Microsoft To Acquire Activision Blizzard

[chocolate]

Xplane11 is windows linux and mac native and was already better than msfs anyway.

Funny to hear about the cod sights though. That did make me chuckle.

Whats even more funny is they just spent $70Bn and still wont be able to compete with PSVR2.

Heck, completely free-to-use and free-as-in-freedom FlightGear is better than FS20 depending on the flight model used. Sure, some scenarios benefit from improved graphics and X-Plane has done a great job in that direction, but the main point of any such simulator remains staring at properly implemented instrumentation and accurate physics. FlightGear has that for some aircraft (and even spacecraft), X-Plane is overall the best, FS20 is an arcade game with eye candy. In fact, all the hype has been around its graphics.

[skeevy420]

Heck, completely free-to-use and free-as-in-freedom FlightGear is better than FS20 depending on the flight model used. Sure, some scenarios benefit from improved graphics and X-Plane has done a great job in that direction, but the main point of any such simulator remains staring at properly implemented instrumentation and accurate physics. FlightGear has that for some aircraft (and even spacecraft), X-Plane is overall the best, FS20 is an arcade game with eye candy. In fact, all the hype has been around its graphics.

I really dig the bush flighs and flying by VFR and landmarks. It's really fun and the best part about 2020. AFAIK, that's unique to 2020 because of its nice graphics. So far X Plane 12 seems to have nice graphics so I'm hoping that it has a mode similar to bush flights or that it won't be too hard to mod it in.

You're spot on with that assessment of the flight sims.

[mSparks]

MSFS 2020 has 11 beat in the looks department; buggy, but beautiful.

Linux VR Xplane 11 beats pretty much everything visually. The MSFS implementation is reportedly dire.

Fun fact I learnt while watching the stats for that. Last year occulus sold more quest 2 headsets at around the same price each than Microsoft sold xbox consoles. And they weren't even the biggest selling VR headset (that went to reverb G2).

[Luke_Wolf]

This was not that surprising considering how much Activision drove Blizzard into the ground. I think that Microsoft will give more freedom to the developers compared to Activision whose whole business model is milking games like call of duty

Imagine not realizing it was the other way around. Activision used to be a decent but not great company before Blizzard bought them with a diverse portfolio of IP. Blizzard proceeded to butcher Activision down to being the CoD company. Meanwhile Blizzard continued having a release cycle that is only worse than Bethesda's, but not by much. Activision wasn't the ones that made them pull the crap they did with StarCraft 2, Blizzard was always like that.

That said this is a terrible acquisition from a strategic standpoint, if it was almost any other company than Microsoft I could believe that there was a vision to utilize the IP that Blizzard owns and that for example Raven could be pulled from the CoD mines to work together with Id to properly exploit idTech the way they used to work together. However as it stands Microsoft bought a company that was in a long death spiral for $69 Billion, which is greater than their net income from last year (which means their net income will be in the red this year) and they will fail to make a return on their investment, because the company isn't doing anything interesting nor has any plans to do so. Perhaps some good will come of it though like games being allowed to actually go on sale and such.

[Paradigm Shifter]

They overpaid.

Quite likely, but they've obviously got the money and to kill off an injured competitor, while denying access to their library for other competitors and simultaneously increasing both mindshare and market control is lots of cherries on top of the cake.

It's still a little frightening that they can just drop that much cash, though. Microsoft just spent more than the GDP of Myanmar (and Luxembourg, as well, which shocked me, given that it's supposedly the second richest country in the world...!)

...

Given the furore around ActiBlizz recently, I'm surprised the C-suite have survived... but time will tell.

[Luke_Wolf]

Quite likely, but they've obviously got the money and to kill off an injured competitor, while denying access to their library for other competitors and simultaneously increasing both mindshare and market control is lots of cherries on top of the cake.

It's still a little frightening that they can just drop that much cash, though. Microsoft just spent more than the GDP of Myanmar (and Luxembourg, as well, which shocked me, given that it's supposedly the second richest country in the world...!)

...

Given the furore around ActiBlizz recently, I'm surprised the C-suite have survived... but time will tell.

What part of the library was worth $69 billion to block from other platforms?

Microsoft itself is only highlighting:

• Overwatch - Hasn't been relevant for years
• Diablo - Woo a game from 2012!
• CoD - While it has its core fanbase the franchise has long since become passé, I don't know anyone actually still actively chasing the franchise.
• WoW - An MMO that used to be wildly popular but now seems to mostly be driven by inertia and the sunk cost fallacy
• CandyCrush - LOL... so important that everyone has access to this... not.
• StarCraft - an RTS that had it's first 1/3rd released in 2010 and Blizzard managed to get people to pay $180 for the full title as it was slowly dripped out and finished in 2016.

Sure the whole body of IP that Blizzard represents is huge but as great of a game as it was I don't think that denying Linux "Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay" or similar titles is exactly going to be a deal breaker for most people, or for that matter the rest of the old catalogue.

I can see how people stuck in the past might think this is a great move, but this is one of the worst deals in the history of business, and while it definitely won't kill Microsoft, people are probably going to be fired over this.

[rabcor]

Well I mean, Activision (Yeah I'm not calling it Activision Blizzard, it's just Activision, Blizzard died a long time ago) is sitting on a lot of good IP and not really doing anything with it, or well, doing things with it in the sense that they're just fucking it up and haven't done a good release for I so long I forgot when the last time was.

Honestly, Microsoft got a shit deal, even if there's a lot of good IP over there like Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, cod (weird how almost all their best IP comes from Blizzard...) but that's literally everything that Microsoft is getting here, everything else is absolutely worthless, it's a stretch to say Activision is worth even 10 billion, I wonder if this is just some huge money laundering op.

[geearf]

Imagine not realizing it was the other way around. Activision used to be a decent but not great company before Blizzard bought them with a diverse portfolio of IP. Blizzard proceeded to butcher Activision down to being the CoD company.

Are you confusing Blizzard with Vivendi there?
Even though Blizzard was the name used, the company Activision merged with was Vivendi Games, the owner of Blizzard that already led to the closure of BN.

[Luke_Wolf]

Are you confusing Blizzard with Vivendi there?
Even though Blizzard was the name used, the company Activision merged with was Vivendi Games, the owner of Blizzard that already led to the closure of BN.

Vivendi was the holding company for Blizzard just the same as Zenimax is the holding company for Bethesda, that doesn't mean that it's not actually Blizzard and Bethesda running the show, It's just the holding company was created to separate the controlling studio from people they bought out.

[Luke_Wolf]

Well I mean, Activision (Yeah I'm not calling it Activision Blizzard, it's just Activision, Blizzard died a long time ago) is sitting on a lot of good IP and not really doing anything with it, or well, doing things with it in the sense that they're just fucking it up and haven't done a good release for I so long I forgot when the last time was.

Honestly, Microsoft got a shit deal, even if there's a lot of good IP over there like Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, cod (weird how almost all their best IP comes from Blizzard...) but that's literally everything that Microsoft is getting here, everything else is absolutely worthless, it's a stretch to say Activision is worth even 10 billion, I wonder if this is just some huge money laundering op.

Oh sweet summer child... Activision owns Raven and Infocom, and they published games for a whole ton of interesting studios, from things like Vampire The Masquerade to Star Trek, The soldier of fortune games, the later Wolfenstein games before Bethesda picked up the rights... if anyone wanted to publish a game based on a movie or TV show they went to Activision. Heavy Gear was a strong competitor to MechWarrior, etc. Not to mention that there were a ton of IP from other companies that Blizzard bought out like Sierra who had previously been one of the biggest game developers and publishers and was highly regarded.