Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Xbox has been played for a fool by PlayStation and Activision Blizzard

Xbox has been played for a fool by PlayStation and Activision Blizzard

A reader thinks Sony will gain more from the acquisition of Activision Blizzard than Microsoft, as he lays out the problems ahead for Xbox.

The deal might not be signed yet but it’s now clear that Microsoft will be allowed to buy Activision Blizzard. I imagine Sony are secretly delighted. I know they’ve been trying to get it stopped publicly but while that didn’t happen they did force Microsoft to make lots of concessions, so my concessions that it’s now hard to understand what Microsoft even gets out of the deal. And I think that was Sony’s plan all along.

Consider the facts. Microsoft is having to pay $69 billion for Activision Blizzard. That’s their most expensive purchase ever, which is going to leave them counting the pennies for decades to come – and already has with all the layoffs they announced the other week. There will be a huge spotlight on the Xbox division now, from the heads of Microsoft, and if it’s not made clear why the purchase was worth it then very quickly heads are going to roll.

We’ve already seen something similar happen with Disney. Confused as to why they rushed out the Star Wars sequel trilogy so quickly, without a plan? It’s because Disney needed to prove to their investors why it was worth buying and how they could make their money back. And that was just $4 billion.

The biggest legal fight has been over Call Of Duty, which Microsoft now has to keep multiformat for 10 years and let Sony put on PS Plus if they want. That means, from Sony’s perspective, essentially nothing will change. Microsoft has paid $69 billion to keep the status quo and maybe make Call Of Duty an exclusive in 10 years. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to call that bad value for money.

There is the Blizzard side of things to consider but World of Warcraft is already PC only and there hasn’t been any talk of making Overwatch 2 an exclusive. Maybe Overwatch 3 will be but it’s not as if the game is that big and any sequel will be years away.

And all this is before you even consider the difficulties of actually owning and managing a company the size of Activision Blizzard. We’ve already seen what a terrible job Microsoft has done with the studios it already owns, with almost no new games being released and still no sign of Fable after all these years. In fact the opposite, with staff leaving developer Playground Games in droves to set up other studios.

Now consider how much more difficult Activision Blizzard is going to be than that, given that the whole reason they’re in this situation is that both companies were embroiled in scandals involving toxic work conditions, poor morale, and bad management. It is going to take 10 years just to sort all that out and then, at the end of all that, what have Microsoft gained?

Sony will have 10 clear years where Xbox is distracted by all the new studios they’ve bought. We’ve already seen how the purchase alone has slowed down Xbox’s productivity and it’s not going to get better any time soon.

You could argue that Sony has played their fiddle just a little too much at times, with this proclamation from the US Congress that they have an unfair monopoly in Japan. But really, can you imagine the American ambassador making a diplomatic incident out of Final Fantasy 7 Remake being a PlayStation console exclusive?

In the end Sony has gained much more out of this whole sorry mess than Microsoft has and if Xbox isn’t careful they will have set in motion their own demise. You don’t spend $69 billion and not have anything to show for it and yet Microsoft doesn’t seem to have any plan to make even a fraction of that money back. In fact, I think it may be impossible and that they will quickly come to regret spending all that money.

Sony, on the other hand, will be quietly pleased that their competitor has wasted all their cash reserves and will be distracted for years to come because of it. At the end of the day, which console you buy is still all about the games and Sony can just carry on as they were, while Microsoft seems certain to have just as much trouble as always.



Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Unelected PM of the UK holds an emergency meeting because a candidate got voted in… which he says is a threat to democracy…
Farmers break through police barriers in Brussels.
Ukraine Arrests Father-Son Duo In Lockbit Cybercrime Bust
US Offers $15 Million For Info On Leaders Of Cybercrime Group Lockbit
Apple warns against drying iPhones with rice
Alexei Navalny: UK sanctions Russian prison chiefs after activist's death
German economy is in 'troubled waters' - ministry
In a recent High Court hearing, the U.S. argued that Julian Assange endangered lives by releasing classified information.
Tucker Carlson says Boris Johnson wants "a million dollars, in Bitcoin or cash, from Tucker Carlson to talk about Ukraine.
Russia is rebuilding capacity to destabilize European countries, new UK report warns
EU Commission wants anti-drone defenses at Brussels HQ
Von der Leyen’s 2nd-term pitch: More military might, less climate talk
EU Investigates TikTok for Child Safety Concerns
EU Launches Probe Into TikTok Over Child Protection Under Digital Content Law
EU and UK Announce Joint Effort on Migration
Ministers Confirm Proposal to Prohibit Mobile Phone Usage in English Schools
Avdiivka - Symbol Of Ukrainian Resistance Now In Control Of Russian Troops
"Historic Step": Zelensky Signs Security Pact With Germany
"Historic Step": Zelensky Signs Security Pact With Germany
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has died at the Arctic prison colony
Tucker Carlson grocery shopping in Russia. This is so interesting.
France and Germany Struggle to Align on European Defense Strategy
‘A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners
Greece Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage and Adoption Rights
Russia "Very Close" To Creating Cancer Vaccines, Says Vladimir Putin
Hungarian Foreign Minister: Europeans will lose Europe, the Union's policy must change drastically
Microsoft says it caught hackers from China, Russia and Iran using its AI tools
US Rejects Putin's Ceasefire Offer in Ukraine
The Dangers of Wildfire Smoke and Self-Protection Strategies
A Londoner has been arrested for expressing his Christian beliefs.
Chinese Women Favor AI Boyfriends Over Humans
Greece must address role in migrant vessel disaster that killed 600: Amnesty
Google pledges 25 million euros to boost AI skills in Europe
Hungarian President Katalin Novák Steps Down Amid Pardon Controversy
Activist crashes Hillary Clinton's speech, calls her a 'war criminal.'
In El Salvador, the 'Trump of Latin America' stuns the world with a speech slamming woke policing after winning a landslide election
Trudeau reacts to Putin's mention of Canadian Parliament applauding a former Ukrainian Nazi in his interview with Tucker Carlson.
The Spanish police blocked the farmers protest. So the farmers went out and moved the police car out of the way.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy fires top Ukraine army commander
Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin raises EU concerns
Finnish Airline, Finnair, is voluntarily weighing passengers to better estimate flight cargo weight
Russia's Economy Expands by 3.6% Due to Increased Military Spending
Ukraine MPs Vote To Permit Use Of Dead Soldiers' Sperm
German Princess Becomes First Aristocrat To Pose Naked On Playboy Cover
UK’s King Charles III diagnosed with cancer
EU's Ursula von der Leyen Confronts Farmer Protests Amid Land Policy Debates
Distinguishing Between Harmful AI Media and Positive AI-Generated Content: A Crucial Challenge for the EU
Tucker Carlson explains why he interviewed Putin
Dutch farmers are still protesting in the Netherlands against the government, following the World Economic Forum's call for 'owning nothing.'
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stands up for European farmers and says, 'Brussels is suffocating European farmers.
×