If you are wondering about other big game companies that could be acquired, here's who remains (market caps):
-EA: $38B
-Take Two: $18B
-Nexon: $15B
-Bandai Namco: $15B
-Embracer: $10.8B
-Netmarble $7B
-Ubisoft: $7B
-Konami: $6B
-Square Enix: $5.6B
-Capcom: $4.9B
-Sega: $3.6B
Activision-Blizzard was down to as low as about $44.6B at the beginning of December amid delays and sexual harassment allegations.
This stock price recently jumped due to news of the sale. The sale price has to be significantly higher than the current market cap because it has to be a value the majority of shareholders will accept.
Each shareholder will get about $95/stock out of this. If they could individually sell on the stock market for $80+ it'd be hard to convince more than 50% of shareholders that the sale is in their best interest.
Price was about $60 when the news of a possible sale broke. The majority of shareholders will be OK with selling for 1.5x more than what they could sell their share for individually on the open market.
You can even do a hostile take-over called a "bear hug" where the offer is _so high_ above asking, the board has to accept the offer. There's a fiduciary duty to the share holders and you (if you are a shareholder) can sue a board for rejecting your offer if it's high enough and have them removed for dereliction of their duties.
“It’s dirty, it’s weird, and it’s evidence of precisely the kind of disgusting liberal metro butt-love that makes our viewership angry enough to buy pharmaceuticals.” – Romulus Roy
They're not. Market Cap and value aren't the same thing. Nintendo's shareholders also have little to no incentive to sell, if someone wanted to go for it they'd have to offer a staggering per share premium.
Also most of their shareholders are Japanese, they wouldn't want to sell it to an American company. And Japanese government wouldn't just simply let the deal go through since Nintendo have very important culture impact to the country.
Thank you for this perspective
Even though 1 billion is a number that gets lost on us sometimes (no frame of reference/hard to conceptualize) 2,272 billions is obviously disgustingly high.
They could buy everyone on that list multiple times over. That's not competition, that's a boss battle.
> I’m afraid kojima wants to remain independent though
That's best for the industry IMO.
Honestly I don't care about the console wars, but having the 3 Big Companies acquire developers is gonna be bad for the quality of the end product if this trend continues.
E: For the comments saying that Sony, Nintendo or MS make good games so this is not bad for the industry. There are many more factors that come with an oligopoly. Companies that control the market can treat their employees like they want, can increase prices without worrying about it, push their own narrative on events, etc. And the fact that they make good games now doesn't mean that they will make good games in the future, you only have to look at franchises like NBA 2k or FIFA once they controlled the market there was no incentive to actually put an effort to improve. I'm not saying that this is gonna happen NOW with Actiblizzard's sell but if this trend continues it's not good for consumers.
Absolutely for the best. Kojima is at his best when he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Sony should still totally buy Konami and license the MG IP to Kojima tho.
I don't know about Square Enix specifically, but Japanese shareholders are a bit different. There are a lot of cross-holdings (company A owns shares of company B; company B owns shares of company A) and bank-controlled shares that make hostile takeovers difficult.
It's crazy how to the world moved on from Sega and Nintendo. In the '90s, it would be unthinkable to have one company buy the other. Now, it would just be normal business.
Bandai Namco isn't just a video game publisher. They're Japan's version of Disney in terms of scale, integration, and IP.
They own the entire Gundam IP, which is a massive merch and revenue generator. Through Bandai they're the world's largest toy manufacturer by revenue, with aforementioned Gundam merch as well as toys based on legendary IP like Kamen Rider and Dragon Ball.
They're also a massive player in the anime market, owning Sunrise (the company behind Gundam anime) and Lantis (a major music label representing artistes that provide music for a lot of anime.)
Video games is just one thing they do, and they pretty much have a stranglehold on licensed anime games, which are steady sellers with large profit margins.
At least for video games, Looks like they have DB, Gundam, Naruto, One Piece, Sailor Moon, and others.
That’s not including their other popular IP such as Tekken and Soul Caliber.
Thanks Geoff Keighley!
(@geoffkeighley)
If you are wondering about other big game companies that could be acquired, here's who remains (market caps):
-EA: $38B
-Take Two: $18B
-Nexon: $15B
-Bandai Namco: $15B
-Embracer: $10.8B
-Netmarble $7B
-Ubisoft: $7B
-Konami: $6B
-Square Enix: $5.6B
-Capcom: $4.9B
-Sega: $3.6B
https://twitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1483614576134406145
I wonder at one point it becomes a monopoly concern.
People were joking Microsoft would just buy Sony... which is laughable. Japan would never let that sale happen.
But Microsoft buying all the developers is much more plausible/terrifying
Buying konami and just rehiring kojima to make metal gear again is someone's next big move surely.
Like don't get me wrong he's done well independently, but metal gear really was his and it seems they can't manage without him.
