Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

Re:Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox emp... by jmyeet on Thursday January 25, 2024 @10:38AM (#39130645)

When this was announced my question was "is Microsoft buying Call of Duty or are they buying Activision-Blizzard?" CoD is a reliable cash cow and driver for consoles with an annual game release. It makes a lot of money.

Activision-Blizzard owns a lot of valuble IP that they could absolutely further monetize. It remains to be seen if Microsoft has the vision or desire to capitalize on that. There is a huge gap with Blizzard IP mostly not being on consoles.

It's worth noting that Microsoft just became the second $3 trillion market cap company. Yet we still have the same old playbook of raising prices and cutting costs, employees be damned.

I do wonder if Microsoft will try and replace artists with AIs to further save costs.

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Re:Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox emp... by trzeci on Thursday January 25, 2024 @11:27AM (#39131300)

You might be surprised what is the real money printer in ABK.

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Re:Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox emp... by blasphemers on Thursday January 25, 2024 @11:46AM (#39131566)

Yea, if the acquisition was only about one thing, it was definitely mobile

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Re:Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox emp... by dehrmann on Thursday January 25, 2024 @11:52AM (#39131670)

Candy Crush?

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Re:Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox emp... by jmyeet on Thursday January 25, 2024 @11:47AM (#39131580)

I'm aware of Candy Crush being a money printer but we're talking about Activision-Blizzard. CoD is important not only because it sells a lot of copies (and, more importantly, cosmetics in-game) but it's one of those titles that's key to selling more consoles. There's a synergy between CoD and Xbox.

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