What comes next? The consequences of the FAILED acquisition of ABK by Microsoft

Cool hand luke

Veteran
14 Feb 2023
2,294
4,299
Friends, it's been a great day. It's now time to reflect on the actors involved in this shambolic soap opera and understand where they, and the industry are headed.

Jim Ryan
Massive balls on this man. He stood up to a company 20x the size of his own and won. A pay rise is certainly on the cards when you couple this with PlayStation's world beating financial performance.

Phil Spencer
A real dime store snake oil salesman, and completely inept in his role as head of Xbox despite having unprecedented access to Daddy Warbucks' warchest. Someone needs to take the blame for this failure and his head will roll before the year is up.

Brad Smith
You ain't slick, chief. A man whose law degree must've come from the same institution as Saul Goodman's, he got his prolix and lawyerly prostate pulverised by the hammer of Britannia. Will anyone take him seriously again? Likely to retain his position, but wheeling him out in front of crowds so he can embarrass himself like he did in the EU is out of the question.

A message to Xbox fans who supported the acquisition
Every single one of you who contributed to the deluded fanfare around this flop of an acquisition and spread lies and misinformation deserved this outcome. At least you'll still be able to play your XGS games on PC and Playstation when Xbox goes third party. There's no place for you here in the industry just as there's no place for Xbox. Sony won. However, it doesn't end there. I have but one request of you: That you read the first letter of each sentence in this paragraph back, including this coloned clause.

Speaking of colons: Eat shit.

Bobby Gropin Kotick
He may have secured the bag from Microsoft, but he's frayed the relationship with the golden goose. If there are business repercussions, Bobby's head will roll, too. If there aren't, he's lost access to his golden parachute and will be facing sexual harassment lawsuits pretty soon. Either way, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Lulu serves Memesbadly
A taste of the future
7jmtcl.jpg


Salty Nutella
Why do Microsoft CEOs look like ballsacks? - Reuters

Will sadly survive the fallout here given the core business is doing swimmingly, but his exceedingly poor judgement in giving Xbox support will raise eyebrows.

Resetera
A forum that exudes a dastardly anal smell and has stacked their mod team with Xbox shills. They've been exposed for the deluded clowns they are and will no longer be revered or respected by industry figures, but will find new purpose as a source of energy for when the world switches from coal to copium to help solve the energy crisis.

Xbox
After the disastrous and unprecedented drop in hardware sales reported yesterday and a general stench about the brand, there's nowhere to go but down. This last ditch effort, having failed, means Xbox will very soon become a third party brand or expire entirely. The 70b earmarked for the acquisition is in NO WAY going into other Xbox investments. This was a case of right time, right place, and delicious outcome for Microsoft and Satya will not make the same mistake twice. I expect them to be third party by the end of the gen. Hardware may still be made to peddle gamepass, but their first party offerings will be on all platforms that can sustain them within 5 years to maximise software revenue and claw back some of the investment in Bethesda.

What are your predictions?
 

Nhomnhom

Veteran
25 Mar 2023
7,252
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Deal is dead. Xbox is going to do worse than Xbox One and PS5 is going to do better than PS4. The whole acquisitions threat at this point is mute, PlayStation easily survived the worst case scenario and MS screwed themselves out of a few billions as well as the ability to buy a big publisher any time soon.

Things are only going to get worse for Xbox from now on and Starfield is not going to come even close to saving it. Their strategy for this gen just made no sense, they showed up with no games, two consoles (one ridiculously weak and the other still somehow unable to beat the PS5).Too much faith is being put in games like Hellblade, Fable or Avowed for absolutely no reason. There is hardly anyone competent on Xbox leadership and Phil Spencer is the least competent of them all, his only skill is somehow managing not to get fired even when he does a terrible job.

Jim Ryan is having a pretty much flawless reign, dude is just proven right every time even when people make fun of him at first. Everything so far seem to have gone PS5's way. PS+ Premium sucks, they need to do a better job pushing PSVR2, find a solution for PS3 retro and come up with something for their portable strategy. That's about it, even without announcing anything else 2023 and 2024 already look strong as far as game releases go.
 
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Dabaus

Veteran
28 Jun 2022
2,703
4,148
I expect Microsoft to pressure US regulators to go after Sony out of spite. With that said now that google, and possibly Apple and Amazon found their kill shot with the cloud gaming monopoly definition Microsoft may have actual series problems on their hands in a core business sector. If I’m not mistaken aren’t google, Amazon, and Apple all part of a complaint in Europe about Microsoft’s unfair cloud practices?
 
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anonpuffs

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29 Nov 2022
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I have to say that despite my initial negativity towards Jim Ryan as "just another suit" - there are times when suits are exactly what's needed. He's made a few mistakes here or there but he's run a very tight ship through uncharted waters and navigated Playstation through several whole minefields and come out on the other side with the wind at their backs. I think in the future people will look back and give Jim Ryan a whole lot of credit for keeping PS on course and successful, even if we would prefer a more gamer-centric and less business-centric leadership, sometimes what's necessary in life isn't what we want exactly.
 