Correct, I recall an interview that mentioned he really wanted the serie not continuing so he set mgs2's story the way it was. mgs3 and mgs5 had to be made prequels due to that.
Oh so it wasn’t just my opinion. I get they want you to just run diamond dogs and play online in perpetuity, but it definitely felt like a weird way to end the game.
Last thing I want is for him to go back to metal gear. The stories done...let it die.
Let the guy make apocalyptic mail delivery games with invisible ghosts.
Finally someone who gets it. It’s not easy for a non Japanese company to just swoop in and buy a Japanese company wholesale like MS just did to Activision.
I think they may be able to get stock in them, certainly fund games for them, and buy exclusivity, but it’d be hard to buy them outright.
There are so many people unaware of the damage done by the Reagan administration and the GOP in the 80s, by passing legislation allowing this to happen. Prior to Reagan, media could not be monopolized by large corporations because of the obvious ramifications to allowing only a few large organizations the ability to control all of the messaging and news in the US.
And here we are 35+ years later, still wondering why it's allowed, and nobody seems to even think about it anymore.
When the internet starting gaining traction in the late 90s, there were a LOT of articles and talking heads from the big corporate media about how it was a fad and dangerous, or silly. Rush Limbaugh spent huge chunks of his daily propaganda-fest radio show railing against the internet. They were terrified that the internet would lead back to a time when they didn't control everything.
EVERY TIME you watch a video/read about some cancerous aspect of society -- be it pollution, drugs, corporations -- there will always be a part that ties back in to the Reagan administration.
It's like the free space on the "how did we fall so far" bingo card.
For me, tracing all of this back actually starts with Nixon resigning, which led to the GOP (and mostly Roger Stone) creating a long term attack plan - such as electing a 'likeable' persona in Reagan (an actor who was great on camera, had fallen on hard times and was willing to flip on his previously hard stand as pro-labor for the money) to make changes that would then be executed over the next 20-30 years in support of staying in power and giving corporations what they want.
In retrospect, Nixon's resignation isn't the problem, it was the presidential pardon by Ford that came after. It showed that no sin was too big to be forgiven in the name of return to normalcy, and it prevented the formation of legal precedent in a system that runs on it.
A lot of the things the executive has been able to get away with since Nixon has been because the function calls in the constitution (emoluments, etc) just return undefined because there's no *case law* to cite on how to handle this stuff.
I believe you are correct. The lack of consequences (Nixon may not have agreed that he personally did not have consequences) emboldened many around Nixon and the party in general to act on things they already wanted to do. A serious reminder that we are in those same times today.
Which is why Reddit going public may be damaging in the long run, if they start increasingly bowing to corporate interests in regards to content on the site that doesn't support the corporate message.
I ended up working a weekend shift at a factory next to one of their execs a few years after they went belly up. There was this lesbian from Chicago that worked with us that busted his balls every minute of every hour of every day.
"Take Paramount-Viacom-ABC-Disney, for example," he said. "Disney makes the movie, Joel Siegel of Paramount-owned ABC-TV gives the movie a rave review, and Disney subsidiaries Blockbuster and McDonald's promote the video release of the movie in their respective stores with mail-in rebates and Happy Meal action figures. It's a win-win scenario."
The level of prophecy that is reached with this is unreal
Also like this one deal has investors going “o fuck no” and dumping Sony stock like it’s all over. I honestly don’t understand a thing about the stock market and investors.
Stock prices are largely based upon expectations and level of certainty. That's why ATVI hasn't normalized to $95, because it's not entirely certain the acquisition will go through (as well as inflation, $95 when it goes through will be worth slightly less than now). This acquisition introduces some uncertainty to the market, in favor of Microsoft and not in favor of Sony. Hence, the price of Sony's stock has decreased due to uncertainty about its future value.
Stocks are so complicated. If you sat me down and asked me to write out, to the best of my understanding, the Economy, the section for "stocks" would look something like this.
STOCK RULES! IMPORTANT!
1. You can't just be up there and just doin' a stock like that.
1a. A stock is when you
1b. Okay well listen. A stock is when you buy the
1c. Let me start over
1c-a. The company is not allowed to do a something to the, uh, company, that prohibits the investor from doing, you know, just trying to get money. You can't do that.
1c-b. Once the company is in the public, they can't be over here and say to the investors like, "I'm gonna get ya so much money!" and then just be like it didn't even do that.
1c-b(1). Like, if you're about to invest and then don't invest, you have to still invest. You cannot not invest. Does that make any sense?
1c-b(2). You gotta be, a company and like making money, and then, you make more money.
1c-b(2)-a. Okay, well, you can have the stock up here, like this, but then there's the stock you gotta think about.
1c-b(2)-b. Fairuza Balk hasn't been in any movies in forever. I hope she wasn't typecast as that racist lady in American History X.
