How would you ever know, not like MS will ever release the financialsLOL it wont be for long.. to the tune of ~$70B.
But it's nice information knowing Sony will be making MS the largest amount of money from this deal
Xbox is the smallest earner for Activision/Blizzard after Sony, Apple & Google in that order - more drama for the platform
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We can safely assume given the info we now know.How would you ever know, not like MS will ever release the financials
LOL it wont be for long.. to the tune of ~$70B.
But it's nice information knowing Sony will be making MS the largest amount of money from this deal
Do you work for Microsoft or own shares? If not this is super cringe.
Is Zhuge basing his estimates on total Xbox division revenue and extrapolating from there? Because that figure IIRC isn't just accounting for software sales but also hardware sales, peripherals and the such too.
IIRC Sony (and I think Nintendo) give breakdowns on hardware revenue, software revenue, subscription revenue etc. individually as well as rolled into one, but MS only provides very general gaming division (Xbox) revenue. If that's the case then his numbers for ABK revenue on Xbox might be too large.
But I'm only going off memory of how MS tend to report Xbox's revenue. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I wish more people understood this. It doesn't matter that MS are 4th in gaming revenue when they're among the Top 3 richest companies in the world. Only Apple and some oil company are valued higher than them, that says a lot.
One of the biggest worries of the regulators is that a company like Microsoft can leverage their resources gained through other facets of the company to ride out heavy loss-leading strategies with divisions like Xbox, or to effectively buy their way to bigger market share by buying out big chunks of the 3P side of the gaming industry.
None of these groups are looking at Xbox in isolation, because Xbox is not its own company. It's a division within the parent company of Microsoft. Ironically, if MS did in fact spin off Xbox as its own company years ago like rumors said, and somehow the Xbox company managed to gather funds (not from Microsoft) to buy ABK, there would probably be much less pushback into the deal than what's currently being seen now.
Then again, if Xbox were its own company, they wouldn't have the money (either in cash reserves or in market valuation to leverage for loans) to make a purchase of ABK in the first place; they would've needed a company like Microsoft to provide that money and therefore Xbox would need to remain a division within Microsoft to get that to happen.
I would say there are small similarities between Microsoft's strategy of leveraging their corporate strengths and resources for Xbox as there were with Sony leveraging their corporate resources to the benefit of PlayStation back when they entered the market. But there's a big difference: Sony cultivated those resources towards a product they ultimately still had to sell to the customers of the market, so the revenue and profit they earned ultimately came from customers choosing their product over competitors.
Microsoft, at least the way some of these regulators might be looking at it, are cultivating their resources towards a product that's skipping the customer altogether. Better to say, they're going directly after the companies that bring in the additional revenue and profit, the big publishers, and are amassing larger revenue & profit that way. To regulators, the approach with Sony mentioned above basically still based itself on the traditional competition in the market where the gains came directly from the majority of customers rewarding their product. That was still "competition" in the way that is generally favored. Microsoft's approach is not seemingly dependent on the customer to drive their growth: they're just buying that growth through absorbing other companies (large publishers) altogether, and that might run in violation to the idea of competition regulators tend to ensure.
That's what makes the going-ons with the ABK acquisition in particular so interesting to watch.
IIRC Sony (and I think Nintendo) give breakdowns on hardware revenue, software revenue, subscription revenue etc. individually as well as rolled into one, but MS only provides very general gaming division (Xbox) revenue. If that's the case then his numbers for ABK revenue on Xbox might be too large.
But I'm only going off memory of how MS tend to report Xbox's revenue. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I wish more people understood this. It doesn't matter that MS are 4th in gaming revenue when they're among the Top 3 richest companies in the world. Only Apple and some oil company are valued higher than them, that says a lot.
One of the biggest worries of the regulators is that a company like Microsoft can leverage their resources gained through other facets of the company to ride out heavy loss-leading strategies with divisions like Xbox, or to effectively buy their way to bigger market share by buying out big chunks of the 3P side of the gaming industry.
None of these groups are looking at Xbox in isolation, because Xbox is not its own company. It's a division within the parent company of Microsoft. Ironically, if MS did in fact spin off Xbox as its own company years ago like rumors said, and somehow the Xbox company managed to gather funds (not from Microsoft) to buy ABK, there would probably be much less pushback into the deal than what's currently being seen now.
Then again, if Xbox were its own company, they wouldn't have the money (either in cash reserves or in market valuation to leverage for loans) to make a purchase of ABK in the first place; they would've needed a company like Microsoft to provide that money and therefore Xbox would need to remain a division within Microsoft to get that to happen.
I would say there are small similarities between Microsoft's strategy of leveraging their corporate strengths and resources for Xbox as there were with Sony leveraging their corporate resources to the benefit of PlayStation back when they entered the market. But there's a big difference: Sony cultivated those resources towards a product they ultimately still had to sell to the customers of the market, so the revenue and profit they earned ultimately came from customers choosing their product over competitors.
Microsoft, at least the way some of these regulators might be looking at it, are cultivating their resources towards a product that's skipping the customer altogether. Better to say, they're going directly after the companies that bring in the additional revenue and profit, the big publishers, and are amassing larger revenue & profit that way. To regulators, the approach with Sony mentioned above basically still based itself on the traditional competition in the market where the gains came directly from the majority of customers rewarding their product. That was still "competition" in the way that is generally favored. Microsoft's approach is not seemingly dependent on the customer to drive their growth: they're just buying that growth through absorbing other companies (large publishers) altogether, and that might run in violation to the idea of competition regulators tend to ensure.
That's what makes the going-ons with the ABK acquisition in particular so interesting to watch.
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This is an accurate description of the problem of Microsoft. I would even add that the gamepass business model itself also perverts the relationship between third parties and end consumers - developers, fully subsidized by MS start producing the games for selling them to MS, rather than for players.
Microsoft is a vulture. Activision getting picked up by Microsoft has effectively killed Activision. I don’t see this as celebration. It’s a funeral. It’s over.
Exactly. Only fanboys and idiots would celebrate Microsoft, a company that couldn't manage 5 studios and continue to falter with game development and management so bad that it couldn't release a single title in 2022 despite owning 23+ studios , acquiring Activision.
At the end of the day, PS doesn't NEED CoD, no. But they'd like to keep it and its revenue for as long as possible if only to appease and calm shareholders. Shareholders often are not patient and don't like the idea of making less or only "the same" amount of money. So even if, say, they'll make more post-Bungie acquisition and post-Mobile division, they'd #1 like to be able to demonstrate that to shareholders and #2 would still like to keep that 30% cut from a massive franchise. If they can't manage #2 however, they need to at least show they did what they could to fight it and/or try to stall as long as possible to get replacements in place to either cover or even exceed the lost revenue.
And, to a degree, it's also about trying to set a precedent for these sorts of buyouts and how they're scrutinized. I mean shoot, imagine Apple decides they want in on gaming, drop their own console with a Mac-based OS, and buy out EA and/or Square, make their games Mac/Console exclusive? Or Amazon decides to be more aggressive on this front?
People are missing the forest for the trees on this one, I feel.
And, to a degree, it's also about trying to set a precedent for these sorts of buyouts and how they're scrutinized. I mean shoot, imagine Apple decides they want in on gaming, drop their own console with a Mac-based OS, and buy out EA and/or Square, make their games Mac/Console exclusive? Or Amazon decides to be more aggressive on this front?
People are missing the forest for the trees on this one, I feel.
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