Swift_Star

Veteran
2 Jul 2022
4,115
6,004
Friends, it's been a great day. It's now time to reflect on the actors involved in this shambolic soap opera and understand where they, and the industry are headed.

Jim Ryan
Massive balls on this man. He stood up to a company 20x the size of his own and won. A pay rise is certainly on the cards when you couple this with PlayStation's world beating financial performance.

Phil Spencer
A real dime store snake oil salesman, and completely inept in his role as head of Xbox despite having unprecedented access to Daddy Warbucks' warchest. Someone needs to take the blame for this failure and his head will roll before the year is up.

Brad Smith
You ain't slick, chief. A man whose law degree must've come from the same institution as Saul Goodman's, he got his prolix and lawyerly prostate pulverised by the hammer of Britannia. Will anyone take him seriously again? Likely to retain his position, but wheeling him out in front of crowds so he can embarrass himself like he did in the EU is out of the question.

A message to Xbox fans who supported the acquisition
Every single one of you who contributed to the deluded fanfare around this flop of an acquisition and spread lies and misinformation deserved this outcome. At least you'll still be able to play your XGS games on PC and Playstation when Xbox goes third party. There's no place for you here in the industry just as there's no place for Xbox. Sony won. However, it doesn't end there. I have but one request of you: That you read the first letter of each sentence in this paragraph back, including this coloned clause.

Speaking of colons: Eat shit.

Bobby Gropin Kotick
He may have secured the bag from Microsoft, but he's frayed the relationship with the golden goose. If there are business repercussions, Bobby's head will roll, too. If there aren't, he's lost access to his golden parachute and will be facing sexual harassment lawsuits pretty soon. Either way, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Lulu serves Memesbadly
A taste of the future
7jmtcl.jpg


Salty Nutella
Why do Microsoft CEOs look like ballsacks? - Reuters

Will sadly survive the fallout here given the core business is doing swimmingly, but his exceedingly poor judgement in giving Xbox support will raise eyebrows.

Resetera
A forum that exudes a dastardly anal smell and has stacked their mod team with Xbox shills. They've been exposed for the deluded clowns they are and will no longer be revered or respected by industry figures, but will find new purpose as a source of energy for when the world switches from coal to copium to help solve the energy crisis.

Xbox
After the disastrous and unprecedented drop in hardware sales reported yesterday and a general stench about the brand, there's nowhere to go but down. This last ditch effort, having failed, means Xbox will very soon become a third party brand or expire entirely. The 70b earmarked for the acquisition is in NO WAY going into other Xbox investments. This was a case of right time, right place, and delicious outcome for Microsoft and Satya will not make the same mistake twice. I expect them to be third party by the end of the gen. Hardware may still be made to peddle gamepass, but their first party offerings will be on all platforms that can sustain them within 5 years to maximise software revenue and claw back some of the investment in Bethesda.

What are your predictions?
I chuckled. Calm down buddy. 😂
 

Entropi

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22 Jan 2023
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US politicians who MS donates to are going to try to appease their donor now that elections are coming. I believe MS will be more aggressive with pursuing exclusive content, offering deals ala Tomb Raider back in the day.

Call of Duty ( and all ABK games ) will market exclusively for MS.

And yet, xbox will somehow continue to suck.
 
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Gods&Monsters

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21 Jun 2022
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A message to Xbox fans who supported the acquisition
Every single one of you who contributed to the deluded fanfare around this flop of an acquisition and spread lies and misinformation deserved this outcome. At least you'll still be able to play your XGS games on PC and Playstation when Xbox goes third party. There's no place for you here in the industry just as there's no place for Xbox. Sony won. However, it doesn't end there. I have but one request of you: That you read the first letter of each sentence in this paragraph back, including this coloned clause.

Speaking of colons: Eat shit.
Me trying to follow the direction

Owl Reaction GIF by Honda


You broke my programming. Am I an Xbot? 🫠
 
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Bryank75

I don't get ulcers, I give 'em!
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18 Jun 2022
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@Cool hand luke Enjoyed your OP!

So after firing 10,000 people (I assume) to make room for ABK, now there is no need.

My guess is that if they don't get the deal through, then more lower level employees will suffer, I suspect studios that are not performing will be shut down and the IP's will be locked away for eternity out of spite.

If the consoles don't sell any better, I expect they will minimize their hardware business or wind it down and focus on offering gamepass, games for sale on other platforms and their own PC launcher.... possibly trying to buy Steam down the line.

I think Phil will stay on till retirement.

They will hold onto the biggest IP's and try to make the studios into factories and just churn them out as often as possible, featuring season passes, DLC and microtransactions as much as possible.

Eventually they will ride all the IP's into the ground and either try to buy more or bow out but it will take some time.

Microsoft were never creative, they are not in gaming to make games or to entertain or for a love of the industry...they simply want to control and once they realize they cannot control, they will eventually lose interest.
 

