Xbox now owns both Halo and Crash Bandicoot (pic: Artstation/Luis María Díaz)
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has taken everyone by surprise and the online reactions are a mix of celebration and worry.
Despite being the biggest acquisition in gaming history there wasn’t so much as a hint that Microsoft intended to buy Activision Blizzard, until the £50.5 billion deal was suddenly announced out of the blue on Tuesday afternoon.
Microsoft has offered very little detail so far, with no official clue as to whether games like Call Of Duty will become Xbox exclusives or not.
Given the vacuum of news, fans have been speculating themselves, with Xbox owners over the moon and others worrying that Microsoft is buying itself a monopoly.
It’s undoubtedly a milestone event for the whole games industry but at the moment all some people want to do is make fan art.
It’s not clear from many of the memes whether the creator thinks the acquisition is a good thing or not, with most just appearing to be shocked it happened at all.
Many fans couldn’t help but imagine Sony’s reaction to the news, especially at a time when they seemed to be building up to announcement of their own about a PlayStation equivalent of Game Pass.
At Sony we wanted to make a very strong and principled stance against employee harassment, which is why 30 minutes ago we decided to never work with Activision Blizzard again
— Ex-CEO Kaz Hirai (@KazHiraiCEO) January 18, 2022
Other responses were more sober, with concern that Microsoft is creating itself a monopoly and that the purchase will obscure attempts to improve work conditions at Activision Blizzard.
Somewhat hot take(?):
Microsoftâs acquisition of Activision Blizzard is bad for the games industry because it opens the door for more monopolization. I trust Phil will make the correct moves in cleaning up the studio and removing Kotick, but Iâm skeptical of the whole thing.
— Avery Feyrer (@CoffeeBlack_910) January 18, 2022
Microsoft buying Activision is..
Well, that’s a hell of a thing. Obviously more corporate media consolidation is a bad thing, but it might actually unfuck the company on the whole sexist scandal front.
Fingers crossed that their first move is to yeet Bobby Kotick into the sun.
— Dominic Tarason (@DominicTarason) January 18, 2022
“But things were so bad under Activision Blizzard” yes that company should’ve been broken up, all the big publishers should be. Big companies are bad and get away with a lot of bad things
— Corey Brickley Illustration (@CoreyBrickley) January 18, 2022
Ah hell yeah we’re about to find out *exactly* how bad gaming can get now that Microsoft is buying up Activision-Blizzard
I forsee nested bloatware, lootboxes like you wouldn’t believe.
Subscription NFT-based Battlepasses pic.twitter.com/ULbvEaF8eN
— â¿ Demon Mama â¿ (@DemonMamaReal) January 18, 2022
Microsoft buying Bethesda and now Activision feels bad in the same way Disney owning Marvel and Star Wars does.
— Tim Ekkebus (@ekkubizor) January 18, 2022
Nah, I donât like it. The more I think about it, the less good it seems. Companies the size of Bethesda and Activision under Microsoft feels wrong. If this triggers a buyout bonanza among the big three, weâre all the worse off for it.
— Derrick Bitner (@Bitnerd_) January 18, 2022
Others though are hopeful that the acquisition will be good for Activision Blizzard and their games…
After some reflection, my take:
I think things were so bad at Activision Blizzard that the top brass was looking to sell their problems instead of trying to fix them. I have mixed feelings on such a large acquisition, but I do believe this is good for the folks making the games.
— DrLevelUp (@drlevelup) January 18, 2022
I can understand how half of the people will feel mixed about this Activision-Blizzard buyout. It’s gonna take a LONG TIME for Phil to fix the big mess over there and it won’t be an instant for sure.
But I have confidence in this. I have confidence that good will come from Phil.
— LeTotinos (Ashton) (@LeTotinos) January 18, 2022
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MORE : Call Of Duty could stay on PlayStation even after Xbox buys Activision
MORE : Bobby Kotick may not leave Activision Blizzard until mid-2023
MORE : Xbox is buying Activision Blizzard for £50 billion – Call Of Duty to become exclusive?
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