Microsoft might have purchased someone, maybe

Seems fair enough, the merger is very bad for them, as the Bethesda one was very bad for them, and just comes on the back of Microsoft being shit at fostering their own development for ten-fifteen years or so. Sony have other revenue streams, but Xbox is backed up by Microsoft’s 30-year OS monopoly and clearly hasn’t had to run as a profitable business. On the face of it, I’d want to block the acquisition to keep the playing field somewhat level.

That’d just be proving Sony’s point though. MS obviously could go that route, owning Bliz or not, but it’d fly in the face of everything they’re saying about making games available to more people and keeping it on the platform.
Sony’s platform is likely too big to make that viable either way. CoD makes a lot of money and MS would just be throwing money away to pay to make it exclusive.

That slug who runs Activision would never shun the lead console and its billions of dollars out of spite. Apart from the personal greed, he’d be rightfully drawn and quartered by the shareholders.

I think the hostility is only likely to backfire on Sony if Microsoft DOES secure the purchase, but even then, after spending $69 billion, Microsoft would also be needling to make a lot of money back and fast. They’d seem more likely to want to secure PS5 for CoD (having double their install base) but then fuck Sony over in the lead up to next generation of PS6 / Xbox Dumbname beginning.

edit

I seem to recall Sony bought Bungee for access to their tools, with speculation that they would bring out their own online FPS service. Now wondering if they are doing everything as a delaying tactic while they work on it, then tell MicrActivision they sadly don’t want their competitors game on their platform, apologies to all PS5 owners, have a free copy of our new Duty Calls Online Service Shooter Warthog: Field of Battle.

Honestly, after two decades I would have hoped someone could knock COD off its perch. This whole kerfuffle might also a symptom of how creatively bankrupt game development is / how complacent gamers are.

I just need it to hurry up and go through so I can play D4 for free and not £70!!! Fuck off Sony.

That's my only real investment in this too. Fuck paying £70 for D4 if it'll end up on GP.

Also a bit of schadenfreude in wanting to see Sony get a shit deal out of it after the way they've carried on recently.

Jim Ryan's "I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger.” comment last month probably isn't going to help their cause.

MS have made it perfectly clear they aren't going to take COD away.

Activision have said they won't get an offer even close as good as that from them if the deal doesn't happen.

The whole thing just gets increasingly odd as time goes on. Sony in particular is starting to sound like my brother's nutbag ex-wife with some of the accusations they're banding about.

I think what I find most depressing is that this acquisition has some much larger and more valid implications for the industry as a whole and all anyone can talk about (particularly Sony) is Call of Duty. I know it's an absolute behemoth of an IP, and why it's so important obviously (financially or otherwise), but it's basically been a bit shit for well over a decade now. Borderline depressing to be honest, kind of wish they were arguing over something decent at least.

As for my own feelings on the merger, I sway back and forth. I can definitely see the downsides, but as a paid up Game Pass subscriber I'm also happy (rather selfishly) to have more stuff I don't have to pay extra for hit the service. I also live in hope that Kotick will get the boot and Microsoft will put the likes of Raven software to work on something that isn't pissing Call of Duty.

Either way I don't personally think Sony have anything to worry about. Even without Call of Duty (which they're going to get anyway) I think they're current stranglehold on that market isn't going anywhere, such is the strength of their brand at this point.

Microsoft has a market capitalisation of 1.89 trillion dollars, second highest in the world. Sony is at 125th with 109 billion.

Sony are dominating games because they are good at it, put the work in, and deserve it. Microsoft are trailing because they are fucking shit, they started shit, and the minute they got good, they shat right in it and now all they can do is spend Sony’s entire worth on every huge company they can. Their best strategy had been to use their immense OS Monopoly wealth to make new games cost fuck all via Game Pass, which I expect to destroy the industry because consumers reach for cheapest shiny thing.

Talking like Microsoft are the underdog here is completely insane.

They're all assholes when they're on top.

The market leader always does more bad things along with the good things, really just because they have more leeway to do it. None of them are doing things purely for the good of the consumer.
Whoever isn't at the top always has more opportunity for the generous soundbites. None of this is new.

The only difference here is the sheer scale of the things involved.

Microsoft do not have good track record of buying studios and creating better games than before they were bought. That's what I would worry about. Also the Series-S is going to hamper any truly defining games of this gen.

What happens once every developer who isn’t on Game Pass has been starved out of existence? The games being developed will be the ones Microsoft chooses for you. “Straight to Game Pass” will be a saying, if it isn’t already.

Again, Sony is worth about 5% of what Microsoft are worth. Game Pass and these massive purchases are going to crush diversity. Sony are probably thinking ahead to PS6 or PS7, because what Microsoft are doing with their trillions of dollars may well stomp Sony into the ground.

Given how much I hated Sony during the PS1, 2 and 3 era, it’s weird that I’m on their side, but you know that as soon as Microsoft is on top again, they’ll pull their masks off and it’ll be all Don Mattricks under there. Sony did seem to learn a great lesson from their hubris with PS3, because they’ve been pretty good ever since. (For a giant corporation)

Really? With the launch price of the PS5, £70 games, 'upgrade path' troubles and the like?

I'm not trying to defend Microsoft, more reiterating what Derblington said half hour ago - whoever's on top is an ass.