  It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio

This is shockingly self-aware for microsoft

▲ saghm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, but only because the bar is so low. "We can't commodotize innovation" is not an especially subtle insight, and pretty much everyone other than executives at companies like this understand it without having to spend billions to try it out.

	▲	taurath 41 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		They say that only after they buy up like half of the IP in the entire gaming industry without a plan and it doesn't end up being a fast enough money printer. Activisions back catalog is the result of hundreds of acquisitions and IP purchases.

▲ sinpif 18 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It also means they must have started with the assumption that they were the best home for every type of studio, which, when you say it out loud, sounds very stupid. Second, how can a studio be "independent" anymore when owned by MS? Doesn't make sense. It's all just corpo speak for "we fucked up but we're still getting paid to fire you".

▲ markus_zhang 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have no idea why they didn’t realize that earlier, or if there is any insider dealing involved, from my cynical thoughts.

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badsectoracula 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> I have no idea why they didn’t realize that earlier

14 layers of management :-P

	▲	kingleopold 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		also board and man. that approved all acq. got lots of 8-9 figure bonuses in total, so they say that after all TOC and years. They will never say these acq. made our man. teams and some board members great ROI and personal wealth, lmao. Corp. games are sometimes flat for corp and amazing for the groups that decide them.

▲ thomastjeffery 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

...more like

> We can't afford it, and it's a bad investment anyway

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joe_mamba 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>> We can't afford it

But they've already spent the money. They spent about 70 billion on activision blizzard. That was and still is an outrageous amount of money that will take fever to break even let alone turn a profit.

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swiftcoder 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> They spent about 70 billion on activision blizzard

A cynic might say they spent most of that for King, which continues to be profitable. The rest of Activision Blizzard just came along for the ride

	▲	disgruntledphd2 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Call of Duty absolutely prints money, fwiw. King are weird because they basically have been doing the same game in different skins for like 15 years now.

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appreciatorBus 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Just because they already spent the money yesterday, it does not follow that the best decision today is to just carry on as if was still the correct decision. Yes they cannot get that 70B back, but if they have to choose between:

1. a long dragged out distraction over decades trying to make it work

2. a painful but quick 40B write down and the ability to refocus the company on better projects tomorrow

.. then they are, quite rightly imo, going to pick #2. In fact I would assume this going to be the next announcment.

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thomastjeffery 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They can't afford to buy every other successful studio, which means that their anticompetitive moat has to be competitive. Otherwise, they could have made the whole thing profitable the usual Microsoft (monopolist) way.

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iAMkenough 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They bought a content competitor, now they get to "reset" their vision for it. Mission successful.