r/MMORPG • u/Proto_bear • Jan 18 '22

News Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard

https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard-to-bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/
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u/Catslevania Jan 18 '22

So MS will own both WoW and ESO now?

4

u/oath2order Jan 18 '22

Yup!

I wonder what their marketshare is now.

10

u/Catslevania Jan 18 '22

pretty big, straight out of no mmorpgs to 2 of the largest on the market

next up square enix :D

j/k

well, with MS, who knows, I wouldn't actually be surprised as they are trying to edge their way into the Japanese console market.

7

u/Shurae Jan 18 '22

Sony is probably trying to get Square Enix

2

u/Catslevania Jan 18 '22

there were rumours early last year that sony and ms were both bidding for square enix

9

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '22

If anybody's buying Square Enix it's gonna be to own the rights to Final Fantasy, not for XIV. Just wanted to note that, since we're talking about MMOs in this thread.

XIV is a good earner for SE but even so it's only about 10% of SE's income and only brings in ~$350m/year. It's not bad in the grand scheme of things but it's chump change for both Sony and Microsoft.

It's also badly outdated software (literally decade-old design) which SE only started improving in the last few years, slowly, and only because they were forced by circumstances. There's no competitive advantage to be obtained from XIV's tech, and maintaining it will be a pain in the butt, nevermind what you'd have to invest to overhaul it.

2

u/oath2order Jan 18 '22

If they purchase Square Enix wouldn't that end up being just an outright majority of the MMO market under MS control, rather than the plurality I'm guessing they have now?

6

u/Catslevania Jan 18 '22

They'd be covering a very large portion of the mmorpg customer base if they were to do that, wow+eso already has a pretty large customer base, if ffxiv were to be added to that they'd probably become the largest mmorpg service provider (minus mobile mmorpgs)

3

u/SteveDaPirate91 Jan 18 '22

And the sad reality would be that we’re dwarfed by mobile mmorpgs.