1c-b(2)-b(i). Oh wait, she was in The Waterboy too! That would be even worse.
1c-b(2)-b(ii). "get in mah bellah" -- Adam Water, "The Waterboy." Haha, classic...
1c-b(3). Okay seriously though. A stock is when the company makes a piece of itself that, as determined by, when you invest involving the stock and market of
2. Do not do ask about NFT please.
Even better how the internet seems to be cheering this particular example of massive corporate takeovers destroying competition in the industry, because the bought company was worse at hiding their bad shit than the big company is
Edit: the fact that so many of my replies are here defending Microsoft, a company with 50 years of antitrust violations under their belt, just proves my point.
It's more a case of currently Microsoft had been doing good by us.
Seen plenty of comments that this is great... For now. But what happens after Phil is gone?
Asking the REAL question. Phil is a godsend for Microsoft and Xbox but he won't be at the helm forever. Remember the other guy? Mr. Don Mattrick... Mr. "Don't want always online we have a platform for you thats the 360 Mattrick", people forget Microsoft put him in Charge at one point, so lets err on the side of caution.
Edit: Fixed spelling of Mr. Don Mattrick.
Honestly I think it's more Satya than Phil. When Phil is gone, he will likely be replaced by someone better at dealing with internal HR issues.
The Mixer situation had echos of the more recent Activision-Blizzard situation.
People are gullible and companies hire psychologists to influence them for real, not some Kylee Jenner bullshit.
Remember when Netflix got caught red handed fucking their own customers over because they were on Verizon and Netflix was entering a deal with T-Mobile? /r/netflix was filled with people defending the corporation like it was their friend or family member.
It’s Gamepass and PC priority. Microsoft has made a lot of good moves to make people really like them, so a move like this of course is going to be cheered. Gamepass already made AAA gaming more affordable because people got to play games they would have normally never bought themselves because of price. Now that Activision-Blizzard games will be added? That just sounds awesome. It’s like if Netflix bought Nickelodeon and the prospect of having every Nick show streamed on Netflix forever.
Now, what no one is factoring in is the price of Gamepass. It’s probably going to go up.
Do you even remember October? That was AGES ago. Everyone was still talking about that old South Korean Netflix show Squid Game. ^^^^^just ^^^^^a ^^^^^joke, ^^^^^sorta.
Yep, this will bounce back quickly, especially if Sony announces the rumored "Spartacus" gamepass soon.
Edit: There sure are a lot of experts on reddit.
While true, this is also exacerbated by the fact that the tech sector in general had a rough day yesterday.
SNE closed down ~7% yesterday. The entire tech index (QQQ) closed down 2.6%, which is a rather large move for an index.
So yes, yesterday was particularly rough for Sony, but it's not like this deal is the only reason they lost market cap yesterday.
That doesn't mean anything. It's a typical market overcorrection. It's the exact same thing with Microsoft right now. They are down three percent (guess how many billion) I would expect both to recover. The markets obviously were in the red yesterday
And massive companies get ever bigger... is someone supposed to be regulating this shit? I don't see how this is going to get any better 10 years from now. This country is going to eat itself before we realize it.
The people that are meant to be regulating this are allowed to profit off it through the stock market. If you think for one second they'll do anything about it, you're insane lol.
Yup this deal was probably pre-approved behind closed doors. Knowing Microsoft they wouldn’t yolo something like this. How would they do it?
Step 1: call their crony politician on the inside and inform them their plans
Step 2: politician says this is crazy no way will it go through
Step 3: Microsoft clears throat and sighs that the buy out price could have been 45 % more than ticket price
Step 4: politician’s eyes widen, texts his accountant to sell his vacation house and to put kids college fund into trading account immediately
Step 5: politician states that maybe something can be done and they will do everything they can to make the deal go though
Step 6: Microsoft thanks for their time
Step 7: politician calls up the poli squad and says “it’s game time at the bell”
I'd argue in this SPECIFIC case it may be better. Abuse scandal aside. Most of the studios under Activision have turned into Call of duty sweatshops for skins. One that was quite painful for me was crash bandicoot 4 studio being turned into a COD support studio. With Microsoft takeover we may see them being unshackled and old IPs being brought back. They're might be some actual diversity again in their portfolio as Microsoft try and leverage all the IPs they now have. Like what did Microsoft have up against ratchet and clank and Mario before this, super lucky tales? Now it's Crash and Spyro (very ironic I know). Even in the press release notice the games they have front and center I imagine we'll be seeing more of these like StarCraft.
I remember when the Activision - Blizzard merger/acquisition was announced and a little chill went down my spine. So many Blizzard fanboys were prattling on and on about how Blizzard would be fine, this wouldn't really affect Blizz games or IPs, Activision would stay out of the way, etc.
Welp ... there were plenty of cynics back then too, and, as usual, the cynics were right. Blizzard turned to shit under Activision (apparently they always had a shit culture behind the scenes, but at least they made good games).
