this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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It's so funny to me how vigorously the internet defended Microsoft, a much much larger company than Sony, buying Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard, each much larger companies than Kadokawa.
Consolidation is bad for everyone except owners and I hope this doesn't happen.
Silver linings: at the very least this would probably result in the Bloodborne re-release people have been begging for. If it were Microsoft purchasing them I would expect a ton of immediate layoffs and maybe studio closure after a few years. While Sony has closed a couple of studios (mostly their own home-grown ones that were re-structured into other things) they seem more focused on actually using their acquisitions than just gobbling the IP and eliminating competition.
Kinda seems like only xbox fanboys were applauding it. I hate multiplatform developers getting bought and made exclusive.
I got into a lot of discussions with people who seemed to believe that Microsoft would "save" Activision-Blizzard. Clean up the culture, create a better work environment, shift the focus away from live-services and micro-transactions. People were expecting a lot of their older games to make their way to GamePass... Which is a whole other kind of predatory pricing.
Lo and behold- AB went ahead and laid off almost 2,000 redundant positions after the acquisition and don't seem to have changed their business structure much.
This may have been my thought.
I was never so deeply in favor of the acquisition, but I did find the focus on exclusives hypocritical. Microsoft had already made many of their games available cross platform, while Sony had not at the time.
I don't find that hypocritical. My issue with acquisitions is that it makes multiplatform games potentially exclusive.
Franchises they built and invested in should be exclusive. Franchises they hoard with no additional resources should remain multiplatform.