Today is the 15th day of the official announcement of the return of Blizzard's national server. Welcome to continue to pay attention to the latest news of "World of Warcraft", a large-scale online dating chat room game that is currently popular all over the world, and will soon have a national server.
What does the return of Blizzard's national server mean?
Recently, Microsoft's Windows Central published an article written by our familiar uncle Jez, Microsoft's ace uncle, who often reports on Blizzard-related news. This time, he analyzes some of the inside scoops and future prospects for Microsoft and NetEase to bring Blizzard games back to China again.
The article writes that NetEase and Blizzard announced the return of Blizzard's national server on April 10, and the game will be launched in the summer of this year, just in time for the launch of "World of Warcraft: Battle for the Center of the Earth". The data of players in the national server will be fully recovered, which is a great good thing for players in the national server and foreign servers.
China's gaming market is not only huge, but it is also the largest in the world in terms of revenue. By 2028, the Chinese gaming market will exceed $55 billion, and the profits from this piece of the pie are staggering for Blizzard and even Microsoft.
World of Warcraft is one of NetEase's best-selling games in China and one of the top 10 PC games in China in terms of player count. Analyst Daniel Ahmad estimates that Blizzard's annual revenue in the national server is a very high level, and the huge market of the national server has brought Blizzard (and in the future Microsoft) an equally huge profit, which can allow Blizzard to have more money to continue to invest in the development of the game.
This time, the return of Blizzard's national server is a win-win result for NetEase and Microsoft.
Blizzard's national server has been signed for at least ten years this time, and NetEase said it will never stop serving
Microsoft and NetEase already have a good relationship, not only with the national version of Minecraft, but also with a partnership to bring Naraka: Bladepoint to Xbox via Xbox Game Pass. This incident is also considered to be the key to NetEase Blizzard's icebreaking.
Xbox President Phil Spencer said that Microsoft hopes to bring more NetEase games to the Xbox platform through this new partnership.
From here, we can also see that the new cooperation between NetEase and Microsoft is not just as simple as Blizzard's national server, but also has more and more long-term plans.
NetEase also mentioned in the official announcement on April 10, "This drop will never wear out", which means that the new national service will never stop serving.
Previously, the great god launched the "Play Warcraft for another ten years" activity during the Spring Festival, which also implies that the re-cooperation between the two sides this time, the agreement signed should be at least more than ten years, in order to give the national server players a better guarantee.
The future of the new national service is promising, and a new era is coming!
Jez's article also goes on to talk about the huge role NetEase Games can have for Microsoft.
NetEase has been known for MMO-style games in the past, both on PC and on mobile devices. But in the last five years or so, they've shifted more to the non-MMO genre and have a budget for triple-A blockbusters. So, they are starting to become more in line with the interests of console players. Ahmed explained that NetEase has opened several new studios in the western region for this purpose, and highlighted some of NetEase's upcoming projects, such as Project Ragnarök and Project Mugen.
These games have the potential to be a new force on Xbox against Sony's collaboration with miHoYo. Moreover, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is aimed at better entering the mobile field, and NetEase has a very strong strength in mobile games, so this cooperation can be said to be a strong cooperation, and the in-depth cooperation between the two sides can bring a huge chain effect in the future.
Therefore, this re-cooperation between the two sides is no longer a simple cooperation between NetEase and Blizzard on the family bucket in the past, but the signing of a new mutually beneficial and win-win long-term partnership. Therefore, we have reason to believe that Blizzard's national server will usher in a better future, and this time it will really never stop.