Box

May contain Snake
6 Apr 2023
3,044
3,415
I expect Microsoft to pressure US regulators to go after Sony out of spite. With that said now that google, and possibly Apple and Amazon found their kill shot with the cloud gaming monopoly definition Microsoft may have actual series problems on their hands in a core business sector. If I’m not mistaken aren’t google, Amazon, and Apple all part of a complaint in Europe about Microsoft’s unfair cloud practices?

This may the best outcome, I hope Microsoft suffers
 

Gods&Monsters

Veteran
Icon Extra
21 Jun 2022
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I expect Microsoft to pressure US regulators to go after Sony out of spite. With that said now that google, and possibly Apple and Amazon found their kill shot with the cloud gaming monopoly definition Microsoft may have actual series problems on their hands in a core business sector. If I’m not mistaken aren’t google, Amazon, and Apple all part of a complaint in Europe about Microsoft’s unfair cloud practices?
Amazon might be one of the secret company that is against the deal because Activision is their biggest gaming customer on cloud and Microsoft 100% wanted to migrate them all to Azure to steal that revenue from Amazon.

Edit: Actually, according to this article Activision changed to Google instead of Amazon in 2020 so now I don't know if they still have some contracts with Amazon 🤔

 
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Kokoloko

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21 Jun 2022
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They will probably go after IP’s like Embracer did. Or smaller publishers/bigger studios.

I have a feeling they will buy those western square Ips off Embracer and go for something lie CDPR.
They should go 3rd party or spend those billions on making new games instead of trying to swollen established IPs
 

Gediminas

Boy...
Founder
21 Jun 2022
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They will probably go after IP’s like Embracer did. Or smaller publishers/bigger studios.

I have a feeling they will buy those western square Ips off Embracer and go for something lie CDPR.
They should go 3rd party or spend those billions on making new games instead of trying to swollen established IPs
they have no strategy, no imagination what to do in gaming apart from eating smaller capital companies and goble their IPs.

best case scenario for them, go 3rd party and make money that way. hardware business is over for them. 2SKUs, way cheaper pricing, 3rd year, isn't moving a needle, even worst, they are losing tens of millions selling hardware.
they stuck, if they keep the pricing, it still losing 100-200$ on console, but they move small units. or make a sale, lower price and lose way way more money to move a little bit more units.
but here, comes into play gamepass, so they are losing massive money on hardware, which they can't offset with software, they are losing money even more, because gamepass isn't moving a needle to offset loss, they deepen the hole because they are losing money on gamepass too.
they are stuck in loop.

Phil is a visionary.
 

TheLastOfSnatcher

Active member
6 Feb 2023
204
208
Many insiders stated that MS will look into mobile acquisitions if ABK deal doesn't go through.

I know that COD has become the front man, but their true target has always been KING.

I can see this happening. Simultaneously, drop the Xbox console, and just try to become more of a 3rd party juggernaut.

Less headaches, higher MAU's, and happier shareholders.
 

Vertigo

Did you show the Darkness what Light can do?
26 Jun 2022
4,252
4,113
Whats gonna happen?

Gamepass will continue shutter studios. And xbots will cheerlead the entire way as MS itself continues to hurt the industry.

Microsoft is terrible for the gaming industry. Hopefully this is their last console.
 
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Gediminas

Boy...
Founder
21 Jun 2022
5,729
7,317
Many insiders stated that MS will look into mobile acquisitions if ABK deal doesn't go through.

I know that COD has become the front man, but their true target has always been KING.

I can see this happening. Simultaneously, drop the Xbox console, and just try to become more of a 3rd party juggernaut.

Less headaches, higher MAU's, and happier shareholders.
 

TheLastOfSnatcher

Active member
6 Feb 2023
204
208
Whats gonna happen?

Gamepass will continue shutter studios. And xbots will cheerlead the entire way as MS itself continues to hurt the industry.

Microsoft is terrible for the gaming industry. Hopefully this is their last console.
I think they will release 1 more console because we have reports they been working on another prototype for a while. It might even come out after Pro 5.

I seen tons of Xbots at Reset dying to buy it even NOW! Depending how advance the plans are for it, MS would Dreamcast the console, make as much as they can from their userbase, and then announce their true plans.

I feel bad for whoever will be suckered into this console.

(Axrually, I don't!.... they all deserve each other!)
 

Nhomnhom

Veteran
25 Mar 2023
7,252
9,878
I expect Microsoft to pressure US regulators to go after Sony out of spite. With that said now that google, and possibly Apple and Amazon found their kill shot with the cloud gaming monopoly definition Microsoft may have actual series problems on their hands in a core business sector. If I’m not mistaken aren’t google, Amazon, and Apple all part of a complaint in Europe about Microsoft’s unfair cloud practices?
Go after Sony for what?


Hopefully MS buys Zynga from Take Two and then Sony buys Take Two. :ROFLMAO:
 
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