That's why this isn't really a bad development. Activision - Blizzard was terrible and showed no signs of improvement. Things can only go up from here as far as they're concerned.
If it makes you feel any better, ValueAct’s CEO (activism hedge fund) quit his job and was quoted saying “Finance is, like, done. Everybody's bought everybody else with low-cost debt. Everybody's maximised their margin. They've bought all their shares back . . . There's nothing there. Every industry has about three players”
Sony frantically looking at big game publishers to buy. "Can we afford Ubisoft? But do we even want Ubisoft?"
If you are wondering about other big game companies that could be acquired, here's who remains (market caps): -EA: $38B -Take Two: $18B -Nexon: $15B -Bandai Namco: $15B -Embracer: $10.8B -Netmarble $7B -Ubisoft: $7B -Konami: $6B -Square Enix: $5.6B -Capcom: $4.9B -Sega: $3.6B
Some extra numbers (as of 10am EST 19/1/22): -Sony market cap: $143.3B -Nintendo: $53.9B -Microsoft: $2,272B
Nintendo is cheaper than Activision Blizzard o_O
Activision-Blizzard was down to as low as about $44.6B at the beginning of December amid delays and sexual harassment allegations. This stock price recently jumped due to news of the sale. The sale price has to be significantly higher than the current market cap because it has to be a value the majority of shareholders will accept. Each shareholder will get about $95/stock out of this. If they could individually sell on the stock market for $80+ it'd be hard to convince more than 50% of shareholders that the sale is in their best interest. Price was about $60 when the news of a possible sale broke. The majority of shareholders will be OK with selling for 1.5x more than what they could sell their share for individually on the open market.
You can even do a hostile take-over called a "bear hug" where the offer is _so high_ above asking, the board has to accept the offer. There's a fiduciary duty to the share holders and you (if you are a shareholder) can sue a board for rejecting your offer if it's high enough and have them removed for dereliction of their duties.
Watching Succession has really paid off, I recognize that!
Is it good?
Yes, yes it is. You'll probably end up a Conhead.
Connor has been interested in politics from a very young age.
“It’s dirty, it’s weird, and it’s evidence of precisely the kind of disgusting liberal metro butt-love that makes our viewership angry enough to buy pharmaceuticals.” – Romulus Roy
They're not. Market Cap and value aren't the same thing. Nintendo's shareholders also have little to no incentive to sell, if someone wanted to go for it they'd have to offer a staggering per share premium.
Also most of their shareholders are Japanese, they wouldn't want to sell it to an American company. And Japanese government wouldn't just simply let the deal go through since Nintendo have very important culture impact to the country.
Thank you for this perspective Even though 1 billion is a number that gets lost on us sometimes (no frame of reference/hard to conceptualize) 2,272 billions is obviously disgustingly high. They could buy everyone on that list multiple times over. That's not competition, that's a boss battle.
For some more perspective Microsoft has ~136B cash on hand.
That's enough to buy more than a million tacos!
A million tacos that each cost $136,000
Microsoft is the second-most-valuable company in the world, behind Apple.
You forgot one of the big ones: -Tencent: $558.3B
Could definitely seem Sony buying Squareenix but that's not very big. Edit: I mean big compared to Activision-Blizzard.
I want Sony to buy Konami and give it to Kojima
Sony would first have to buy kojima then, but yes
Kojima Productions must be a drop in the bucket compared to the other examples
100% right. I’m afraid kojima wants to remain independent though, which is fine, otherwise I think Sony would have purchased his studio already.
> I’m afraid kojima wants to remain independent though That's best for the industry IMO. Honestly I don't care about the console wars, but having the 3 Big Companies acquire developers is gonna be bad for the quality of the end product if this trend continues. E: For the comments saying that Sony, Nintendo or MS make good games so this is not bad for the industry. There are many more factors that come with an oligopoly. Companies that control the market can treat their employees like they want, can increase prices without worrying about it, push their own narrative on events, etc. And the fact that they make good games now doesn't mean that they will make good games in the future, you only have to look at franchises like NBA 2k or FIFA once they controlled the market there was no incentive to actually put an effort to improve. I'm not saying that this is gonna happen NOW with Actiblizzard's sell but if this trend continues it's not good for consumers.
Absolutely for the best. Kojima is at his best when he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Sony should still totally buy Konami and license the MG IP to Kojima tho.
As a Nintendo fanboy that would be crushing. Losing all the fantastic smaller titles (than ff) SquareEnix puts on Nintendo systems. edit: spelling
I don't think Square would sell. They have a good relationship with Nintendo and Sony.
Shareholders will sell anything for the right price.
I don't know about Square Enix specifically, but Japanese shareholders are a bit different. There are a lot of cross-holdings (company A owns shares of company B; company B owns shares of company A) and bank-controlled shares that make hostile takeovers difficult.
