Good. Maybe Microsoft can put that $75 billion their PC division created into actually making games that are worth a damn. Hey, there has to be a first time for everything.

Sorry, but I have no respect for Microsoft, a company that's spent the entirety of its time in the console marketplace trying to buy their way to the top. They've had so many talented studios under their umbrella over the years, and they seem to be uniquely talented in squandering them.

In theory, what's stopping Microsoft from signing an exclusivity deal with Activision similar to what Sony does all the time? Say, for $69B, all future titles are Microsoft exclusive?

It'd be hard to block that deal as Sony has been signing exclusives for so long.  And, like, you can't *make* Activision make Sony games.  Hell, if I were Activision leadership wanting this deal to go through, I'd stop supporting Sony systems out of spite.  "We offered you CoD for ten years.  That wasn't good enough.  Now, you get nothing.  Good day, sir."

I still don't care, as the last Activision game I purchased was Skylanders... but Microsoft mentioned the Hexen franchise, something Activision hasn't done in years, so the chance to get another entry into that would be great.

Sure, they could sign such a deal. The Activision Blizzard stockholders would revolt at shutting out the most popular consoles on the market and the board of directors would probably fire the leadership at the next stockholder's meeting, but it would be perfectly legal albeit still subject to scrutiny from the various governments for potential antitrust violations.

It's in Microsoft's best financial interest to shut out the Sony consoles, but it's not in Activision Blizzard's.

And yeah, I'm not a big Activision guy, either. My last CoD was Infinite Warfare, and I'm perfectly happy with that. I'm more a fan of the recent Crash & Spyro revivals.

>The Activision Blizzard stockholders would revolt at shutting out the most popular consoles on the market and the board of directors would probably fire the leadership at the next stockholder's meeting, but it would be perfectly legal albeit still subject to scrutiny from the various governments for potential antitrust violations.

Why would Activision shareholders be okay with selling to Microsoft for $69B, but not signing an exclusive agreement with them for $69B?

Microsoft made a lot of promises when they declared their intent to purchase Activision, such as supporting all the consoles and a bunch of cloud platforms no one's ever heard of for at least 10 years. Granted, they were promises I don't think they ever intended to keep, but promises nonetheless. If Microsoft were to purchase sole exclusivity of all Acti-Blizzard titles, that's shutting out at least 60% of the market to prop up a failing console manufacturer.

On the one hand, you're looking at $69 billion up-front with the promise of even more money later and golden parachutes and MS stock options for everyone involved, and on the other hand you're looking at $69 billion to exclusively support the weakest console manufacturer while having none of the protections that come with being owned by one of the biggest companies in the world.