It’s to placate regulators and shutdown a very vocal critic of the Activision merger.
NVIDIA was one of the loudest voices against and not anymore.<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/02/21/microsoft-will-bring-xbox-games-to-nvidias-cloud-gaming-service.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/02/21/microsoft-will-bring-xbo...</a><p>NVIDIA sees Microsoft as a major competitor but Microsoft on the other hand doesn’t see NVIDIA in the same light they much more worried about SOE.<p>NVIDIA knows that Microsoft cloud gaming and consoles are a direct threat to their PC gaming market. And with Microsoft having a cloud gaming service already NVIDIA fears that the money train might stop.<p>The next console generation (not the mid Gen refresh) might actually be a cloud only box, it would not surprise me if NVIDIA sees GeForce Now as it’s life raft if 5-10 years from now there would be very few who would buy a gaming PC with a GPU.
Microsoft wants the IP behind Activision/Blizzard.<p>This is much bigger than Call of Duty - everyone is just so short-sighted. Call of Duty is the loss leader for Microsoft. But, as an IP, it is somewhat limited so it's ok to pimp this out. This will be Microsoft's Madden, because they will lose more money by limiting it to one platform.<p>Cross-platform support and play will be a keystone strategy, because they get to plaster Microsoft Gaming everywhere.<p>- World of Warcraft on consoles (work has been underway for a while to add direct controller support). And this gives Microsoft instant access to a competitor to Sony's FFXIV. Plus Hearthstone can compete with Wizards of the Coast, and Heroes of the Storm gives them a League of Legends competitor.<p>- Overwatch, combined with Call of Duty and Halo, will lead the way for Microsoft Gaming to have an eSport division for gaming.<p>- Starcraft - eSports. It gives them something to add to their strategy games stuff, and I would imagine that it's not going to be too difficult to integrate aspects of Starcraft into Halo (or vice versa).<p>- Mobile games division (Candy Crush) - with access to a division that knows how to profit off mobile, Microsoft can bring this to other games (or other games to Mobile while profiting - something Nintendo screwed up royally and Sony has no clue how to do).<p>- Crash Bandicoot and Spyro will give Microsoft new mascots to work with, on top of Minecraft, and allow them to attract younger gamers. This has always been a problem for Microsoft - they've always managed to appeal to young adults / new adults, but teenagers that are the target audience of Nintendo are hard. This segment of the market is much more profitable, and increases mindshare for Microsoft.<p>It's not hard to see how this fits in the overall Microsoft Live streaming strategy, because in the future, it will be about streaming games and less about the hardware. In order to stream games successfully, you need IP.
Outside of the huge ramifications of the Microsoft acquisition, I think that it'll set the new standard for when antitrust gets used.<p>Essentially if this deal goes through it'll most likely neuter antitrust cases for years to come.<p>Same thing with the Adobe figma deal.