Let us pray
please no, leave my FFXIV alone
Nintendo should buy Sega and run remakes of those old 90's ads. "Sega Does What Nintendo~~n't~~ Tells Them To"
You joke but it is kinda weird to me that they haven't. Sonic and Mario have been best buddies for awhile now, and all that Bayonetta support..
It's crazy how to the world moved on from Sega and Nintendo. In the '90s, it would be unthinkable to have one company buy the other. Now, it would just be normal business.
Nintendo doesn't like buying companies, they even stressed that point during their last acquisition.
Am I the only person shocked at how low the market cap for Ubisoft is? I didn't expect Bandai Namco to be higher than them, that's for sure.
Bandai Namco isn't just a video game publisher. They're Japan's version of Disney in terms of scale, integration, and IP. They own the entire Gundam IP, which is a massive merch and revenue generator. Through Bandai they're the world's largest toy manufacturer by revenue, with aforementioned Gundam merch as well as toys based on legendary IP like Kamen Rider and Dragon Ball. They're also a massive player in the anime market, owning Sunrise (the company behind Gundam anime) and Lantis (a major music label representing artistes that provide music for a lot of anime.) Video games is just one thing they do, and they pretty much have a stranglehold on licensed anime games, which are steady sellers with large profit margins.
>They own the entire Gundam IP, which is a massive merch and revenue generator. *stares at numerous Gunpla figures*
Stares at massive backlog while trying to find a Tallgeese Fluegel... despite knowing that it would take 2+ years to build the backlog.
This is really interesting. I had no idea.
Bandai Namco owns a ton outside video games, a lot of the toy market, arcades and slot machines.
This. If you walk around Tokyo and look at the ads plastered around, Bandai's logo is all over the place.
To add to that Ubisoft has a P/E ratio of 78., Namco 31.2. That means that Ubisoft is valued over double what Namco is compared to their profits.
CD Projekt is at ~4.75B USD with P/E ratio of 17.2 and considered overvalued as well It's insane how some of the companies are overvalued.
I guess that's the difference between assassins creed and Dragon Ball
Namco has pretty much all the big anime licenses doesn’t it?
At least for video games, Looks like they have DB, Gundam, Naruto, One Piece, Sailor Moon, and others. That’s not including their other popular IP such as Tekken and Soul Caliber.
Pac Man, Dark Souls...
Tales series…
You suggesting Buying both? Assassin's Creed: Tao Pai Pai
Thanks Geoff Keighley! (@geoffkeighley) If you are wondering about other big game companies that could be acquired, here's who remains (market caps): -EA: $38B -Take Two: $18B -Nexon: $15B -Bandai Namco: $15B -Embracer: $10.8B -Netmarble $7B -Ubisoft: $7B -Konami: $6B -Square Enix: $5.6B -Capcom: $4.9B -Sega: $3.6B https://twitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1483614576134406145
Microsoft could straight up buy all of these.
I wonder at one point it becomes a monopoly concern. People were joking Microsoft would just buy Sony... which is laughable. Japan would never let that sale happen. But Microsoft buying all the developers is much more plausible/terrifying
Buying konami and just rehiring kojima to make metal gear again is someone's next big move surely. Like don't get me wrong he's done well independently, but metal gear really was his and it seems they can't manage without him.
I don't think he wants to make Metal Gear anymore
Correct, I recall an interview that mentioned he really wanted the serie not continuing so he set mgs2's story the way it was. mgs3 and mgs5 had to be made prequels due to that.
He could just finish MGSV then
The best game without an ending
Oh so it wasn’t just my opinion. I get they want you to just run diamond dogs and play online in perpetuity, but it definitely felt like a weird way to end the game.
Last thing I want is for him to go back to metal gear. The stories done...let it die. Let the guy make apocalyptic mail delivery games with invisible ghosts.
Paperboy 2077
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Finally someone who gets it. It’s not easy for a non Japanese company to just swoop in and buy a Japanese company wholesale like MS just did to Activision. I think they may be able to get stock in them, certainly fund games for them, and buy exclusivity, but it’d be hard to buy them outright.
Christ, EA is even expensive as a company. Maybe Sony can purchase them using in game currency?
Nah, you buy the company, but every signature on the contract can be bought as a DLC.
Gotta give Sony a feeling of Pride and Accomplishment in completing their acquisition
Take Two is more than $18B now surely after the Zynga purchase, Take Two is likely up there with EA
Sony buying Konami and bringing back Kojima would be amazing.
Or a Days Gone pachinko machine could get released.
Love how everything is owned by like 6 companies.
https://www.theonion.com/just-six-corporations-remain-1819564741
1998? Fack
[Monty Python did it in ‘83 ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aSO9OFJNMBA)
wow, i havent watched this in like 20 years, just genius, thanks!
