Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard: A Golden Opportunity or a Risky Investment?

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which has been attracting attention around the world, appears to be almost complete.

There were many people who opposed this acquisition, including the UK’s CMA and the US FTC, but Sony, which had opposed the acquisition the most, agreed to a 10-year ‘Call of Duty’ supply contract with MS at the last minute, and it is expected that the final confirmation of the acquisition will be announced soon. It is being predicted.

Although it cost a lot of money, 68.7 billion dollars (about KRW 91 trillion), it was able to acquire the popular franchise ‘Call of Duty’ series, which is the most popular in the West, as well as Blizzard’s popular IPs such as ‘Diablo’ and ‘Warcraft’. Now, this is a golden opportunity for XBOX, which has been in the top 3 position for many years, to take flight spectacularly.

However, even though we have the ‘Call of Duty’ we so desperately wanted, it seems that XBOX’s spectacular rise is not easy. This is because while you are preoccupied with securing ‘Call of Duty,’ the main beam of your home is rotting away.

Redfall is considered one of the worst games of the year.

Looking at MS’s own games that have recently been introduced, they have a lot of users thanks to the Game Pass same-day entry strategy, but most of them are receiving poor reviews. Bethesda, which acquired it for $7.5 billion three years ago and established itself as Microsoft’s representative development studio, is competing with ‘Gollum, The Lord of the Rings’ for the worst game of the year with ‘Redfall’, which was introduced earlier this year, and ‘Starfield’, which ambitiously introduced ‘Starfield’. ‘ Contrary to expectations, Steam user evaluations were lowered to ‘mixed’ as many disappointing aspects were exposed.

‘Starfield’ can be said to be a case where disappointment grew because expectations were so high, but ‘Redfall’ exposed problems in all areas such as 30 frame play, stupid AI, and sloppy motion in the era of next-generation game consoles, so it was improved with an update. There is no hope for it to happen. It’s hard to believe that it was developed by Arcane Studio, the same studio that developed ‘Dishonored’, which is still recognized as a masterpiece.

Starfield was also more disappointing than expected.

Bethesda is not the only one wandering around. Games that can be said to be the foundation of XBOX are also shaking.

In the Forza series, which represents XBOX racing games, the spin-off Forza Horizon series is doing well, but the original Forza Motorsports series is in danger. Forza Motorsport was revered as the most realistic racing game, beating out its rival, the Gran Turismo series. However, Forza Motorsport, the latest game and a new start without numbering, was criticized for being below expectations despite a long development period of 6 years. It’s pouring.

Although there are some improvements, such as extensive vehicle upgrades and improved controls, it exposes more problems such as insufficient content, connection instability, and optimization, and as soon as it is released, the evaluation on Steam is declining to ‘complex’.

Forza Motorsport received mixed reactions as soon as it was released.

Along with Forza, the Halo series, which can be considered the flagship of XBOX, is also in a bleak situation. This is because after parting ways with Bungie after ‘Halo Reach’ and 343 Industries taking over development, it has not been able to show the same overwhelming performance as before.

Even if we leave aside the 5th film that completely flopped, the latest work ‘Halo Infinite’, which took a long time to make, is also not receiving good reviews. Compared to the previous work, the single-player was greatly improved and the initial evaluation was good, but as the multiplayer operation continued to show loopholes, the Steam evaluation fell to ‘mixed’.

Although they brought out a free multiplayer card, the content is not being updated properly, and the anger of fans is exploding due to excessive charging, so I am worried that if the game continues like this, the ‘Halo’ series will end like this.

Halo Infinite multiplayer is out of control

From the beginning, as stated when MS acquired Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, its position was that it would not interfere with the operation of the development studio in order to respect the individuality of the developer. If the developer is running normally, this is the most desirable situation.

However, looking at the status of recently released games, it appears that MS will have to actively check the final quality, even at the level of platform management. The biggest advantage and weapon of MS’s Game Pass platform is that you can enjoy the latest high-quality games created by MS from the day of release. Although it is important to continue adding attractive IP, it is also important to protect the IP you have.