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Microsoft’s War Chest is a generator. With an income comparable to the GDP of a small country, it has enough cash on hand to buy whatever it wants. When it does, it just gets another money-making machine. its newest gadget?video game company Activision Blizzard, which Microsoft It was announced yesterday that it acquired LinkedIn for a staggering $68.7 billion, more than the $26.2 billion paid for LinkedIn in 2016 and almost 10 times the $7.5 billion it paid for Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media last year.Microsoft now has call of Duty and halo; it has The Elder Scrolls and World of Warcraft. it has Candy Crush. it also has Diablo, Overwatch, Sparrow, Hearthstone, guitar hero, Crash Bandicoot, and Starcraft. Its chest is full – but no machine.
It’s easy to think of acquisitions as the latest shot in the console wars, and it’s a tactic to use Activision BlizzardAn in-depth catalog to sell Xbox. But that would be short-sighted. If anything, the deal shows that Microsoft is more concerned with acquiring gamers — it will gain 400 million monthly active players as part of the deal — than mobile units. “Activision Blizzard’s outstanding franchises will also accelerate our cloud gaming initiatives,” the company said in a statement. statement When the deal was announced, it “allows more people around the world to participate in the Xbox community using phones, tablets, laptops and other devices you already own.” It’s a step Microsoft is taking into the post-console world. It’s not about getting you to buy a gadget; it’s about luring you into an ecosystem.
When discussing online video game services like Stadia, Sony’s PlayStation Now, and Microsoft’s cloud gaming, industry insiders often use the same descriptor: X is “the Netflix of gaming.” The goal of each service is to be the go-to center for players, month after month. In fact, Phil Spencer, who will be named CEO of Microsoft Gaming after the acquisition, often uses this comparison. “You and I might watch Netflix. I don’t know where you watch it, where I watch it, but we can have a conversation about what we watch,” he said. 2020 told WIRED. “I hope the game develops to the same level.”
That’s telling, especially because how much it masks Spencer’s indifference to where people play Microsoft games. That in itself is a denial of the console wars, which have historically been associated with tantalizingly shaped plastic boxes from Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. Spencer said the “walled gardens” were a “1990s building” that he would like to see demolished.Microsoft’s new ownership Candy Crush Aligning with this vision puts the company’s immediate foray into mobile gaming beyond the Xbox Series X discussion.
“They’re not leaving consoles, but they’re trying to reduce their bondage to the Xbox,” says NYU business professor, “The come up, a book about the global gaming business. “It’s just one of the entry points into their ecosystem.”
The goal here is a simplified service — Activision Blizzard’s back catalog is the carrot that draws users into the space.it can take The deal will take 12 to 18 months to close, but once done, Microsoft “will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as possible in Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, including new titles and titles from the Activision Blizzard catalog,” Spin Tucked in the company’s announcement about the acquisition. “They clearly see games as an entry point into the wider universe,” van Dreunen said. “The Game Pass service has benefited a lot from it.”
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