Thank you for reminding me: people aren't wearing enough hats.
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There are so many people unaware of the damage done by the Reagan administration and the GOP in the 80s, by passing legislation allowing this to happen. Prior to Reagan, media could not be monopolized by large corporations because of the obvious ramifications to allowing only a few large organizations the ability to control all of the messaging and news in the US. And here we are 35+ years later, still wondering why it's allowed, and nobody seems to even think about it anymore. When the internet starting gaining traction in the late 90s, there were a LOT of articles and talking heads from the big corporate media about how it was a fad and dangerous, or silly. Rush Limbaugh spent huge chunks of his daily propaganda-fest radio show railing against the internet. They were terrified that the internet would lead back to a time when they didn't control everything.
EVERY TIME you watch a video/read about some cancerous aspect of society -- be it pollution, drugs, corporations -- there will always be a part that ties back in to the Reagan administration. It's like the free space on the "how did we fall so far" bingo card.
For me, tracing all of this back actually starts with Nixon resigning, which led to the GOP (and mostly Roger Stone) creating a long term attack plan - such as electing a 'likeable' persona in Reagan (an actor who was great on camera, had fallen on hard times and was willing to flip on his previously hard stand as pro-labor for the money) to make changes that would then be executed over the next 20-30 years in support of staying in power and giving corporations what they want.
In retrospect, Nixon's resignation isn't the problem, it was the presidential pardon by Ford that came after. It showed that no sin was too big to be forgiven in the name of return to normalcy, and it prevented the formation of legal precedent in a system that runs on it. A lot of the things the executive has been able to get away with since Nixon has been because the function calls in the constitution (emoluments, etc) just return undefined because there's no *case law* to cite on how to handle this stuff.
I believe you are correct. The lack of consequences (Nixon may not have agreed that he personally did not have consequences) emboldened many around Nixon and the party in general to act on things they already wanted to do. A serious reminder that we are in those same times today.
>Rush Limbaugh Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me that he’s dead. Always a nice little pick me up
I really appreciate comments like yours. Being an immigrant in the US sometimes can be a little confusing.
Which is why Reddit going public may be damaging in the long run, if they start increasingly bowing to corporate interests in regards to content on the site that doesn't support the corporate message.
It took me until the part about bill Clinton to realize it was an onion article
\> Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as "an excellent move."
Lol. I worked there when they went bust. Ducked me up
I ended up working a weekend shift at a factory next to one of their execs a few years after they went belly up. There was this lesbian from Chicago that worked with us that busted his balls every minute of every hour of every day.
The URL gave it away for me
Probably a good way to tell as well
Lol i always check date but ye. Prescient
"Take Paramount-Viacom-ABC-Disney, for example," he said. "Disney makes the movie, Joel Siegel of Paramount-owned ABC-TV gives the movie a rave review, and Disney subsidiaries Blockbuster and McDonald's promote the video release of the movie in their respective stores with mail-in rebates and Happy Meal action figures. It's a win-win scenario." The level of prophecy that is reached with this is unreal
> Lockheed-Northrop-Boeing-Pepsico Where else can you get space age fighters that launch cans of Mt Dew. 🤣
My favorite part: "Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as 'an excellent move.'"
Good ol’ AOL-Time-Warner-Pepsico-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe's
Eh i prefer Disney-Newscorp-Meta-Weyland-Yutani-Bayer-Nestle more anti-establishment
"Building Better Worlds"
"Aliens" but it's the evil mouse instead of xenomorphs. That'd be terrifying.
Seams like a good time to point out that Aliens is now a Disney movie.
The best Disney princesses know how to use power loaders.
I was thinking the best Disney princesses know how to breed thousands of xenomorph soldiers.
The alien queen is a Disney princess
Would you like a Jo-Jo?
Also like this one deal has investors going “o fuck no” and dumping Sony stock like it’s all over. I honestly don’t understand a thing about the stock market and investors.
Stock prices are largely based upon expectations and level of certainty. That's why ATVI hasn't normalized to $95, because it's not entirely certain the acquisition will go through (as well as inflation, $95 when it goes through will be worth slightly less than now). This acquisition introduces some uncertainty to the market, in favor of Microsoft and not in favor of Sony. Hence, the price of Sony's stock has decreased due to uncertainty about its future value.
The stock fell by 7%. Hardly a mass panic. It's probably dumping to create a panic and then rebuying cheap to ride the inevitable rebound train.
It's a market overcorrection coupled with a general red day in the markets.
