2023-07-16 15:00:03
News business Microsoft finally sees the end of the tunnel for the takeover of Activision-Blizzard! Business news of the week
Published on 07/16/2023 at 17:00
Share :
This week again, business news is dominated by the takeover of Activision Blizzard King by Microsoft, but that’s not all! We also discovered the amount that Sony intends to invest in game-services and that the voice actors of Genshin Impact are not always paid on time.
Summary
Xbox Games Studios logo soon to be applied to Activision Blizzard King games? Sony is investing heavily in R&D for its video game division
Xbox Games Studios logo soon applied to Activision Blizzard King games?
18 months. That’s how long it’s been since the Microsoft/Activision Blizzard Kinget takeover deal was announced today for roughly $69 billion. Between January 2022 and today, a lot has happened, and we are not going to redo all the history. However, we are very seriously approaching the end of the operation, which seems to be taking a very favorable turn for Microsoft. First, we learned that the court had vindicated the Redmond firm against the FTC. The Court ruled that the concerns raised were not sufficient to block the takeover, and therefore Microsoft could proceed with the takeover. Very quickly, the CMA reopened the way to an agreement by August 28Then the FTC appealed.
The Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which hears appeals from the 15 district courts, dismissed the FTC’s case, refusing to extend the duration of the injunction blocking the takeover. In other words, the injunction is no longer in effect and Microsoft is free to absorb Activision Blizzard King in all jurisdictions where redemption has been permitted, but the call itself was not canceled. The final redemption date, which corresponds to the expiration of the signed agreement between the builder and the publisher, is still fixed at July 18, and it it remains for Microsoft to reach an agreement with the CMA. However, it is highly likely that the takeover will take place quickly wherever possible, and then Microsoft will then negotiate with the UK regulator. We saw this week that Activision Blizzard was going to leave the NASDAQwhich shows an acceleration of the process.
As for the United Kingdom, it is possible that the agreement will be found on the basis of the idea of resell Cloud management and edition to a third party entity according to Cassim Ketfi, journalist for Frandroid. So much for the unfolding scenario. However, things are not quite over. There is still two procedures that can block the takeover or require its dismantlingbut it is now unlikely to succeed, although never say never. It is also possible that Microsoft and Activision decide to extend the deadline at the end of the long holidays, to put everything in order, according to our colleague. It only remains to wait a few days to see how it turns out. Anyway, everything suggests that the takeover will indeed take place. At the time of this writing, the takeover is not official.
Sony invests heavily in R&D for its video game division
While Microsoft writes the final chapter of a long book, Sony continues its work and, according to a report recently published by Nikkei, the firm will invest 2.1 billion dollars in research and development dedicated to video games by the end of fiscal year 2024. A huge sum that would represent 40% of group expenses in its entirety. Behind these investments, we would find the desire to impose itself on games services.
Sony is a hit with its solo games, but these do not generate long-term income, and both the company and the shareholders would like to have productions capable of ensuring this type of cash flow. THE takeover of Bungie, invoiced 3.7 billion dollarswas a first step in this direction, but it is still not enough.
Still according to Nikkei, Sony plans to allocate 60% of development resources to live-service PS5 projects and thus to catch up in the field by the end of the 2025-2026 fiscal year. We are talking about twelve operational games of various sizes capable of filling this void in the catalogue. Finally, the report specifies that Sony intends to invest very concretely in the metaverse through “extended reality”. For the moment, difficult to know what this corresponds to exactly.
A voice actor working on Genshin Impact complains about late payments
Brandon Wincklerwhose voice is found in the English version of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Monster Hunter Rise or Honkai: Star Rail took to Twitter to complain about a major delay in payment following his work on Genshin Impact, HoYoverse’s open-world free-to-play game. The latter would have been waiting for his payment for several months, and would have sent five emails that would have remained unanswered. Suffice to say that he is particularly annoyed by the situation, which highlights the precariousness of the environment:
Pay your fucking actors on time. I’m so sick of waiting over 3 months for payment for the BIGGEST video game project ever. (…) After a fifth unanswered email, it’s Genshin Impact. It’s unacceptable for us as actors to wait over 4 months to get paid when you’re making $86 million a month. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon problem. It’s really hard to justify working on something when you can’t afford to eat. Many non-unionized productions have this problem, I waited between 4 and 8 months for payment (…) 1000 here, 500 there, and it adds up quickly.
He adds :
I can only speak for myself, but I build my budget months in advance trying to accommodate this, and not be a pain. Because I love to play, I love working on the games/shows that these studios are working on. A game like this should DEFINITELY be a union production. I will no longer work on this game unless it is under contract with the Union. I don’t have much to lose by making this choice – and if I’m lucky, I hope others will at least see where I’m coming from with this choice. I’m sorry to be so negative. PFOUAH.
For its part, HoYoverse returns the ball to the dubbing studio, which is a priori responsible for the payment of the sums earned by the actors on the various services. In a short statement, a representative said:
Regarding the payment to the voice studio in this case, HoYoverse always paid on time, and we reported this issue to the relevant studio.
Briefly in the business news of the week
Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson, has announced his departure from Xbox after 20 years of career. He was one of the faces of the brand, present at every major event.Evan Wells, co-president of Naughty Dogalso announced that he would leave office by the end of the year after 25 years with the studio. Neil Druckmann will therefore take over the management of Naughty Dog alone, but will be supported by a renewed management team in large widths. PlayStation Access Controllera controller dedicated to people with disabilities, will be released on December 6 at a price of €89.99Media Molecule now offers Dreams users the possibility of marketing their creations outside the gameParis Games Week, which modestly returned to face-to-face last year, will be held as before in three halls from November 1 to 5, 2023. The African video game market continues to grow by generating 863 million dollars for the year 2022 (+8.7%). Nigeria and South Africa dominate a market where mobile is king. 90% of the revenue generated comes from mobile games. The billion mark should be crossed by 2024. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom still dominates the physical sales market in value in France. For the 26th week of the year (June 26 – July 2), it dominates Final Fantasy XVI, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, God of War: Ragnarok (PS5) and Diablo IV (PS5). People Can Fly (Outriders, Gears of War) has announced the opening of a studio in Montreal. Led by Rolan Lesterlin, the studio will work on a triple A game yet unannounced. A Destiny 2 player was ordered to pay nearly $500,000 in damages to Bungie after he harassed a community manager with racist messages in 2022. A lawsuit had been filed as soon as a studio attorney was able to observe the repeated nature of the attacks.
1689527524
#Microsoft #finally #sees #tunnel #takeover #ActivisionBlizzard #Business #news #week