• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Microsoft says the Activision Blizzard acquisition is ‘moving fast’ (VGC)

MaulerX

Member
All the attention Schreier put unto this (remember the 'pick up the phone because this is a monopoly' tweet?) had a complete and opposite effect.
 

Zeroing

Banned
Let’s pop the champagne!!!
We all love rich corporations buying stuff!!! Time to celebrate! They are only half way!

Happy New Year Reaction GIF
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
From the contract's perspective, any party outside of Sony and the company agreeing to the contract would be third party, including Microsoft.
Its complicated once Activision is MS. I guess a bunch of contract lawyers are rubbing their hands together and putting down payments on new Ferraris as we speak.
 

kingfey

Banned
Its complicated once Activision is MS. I guess a bunch of contract lawyers are rubbing their hands together and putting down payments on new Ferraris as we speak.
MS can simply cancel marketing deals, since that is not timed exclusive contract.
Unlike timed exclusives contract, marketing contract doesn't have any big upside down.
 

NickFire

Member
MS can simply cancel marketing deals, since that is not timed exclusive contract.
Unlike timed exclusives contract, marketing contract doesn't have any big upside down.
You got any receipts for this novel claim that MS can just cancel Activision's contracts?
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
I agree obviously the games need to come out, the activison blizzard deal doesn’t intimidate anyone yet.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
That's good I suppose.

If this thing is going through for sure, and it seems like it is, then I want Phil to outline his vision for the new Activision/Blizzard and maybe give us some concrete info on how we can turn Activision from a COD only publisher to a more diverse publisher without sacrificing the quality and content of yearly cods. Most people dont realize just how content rich cod is and how polished it is relative to other games that take 5 years to make, get delayed and still ship in a poor state. The problem is that it takes 20 studios all working on 3 CoD games on a 3 year dev cycle to get there. Now with Warzone and mobile CoD it's going to be even tougher for Microsoft to manage these studios before they can even think about creating any other games.

As for Blizzard, I want a next gen WoW. They are still playing on the OG 2005 specs and it needs a massive overhaul. It's time for Microsoft to cut the cord. No one is happy with the game so might as well start over.
 

kingfey

Banned
You got any receipts for this novel claim that MS can just cancel Activision's contracts?
They can once they own Activision.
MS simply pays the contract to be nulled. Since it's their property, once it gets approved.

Bethesda timed exclusives contract got honored. Marketing doesn't have that level of agreement, considering they want call of duty on gamepass.
 

johnjohn

Member
I think I'm most interested to see how all these marketing deals are going to play out once MS owns them. They're obviously going to want to get as many ABK games on Game Pass as fast as possible. None of us know what these current marketing deals entail.
 
Last edited:

3liteDragon

Member
MS can simply cancel marketing deals, since that is not timed exclusive contract.
Unlike timed exclusives contract, marketing contract doesn't have any big upside down.
Lol, they have to honour it because it was agreed upon by both parties before the acquisition & Sony paid for it. They can’t just cancel any contract the company has with other companies that were signed before the AB acquisition.
 
Last edited:

kingfey

Banned
Phil has already stated they will be honoring existing contracts for CoD.
Marketing =/= the game staying on the console.
Lol, they have to honour it because it was agreed upon by both parties before the acquisition & Sony paid for it. They can’t just cancel any contract the company has with other companies that were signed before the AB acquisition.
If the marketing deal is keeping the game away from gamepass day1, then MS want to change that contract.

What you are saying is the the game staying on PS consoles. That is another matter.
 

kingfey

Banned
The behind the scenes story behind this tweet is that the CFO of Microsoft one night realized that the only way to get this through FTC is to get Sony onboard. So he called Phil and told him to tell Sony that CoD will remain multiplatform.
It wasn't just that. He wanted smooth transition. Doing this, would make the ftc rethink their approach.
 
Just make wow free to play, i don't care about the rest.

Why would they give up monthly revenue from 4+ million users?

They should really add WoW to GamePass in some way.

MS will let Sony have the marketing, as long as they don't keep gamepass away. They do that, and MS would pull the marketing rights away from Sony.

Doesn't that literally change the terms of the current deal, then? Meaning MS would not be honoring the existing deal, but forcing the existing deal to be modified and then honor the altered deal, which goes against what they've publicly stated.

They can't do that. Not if they don't want the FTC looking into the altered terms of the deal, anyway, which could hold up the proceedings. I've been hearing some rumors that MS might have Modern Warfare 2 marketing into GamePass but the only way this could happen is if Sony cancelled their COD deal upon the acquisition being announced...