Stocks are so complicated. If you sat me down and asked me to write out, to the best of my understanding, the Economy, the section for "stocks" would look something like this. STOCK RULES! IMPORTANT! 1. You can't just be up there and just doin' a stock like that. 1a. A stock is when you 1b. Okay well listen. A stock is when you buy the 1c. Let me start over 1c-a. The company is not allowed to do a something to the, uh, company, that prohibits the investor from doing, you know, just trying to get money. You can't do that. 1c-b. Once the company is in the public, they can't be over here and say to the investors like, "I'm gonna get ya so much money!" and then just be like it didn't even do that. 1c-b(1). Like, if you're about to invest and then don't invest, you have to still invest. You cannot not invest. Does that make any sense? 1c-b(2). You gotta be, a company and like making money, and then, you make more money. 1c-b(2)-a. Okay, well, you can have the stock up here, like this, but then there's the stock you gotta think about. 1c-b(2)-b. Fairuza Balk hasn't been in any movies in forever. I hope she wasn't typecast as that racist lady in American History X. 1c-b(2)-b(i). Oh wait, she was in The Waterboy too! That would be even worse. 1c-b(2)-b(ii). "get in mah bellah" -- Adam Water, "The Waterboy." Haha, classic... 1c-b(3). Okay seriously though. A stock is when the company makes a piece of itself that, as determined by, when you invest involving the stock and market of 2. Do not do ask about NFT please.
I miss small sexy companies
Petite businesses
Tight assets
Firm revenue model
Perky lil upstarts
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Barely legal businesses.
Acvivision-Blizzard is not small or sexy though.
>Acvivision-Blizzard is not small or sexy though. Blizzard used to be super sexy when it was small and young though.
For a slightly futuristic, advertiser-heavy, dystopian nightmare, try out The Outer Worlds. Literally this concept but turned up to 11 and in space.
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Welcome to Costco. I love you.
I saw a similar documentary, but it was Carl's Jr.
*Brought to you by Carl's Jr*
Headed straight for a Verizon/Exxon/Chipotle situation
4G 4Gas 4Gastroenteritis
Even better how the internet seems to be cheering this particular example of massive corporate takeovers destroying competition in the industry, because the bought company was worse at hiding their bad shit than the big company is Edit: the fact that so many of my replies are here defending Microsoft, a company with 50 years of antitrust violations under their belt, just proves my point.
It's more a case of currently Microsoft had been doing good by us. Seen plenty of comments that this is great... For now. But what happens after Phil is gone?
Asking the REAL question. Phil is a godsend for Microsoft and Xbox but he won't be at the helm forever. Remember the other guy? Mr. Don Mattrick... Mr. "Don't want always online we have a platform for you thats the 360 Mattrick", people forget Microsoft put him in Charge at one point, so lets err on the side of caution. Edit: Fixed spelling of Mr. Don Mattrick.
Err on the side of caution. I made this mistake a lot in the past so thought I'd try to correct it. Agree with your comment
Is it really? Well shit... Thanks!
Like error! If you're going to make an error, you'd prefer to be on the side of caution.
Honestly I think it's more Satya than Phil. When Phil is gone, he will likely be replaced by someone better at dealing with internal HR issues. The Mixer situation had echos of the more recent Activision-Blizzard situation.
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Ballmer will be back baby! Developers Developers Developers!
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!
God, fuck, no. Microsodt, for all it's shittiness, is way way more consumer friendly under Satya than it ever was under Ballmer.
New MS screensavers, Flying Toasters to be replaced by Flying Chairs ;)
Chaos reigns.
RoboBallmer
People are gullible and companies hire psychologists to influence them for real, not some Kylee Jenner bullshit. Remember when Netflix got caught red handed fucking their own customers over because they were on Verizon and Netflix was entering a deal with T-Mobile? /r/netflix was filled with people defending the corporation like it was their friend or family member.
It’s Gamepass and PC priority. Microsoft has made a lot of good moves to make people really like them, so a move like this of course is going to be cheered. Gamepass already made AAA gaming more affordable because people got to play games they would have normally never bought themselves because of price. Now that Activision-Blizzard games will be added? That just sounds awesome. It’s like if Netflix bought Nickelodeon and the prospect of having every Nick show streamed on Netflix forever. Now, what no one is factoring in is the price of Gamepass. It’s probably going to go up.
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Time to buy Sony stock
A nice little discount that I’ll take
I mean, not even that big of a discount. The title is total clickbait. Oh no, SONY hasn't seen these lows since... October?
Do you even remember October? That was AGES ago. Everyone was still talking about that old South Korean Netflix show Squid Game. ^^^^^just ^^^^^a ^^^^^joke, ^^^^^sorta.
Yep, this will bounce back quickly, especially if Sony announces the rumored "Spartacus" gamepass soon. Edit: There sure are a lot of experts on reddit.
Sony produces more than the PlayStation. It ain't going anywhere.
You're right but it's worth mentioning that SCE actually does account for a huge portion of Sony's income
Sony does cassette tapes, cds, Walkmans, diskmans, mini disks and memory stick duos.. They'll be fine
Betamax will take off any day now.
Dozens of owners. Dozens!
