 

[historia]

if cod goes irrevalent that that 69B USD going to blackhole.

 

[SLB1904]

if cod goes irrevalent that that 69B USD going to blackhole.

They should make that shit exclusive. Pussies will never do it

 

[Remember_Spinal]

They definitely overpaid.

 

[Zzero]

Compared to a lot of other publisher valuations I think Bethesda at 7 billion would have been a great buy for anyone. BSW, id, Arkane, even Zenimmax Online and Machine Games are decent at what they do. Lots of muscle, comparitively little fat. Specifically, WB had a far too high internal valuation of its games unit when seperated from WB ip and Take 2, too. They are NBA, GTA and nothing else.

 

[flaccidsnake]

If ABK dont pay off i think Sataya and the board is done with his "nintendo" division.

- PS5 Pro is gonna launch next year, with 3-4 years before PS6 comes out, pulling performance requirements up for PS studios and 3rd parties especially with the first wave of UE5 games.

- Series S is dragging performance down for Xbox despite Series X being a capable machine. Xbox performs terribly with UE5.

- Rather than do a Series X Pro, Microsoft is itchy to jump the gun on the next generation, for a fresh start without Series S baggage.

- The next Xbox lands similarly to Dreamcast, in a no-man's-land generation. It's widely ignored b/c most people wait to see the PS6 and aren't eager to upgrade. It flops harder than WiiU, and turns out to be the last Xbox console.

- Having spent nearly 100B on videogame acquisitions, MS just embraces being a 3rd party publisher on PC/Playstation/Nintendo, while still promoting Game Pass.

That's how I think it goes down.

 

[anonpuffs]

The thing with all of MS's acquisitions is that no one wants to be bought by them unless they're looking to cash out and on the wrong side of circling the drain creatively. If you believe in your product why would you want your games to be put in a service where it has no chance to shine or stand out?

 

[Dabaus]

The thing with all of MS's acquisitions is that no one wants to be bought by them unless they're looking to cash out and on the wrong side of circling the drain creatively. If you believe in your product why would you want your games to be put in a service where it has no chance to shine or stand out?

That or its a planned hostile takeover like ABK was.

 

[Swift_Star]

Bethesda was always mid so no loss there.