...which is actually possible. They could've actually done that. Personally don't know why they would, but it's a (maybe small) possibility.
 
Last edited:

Wohc

Banned
Does anyone know for sure when these contracts expire?

I honestly don't think they will pull COD from PS but instead heavily incentivize playing it on Xbox
I could think of a scenario where Microsoft says "Game Pass Light (without the trademark games) on PlayStation" or no more COD for you.
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
I could think of a scenario where Microsoft says "Game Pass Light (without the trademark games) on PlayStation" or no more COD for you.
Nothing would surprise me

Coming from someone who knows nothing about Minecraft how does that work on Playstation?
 
That's what i actually meant with free to play: Part of Game Pass Ultimate

Oh, okay. I think they would increase the price for GPU to do that, though; not by $5 but maybe by $2.50 or $2 otherwise they're giving up WoW subscriptions.

Or, they could convert WoW subs into GamePass xCloud subscriptions if they're going to spin xCloud off into something of its own at a cheaper price than base GamePass.
 

nikolino840

Member
How many signs in the papers Microsoft have to do? 😂 I Remember when i have bought my house i've had to sign a lot of papers....i can't Imagine with a 70B acquisition 😂
 

Wohc

Banned
Oh, okay. I think they would increase the price for GPU to do that, though; not by $5 but maybe by $2.50 or $2 otherwise they're giving up WoW subscriptions.

Or, they could convert WoW subs into GamePass xCloud subscriptions if they're going to spin xCloud off into something of its own at a cheaper price than base GamePass.
Maybe either a new tier like you said for +2-3 Euro or they are just expanding the item shop. Buy rare mounts, gold, id resets, bigger bags or even items for cash. Who knows, everything is possible.
Nothing would surprise me

Coming from someone who knows nothing about Minecraft how does that work on Playstation?
Not a Minecraft expert either, but as far as i know they just kept it crossplatform without any conditions.
 

kingfey

Banned
Doesn't that literally change the terms of the current deal, then? Meaning MS would not be honoring the existing deal, but forcing the existing deal to be modified and then honor the altered deal, which goes against what they've publicly stated.
MS would keep the game on PS. That their honored deal. The let PS keep bethesda timed exclusives.

Unless it's timed exclusives, MS can modify it.

It will only be issue, if MS doesn't allow it on the console.

Keep in mind, that MS wants gamepass day1. They won't sit down for 3 more years of marketing, considering the marketing deal expired in 2024.
 

yurinka

Member
fast enough to get mw2 on gamepass?
What could (temporally) block MW2 being on GP is a potential marketing deal with Sony if it exists and if it's the same RE Village had. That block would be effective independently if the acquisition is closed in time or not.

If the Sony deal doesn't exist for this game or exist but doesn't has that game subs related part, I assume it could be included in GP independently if acquired on time or not.

This is something people need to understand.
Sony can't block games to go to certain service.
Yes, they can.

We saw the RE Village marketing deal and forbids to include the game to be included in rival game subs for a period of time starting to count since its release (as I remember it was a year) and also gives Sony preference to negotiate the inclusion of the game on their own game sub. If Sony decides to negotiate it the period gets longer (as I remember it was 3 months more after that year) even if they don't end signing the inclusion of the game in Sony's game sub.

As far as I remember the only upcoming ABK games for consoles are CoDs and MS said the'll honor existing deals. I assume these CoD didn't have console exclusivity or timed console exclusivity deals. So if something these deals could be (another time) CoD marketing deal with Sony and maybe a deal with Nintendo for potential future CoD Switch ports.

This doesn't imply CoD would have exactly the same marketing deal than RE Village. It could be different. But the point is that Sony can (temporally) block GP releases and at least with other AAA marketing deals they did it.

I assume ABK or Bethesda signed the best possible deals for them they had in the table. If they were the best ones for them now will be the best ones for MS, so they'll honor them. If MS considers that for MS would be better to break them and pay Sony whatever compensation needed, they'd do it. But they decided to honor their existing deals.
 
Last edited:
MS would keep the game on PS. That their honored deal. The let PS keep bethesda timed exclusives.

Unless it's timed exclusives, MS can modify it.

It will only be issue, if MS doesn't allow it on the console.

Keep in mind, that MS wants gamepass day1. They won't sit down for 3 more years of marketing, considering the marketing deal expired in 2024.

You either honour the deal or you don't. There's no "modifying"
 
Top Bottom