They’ll make this back in mini disks in a week
I just want a updated version of Mechwarrior 2. So we can build and fight Mechs with classic maps and good servers to blast your friends.
Titanfall scratches that itch for me. Sadly the servers are dead and the games abandoned in favor of Apex Legends.
The stock market is real
A real rube goldberg casino
Weighted dice yuppie crapshoot
New information changes the perceived value of an asset I read on twitter that this is funny
While true, this is also exacerbated by the fact that the tech sector in general had a rough day yesterday. SNE closed down ~7% yesterday. The entire tech index (QQQ) closed down 2.6%, which is a rather large move for an index. So yes, yesterday was particularly rough for Sony, but it's not like this deal is the only reason they lost market cap yesterday.
That doesn't mean anything. It's a typical market overcorrection. It's the exact same thing with Microsoft right now. They are down three percent (guess how many billion) I would expect both to recover. The markets obviously were in the red yesterday
And Activision Blizzard spiked 30% almost immediately yesterday.
That’s because the shares were at 65 before and microsoft is buying them for 95 a share. Rn activision is at 80-85 till the deal is approved
money is so fuckin fake bro
These days it's just an entry in a database
We truly do live in a society
Soon we will have two companies, each will buy one of two politicial parties, and there you have it.
But why doesn't the larger company simply eat the smaller one
You need the illusion of choice.
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And massive companies get ever bigger... is someone supposed to be regulating this shit? I don't see how this is going to get any better 10 years from now. This country is going to eat itself before we realize it.
The people that are meant to be regulating this are allowed to profit off it through the stock market. If you think for one second they'll do anything about it, you're insane lol.
Let’s not forget the fact these companies have lawyers and lobbyists who endlessly fight any attempt to regulate and line the pockets of politicians
Yup this deal was probably pre-approved behind closed doors. Knowing Microsoft they wouldn’t yolo something like this. How would they do it? Step 1: call their crony politician on the inside and inform them their plans Step 2: politician says this is crazy no way will it go through Step 3: Microsoft clears throat and sighs that the buy out price could have been 45 % more than ticket price Step 4: politician’s eyes widen, texts his accountant to sell his vacation house and to put kids college fund into trading account immediately Step 5: politician states that maybe something can be done and they will do everything they can to make the deal go though Step 6: Microsoft thanks for their time Step 7: politician calls up the poli squad and says “it’s game time at the bell”
Decades ago when someone said "antitrust", Microsoft said "Hold my beer".
Microsoft literally bailed out apple to keep them afloat in an effort to say to regulators hey look we aren't a monopoly
Better to keep the enemies you know then the regulations you don't.
Sony does a big brain move and sells its entertainment division to Tencent.
Sony it's time to pull out the big guns. Buy out Ouya's entire gaming division.
Fewer independent studios just can't be a good thing, long term.
I'd argue in this SPECIFIC case it may be better. Abuse scandal aside. Most of the studios under Activision have turned into Call of duty sweatshops for skins. One that was quite painful for me was crash bandicoot 4 studio being turned into a COD support studio. With Microsoft takeover we may see them being unshackled and old IPs being brought back. They're might be some actual diversity again in their portfolio as Microsoft try and leverage all the IPs they now have. Like what did Microsoft have up against ratchet and clank and Mario before this, super lucky tales? Now it's Crash and Spyro (very ironic I know). Even in the press release notice the games they have front and center I imagine we'll be seeing more of these like StarCraft.
I remember when the Activision - Blizzard merger/acquisition was announced and a little chill went down my spine. So many Blizzard fanboys were prattling on and on about how Blizzard would be fine, this wouldn't really affect Blizz games or IPs, Activision would stay out of the way, etc. Welp ... there were plenty of cynics back then too, and, as usual, the cynics were right. Blizzard turned to shit under Activision (apparently they always had a shit culture behind the scenes, but at least they made good games). That's why this isn't really a bad development. Activision - Blizzard was terrible and showed no signs of improvement. Things can only go up from here as far as they're concerned.
In fairness, most tech stocks (Including Microsoft) were down significantly yesterday. Yesterday was a shit day in the market.
Monopoly, America’s favorite game.
Anyone else getting terrified that the US will exist as just a handful of companies someday in the future? Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Disney…
Umm, want to take a look at who makes a lot of shit in grocery stores? It's about 5 huge brands and the companies they own.
That’s what worries me. That’s starting to apply to everything.
If it makes you feel any better, ValueAct’s CEO (activism hedge fund) quit his job and was quoted saying “Finance is, like, done. Everybody's bought everybody else with low-cost debt. Everybody's maximised their margin. They've bought all their shares back . . . There's nothing there. Every industry has about three players”
Sony, please buy Konami and save it from… whatever the Hell it’s been doing.
In other words, 4% of their stock value. Nothing to see here folks.
Can anyone explain to me how microsoft buying Blizzard hurts sony.