Xbox Boss "Trusts" Sony And Nintendo Won't Hurt The Games Industry
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Featured Image Credit: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft
Last week Microsoft acquired major gaming publisher Activision Blizzard in one of gaming's biggest ever deals worth almost $70billion. Newly minted CEO of Microsoft gaming, Phil Spencer, has said he is hopeful about working with some of Activision's historic IPs.
In an interview with The Washington Post Spencer was excited about acquiring old Activision IPs such as King’s Quest, Guitar Hero, and HeXen. The studios under the Activision Blizzard umbrella also own IPs thought to be classic Sony titles such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon.
In the run up to the acquisition, Activision Blizzard had been mired with allegations of workplace harassment and bullying. See the story below.
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Spencer further spoke about working with the newly acquired studios to build on those franchises in the future. This is despite many of them working for Microsoft's competitors in the past.
“We’re hoping that we’ll be able to work with them when the deal closes to make sure we have resources to work on franchises that I love from my childhood, and that the [Microsoft] teams really want to get."
While there were initial fears that Sony could stand to lose $260million if Microsoft intended to make the Call Of Duty franchise Xbox exclusive, Sony later responded saying that it expects "that Microsoft will abide by its contractual agreements."
Spencer has a similar view saying in tweets that he intends to do the same. When speaking of his ability to work alongside his competitors such as Nintendo, Valve, or PlayStation Spencer remained optimistic that all companies will ultimately do what is best for gaming as a whole.
“They have a long history in video games, Nintendo’s not going to do anything that damages gaming in the long run because that’s the business they’re in. Sony is the same and I trust them. … Valve’s the same way."
Comparing them with other big tech companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google he explains how these companies have their priorities outside of the gaming space. With Nintendo and Sony focusing on gaming, Spencer explains how they will seek to protect their interests.
"When we look at the other big tech competitors for Microsoft: Google has search and Chrome, Amazon has shopping, Facebook has social, all these large-scale consumer businesses. … The discussion we’ve had internally, where those things are important to those other tech companies for how many consumers they reach, gaming can be that for us."
The future of Activision's gaming series’ following the merger is still unknown, though Microsoft have announced that following the deal's closure it intends to add many more games to its Game Pass.
Topics: Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard
