In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft immediately lastly accomplished its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King after 21 months of prep work and grappling with regulatory our bodies. The $69 billion deal sees a number of of gaming’s most profitable franchises come beneath the Microsoft/Xbox umbrella, together with Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, and so on. However, this begs the query: Now that the entire rigmarole of acquisition is finished, what occurs for Activision Blizzard now?
The brief reply, coming from Phil Spencer himself, seems to be that Microsoft is working to get Activision Blizzard video games onto Xbox Game Pass. He didn’t say particularly which video games — and Activision Blizzard has mentioned it anticipates its video games hitting Game Pass subsequent 12 months on the earliest. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is more likely to retire someday early subsequent 12 months, most likely taking with him his $15 million golden parachute.
As for the information exterior the acquisition, a very powerful information that I can see is that video games staff are beginning to unionize in response to the growing variety of trade layoffs. According to my colleague Jordan Fragen’s current report, there have been over 6,100 layoffs simply because the starting of the 12 months. Now this week we’ve heard that staff from CD Projekt Red and Avalanche have begun the transfer to unionize, with the previous doing so in response to the corporate’s a number of waves of layoffs.
In private information, I’m hustling to complete my overview of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 in time for the embargo carry on Monday. I’ve no scarcity of video games to play in October as soon as I’m finished with that — Assassin’s Creed Mirage awaits me, as does Lords of the Fallen and Super Mario Bros Wonder (with new voice actor Kevin Afghani) later this month. I additionally realized that Microids is remaking its Agatha Christie title Murder on the Orient Express. I’m unsure why I’m getting remakes of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened and one among my different point-and-click favorites in a single 12 months, however I’m not complaining.
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What to play this week
What’s new:
- Lords of the Fallen
- Forza Motorsport
- Saltsea Chronicles
- Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless
- Star Trek: Infinite
- Wild Card Football
- Hotel: A Resort Simulator
New on subscription providers:
- From Space (Xbox Game Pass)
- The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters (Prime Gaming)
- Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp (Prime Gaming)
- Tribe: Primitive Builder (GeForce Now)
- Bad North (GeForce Now)
- Call of the Sea (GeForce Now)
- For The King (GeForce Now)
- Golf With Your Friends (GeForce Now)
- Metro Simulator 2 (GeForce Now)
- Moonbreaker (GeForce Now)
- Narita Boy (GeForce Now)
- Rubber Bandits (GeForce Now)
- Sifu (GeForce Now)
- Star Renegades (GeForce Now)
- Streets of Rogue (GeForce Now)
- Supraland (GeForce Now)
- Supraland Six Inches Under (GeForce Now)
- The Surge (GeForce Now)
- Tiny Football (GeForce Now)
- Yes, Your Grace (GeForce Now)
- Cut the Rope 3 (Apple Arcade)
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