A reader suggests that if Activision Snow storm acquisition fails, Microsoft should consider selling Xbox at Sony.
Over the past few weeks, there’s been a lot of talk about Microsoft losing its grip on its Xbox business, with people talking about the possibility of that happening. leave the video game industry completely or stop playing all his games first day on Game Pass. I don’t know how seriously these suggestions were made, but it’s obvious why they’ve come up now, rather than any other time in the recent past, as Microsoft shows up in its hesitant attempts to buy Activision Blizzard.
I don’t know if the acquisition will go through. Since they are incomparably rich, I thought it went without saying that they would get what they wanted, but they are definitely sweating it. I suppose the most likely outcome is that they are forced to make even more concessions to Sony, which could render the deal pointless.
Even if it passes, they wasted last year hammering it and their roster of games has clearly suffered. You might say it’s a coincidence, while all the Activision Blizzard stuff went down, Microsoft didn’t release any notable games, but the other recurring news from the last year was mismanagement in several Xbox studios. True or not, nothing is produced at the moment and I feel that Microsoft is starting to let go of the situation.
Imagine if the Activision Blizzard deal didn’t materialize and Microsoft wasted all that time, money, and effort for nothing. I imagine some serious questions are going to be asked of boss Phil Spencer who, as one reader pointed out this week, has been in charge of Xbox for almost a decade now. While it generally says all the right things, it doesn’t have much to show for its tenure, except for a group of new developers who haven’t released anything yet.
Microsoft, as a larger company, is currently obsessed with ChatGPT and making Bing finally relevant and used by people. It’s easy to forget how massive Microsoft is and how gaming is just a tiny part of what they do, and in terms of profits completely irrelevant. If Xbox continues to show little growth and the gamble to buy Activision Blizzard doesn’t pay off, I think serious questions will arise, just as they apparently followed the failure of Xbox One.
My answer to these questions would be simple: sell the Xbox business to Sony. It may be a much smaller company than Microsoft, but the Xbox division is well within its means, especially if it’s sold because it’s struggling.
You can say Microsoft should sell it to Google or Amazon or some other mega-corporation, but those are Microsoft’s direct competitors, Sony isn’t. As a relatively small global player, Sony should be Microsoft’s ally, not its foe. The Xbox was created because Microsoft didn’t want Sony to “take over the living room”, but that concept is now completely outdated.
The reason Xbox was created is no longer relevant and so Microsoft should just do what it usually does in these situations: buy a company with more experience (it tried to buy both Sega and Nintendo) or if that fails, team up with them instead. I guess they could buy Sony, but I imagine a failure to acquire Activision Blizzard would quickly dissuade them from that idea, especially with the monopoly investigators still breathing down their necks.
Sell the PlayStation business to Sony and they could still keep their finger in the pie, selling them access to their streaming services (they already have a deal to work together on that) and maybe helping out with other stuff. other technical aspects, such as the design of the console and the controller.
Microsoft could continue to research and develop game streaming and sell it not only to Sony but to other companies, even Google. They could become the supporting studio, so to speak, for other game companies and interested parties. Maybe they could even retain a developer or two and continue to make some of their own games – although one of the obvious choices for that is Halo and they’ve been making such a hash of it lately they probably better make sure it’s the first thing they sell.
I’m sure Microsoft isn’t interested in anyone’s opinion on the internet, but I’d be surprised if something similar to what I said didn’t cross the minds of at least a few managers, or at least some shareholders. The Xbox isn’t working right now and this idea that Microsoft is playing the long game is spiraling out of control. If this is prolonged, the consoles will no longer exist and the holodecks will be real before they manage to power up.
By Reader Taylor Moon
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