In order to acquire Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has already rushed its eyes

Let's start with a piece of news.

The president of Microsoft announced that he had signed a 10-year contract with Nintendo, promising to put Call of Duty on Nintendo's platform in the future and not engage in console exclusivity.

Seeing the news, I laughed on the spot and barked.

Getting Call of Duty on Nintendo's platform?

Sounds great, but it's especially subtle to think about.

Is Call of Duty in Microsoft's hands? Is it now a Microsoft-owned game? Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is still a card monopoly, which starts to write empty promises?

Microsoft can't now throw away something that doesn't belong to it.

Secondly, even if the monopoly censorship is overcome and Activision Blizzard is really swallowed, "Call of Duty" belongs to Microsoft, and Nintendo's current functions cannot be eaten.

It's not that Nintendo will give up its strategy of traveling light for the sake of a call of duty, and stack up with PS and XBOX to fight for performance, right?

Nintendo has suffered more than everyone else.

Of course, if it's an early Call of Duty title, it's okay, and I've done it before, but it's a bit of a play on words.

Similar to Mr. Niu telling the rich old man that he doesn't love his money.

The only thing that can be seen in this news is one:

Microsoft is in a hurry, in a hurry, in a hurry.

In a hurry for the acquisition.

In order to continue this century acquisition, they have begun to enter the stage of dreaming.

As long as the acquisition can be completed, it is a dream come true.

Give popular science to friends who don't know the twists and turns here.

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are the three hegemons of the game console market, and Microsoft and Sony have long been in a-for-tat competitive relationship.

And Sony has a very good IP "Call of Duty", the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation said,

73% of people bought PS5s to play Call of Duty.

However, Call of Duty is not Sony's own game, but belongs to Activision Blizzard.

In this round of console wars (Sony VS Microsoft), Microsoft thought of a very damaging trick, intending to directly acquire Activision Blizzard and gouge Sony's roots.

As a result, because this acquisition case is too large, it has caused resistance in most of the Internet world, and it is still in Europe to card anti-monopoly, and it has not been able to land.

The aforementioned CMA (UK Competition and Markets Authority) directly stated that this will lead to competitive imbalances.

In order to make this acquisition successful, Microsoft used all its strength, jumped up and down to promote the acquisition, and as a result, at the end of last year, the US government also began to launch antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft.

This acquisition is not easy to say directly that the future is bleak now, and it is more or less a stormy state.

In order to get through this anti-monopoly pit, Microsoft can only run out to show goodwill with Sony, saying that it will never engage in monopoly, do not engage in console exclusivity, and will never snatch "Call of Duty", when the time comes, we will use this game to make money and establish a large open market together.

Although Sony, the company is divine, but not stupid, ignored him, and continues to work with Google and Amazon to promote monopoly review of Microsoft's acquisition riots.

After all, looking at Microsoft's past history, Windows' market share and competitive strategy, especially looking at the XGP they are now pushing, everyone knows it.

They are all out for sale, and if some things are broken, it is rude.

Then we talk about XGP.

XGP is a game subscription service launched by Microsoft, which simply means to turn buying games into renting members, and collecting money in the middle.

Domestic players are clear that this thing is channel control, and we have seen a lot.

The term for low emotional intelligence is, Internet hosts.

As long as everyone places orders with me and plays games on my platform, then what you see and play is not up to you.

Eating at two ends and earning at both ends is simply a business without capital.

Especially in recent years, Microsoft also has the meaning of turning XGP into an all-media platform, intending to package other forms of entertainment into its own platform, and to launch XGP, Microsoft needs a huge multimedia library.

To that end, Microsoft went all over the place, first buying Minecraft, LinkedIn and Github, and then negotiating with TikTok, Pinterest Inc, and Discord Inc to swallow everything it could.

And now one of their most dominant strategies is to acquire riots.

By acquiring Riot, you can get the user base accumulated by Activision Blizzard for many years, and get a large number of large IPs with a full fan base, just by hanging these IPs on XGP, you can attract a large number of users.

Then pinching Call of Duty can also contain Sony, and even have a chance to dominate the entire console market in the long term.

It can be said that winning the riot is a key step for Microsoft to build its XGP empire.

As long as this hand is completed, the latter is the problem of Microsoft winning more and winning less.

Microsoft knows this, and its competitors around the world (not just gaming) know it.

So from Japan to Europe to the United States, countless forces are thinking about how to spoil this acquisition.

Even if it can't be stirred, it will drag you down to some extent, and it will not allow you to complete the acquisition smoothly.

NetEase laughed.

No matter who is unlucky, NetEase is happy.

Now Blizzard suddenly jumped out and announced its cooperation with Nintendo, which is nothing more than another overture of goodwill to countries.

You see, I have cooperated with Nintendo, and I have announced that I will not engage in exclusivity, is this monopoly a thing?

The key point of the Microsoft president's speech is not the previous signing with Nintendo, but the second half of the sentence:

"This is just part of a commitment to bringing Xbox games and Activision games to more players on more platforms."

It seems to be empty words, but in fact, it almost swears to assure the public that he will not engage in monopoly.

Whether this gesture is useful or not is unknown, at least this gesture is put out.

As for whether it is really going to engage in a full-platform strategy or simply lip service, in the end, it is not up to Microsoft's own final interpretation right?

As long as the acquisition is successful, everything can be part of the all-platform strategy.

It's nothing more than a question of how to win.

In the long run, the acquisition is successful, and the rest can be pushed over.

It's even possible that Microsoft is embracing Nintendo now, maybe even just to give the censors an excuse.

Relationship, they have long been done.

Don't think that foreigners won't do this, they play very slippery.

After all, the words of the British CMA earlier were ruthless, but in fact, there was room for it.

You see.

If Blizzard Entertainment is spun off independently, or the Call of Duty game business, which is the main source of profit, will consider approving Microsoft's acquisition with a reduced impact on the game market.

From this point of view, unscrupulous means are only superficial.

More real games are still underwater.

It's just that this is still just a national institution, and it is not an easy thing to grind down round by round, and Mr. Son has the most to say about this.

However, Microsoft is not SoftBank, the company name Microsoft, but the means have never been strong.

At present, it is just an appetizer, and the next good show has just taken the stage.

It's just that I don't know if the highest-end business war will develop into the most simple model in the back.

I love this magical world.