With all the talk surrounding Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a 3rd branch of the company is often forgotten about: King. Despite this, the mobile game publisher remains a huge part of the industry, with just one game – Candy Crush Saga – having raked in over $20 Billion since …
Read More »Ubisoft reckons cloud gaming will see a Netflix-like rise in users over next decade
Ubisoft has been an early proponent of cloud gaming, having worked with Google in the early days of Stadia, before pivoting to services like GeForce Now and Amazon Luna. Game streaming is still niche, but Ubisoft believes it will eventually take over the games industry. Ubisoft is in the process …
Read More »Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is finally coming to Steam
After spending years away from the platform, Activision finally announced that it would bring all future published titles to Steam. This began with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II late last year and since then we have seen a number of missing Activision titles added to the platform. Finally, the …
Read More »Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has sold over 10 million copies
After working on Souls-likes for over a decade, FromSoftware branched out back in 2019, releasing the Activision-published Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Despite being a brand new IP, the game seems to have resonated with a great deal of people, as the studio has now announced that Sekiro has sold over …
Read More »Older Call of Duty games might be coming to Game Pass soon
With the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard seemingly finally set to go through fully, the Xbox console manufacturer appears to be preparing to bring the publisher’s back catalogue of titles to Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service – starting with Call of Duty. As reported by Twitter page ‘Game Pass Tracker’ …
Read More »The CMA provisionally approves Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition
While the UK's Competition & Markets Authority initially chose to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, things have changed in recent months. Both parties paused appeal proceedings to evaluate a new version of the merger, in which Activision's cloud gaming rights would be sold off to Ubisoft. Now, the CMA …
Read More »Spyro Reignited Trilogy has sold over 10 million copies
September 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of Spyro the Dragon – an iconic PS1 mascot which helped cement the 5th console generation as being one of the best when it came to 3D platformers and collectathons. Despite losing its cache over the decades, Spyro came back in a massive way …
Read More »Call of Duty introduces real-time voice chat moderation using AI
The video game industry has – particularly in the past – been notorious for its toxicity when it comes to online gaming and voice chats. Being one of the biggest franchises in gaming, Call of Duty has always struggled to get some of its users to reign in such behaviour. …
Read More »It’ll “take time” to bring Activision titles to Game Pass says Phil Spencer
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard to the tune of $68.7 Billion has not been a simple process. While it seems as though the deal will eventually go through fully, head of Xbox Phil Spencer has now spoken on the matter, claiming that even upon the deal’s completion, fans will be …
Read More »Diablo IV surpasses 12 million players
Diablo IV has undoubtedly been one of the biggest games of the year, both as a result of its pre-launch hype and post-launch performance. Alongside the announcement of the game’s second Season, Blizzard revealed that in the 2+ months since its release, Diablo IV has surpassed 12 million players. Announced …
Read More »Call of Duty: NEXT event goes live in October
During the most recent Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase, we got our first proper look at the campaign for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Ahead of the game’s release on the 10th of November, the team have now confirmed that we will finally get to see what multiplayer looks …
Read More »Microsoft will give Ubisoft control of Activision cloud rights in effort to gain UK deal approval
Last month, Microsoft and the CMA jointly agreed to put the appeal process on hold to go back to the drawing board on the proposed Activision Blizzard merger. At that time, the deadline for closing the deal was also extended. Now, we finally have an update from the CMA, revealing that Microsoft plans to sell off its cloud gaming rights to Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft.
Read More »Long-time Treyarch lead David Vonderhaar has left the studio
While Call of Duty is no longer seen by many to be the industry juggernaut that it once was, the annual FPS franchise continues to be one of the best selling games of the year every single year. One of the lead minds at Treyarch during the rise of Call …
Read More »Call of Duty MWIII ‘worldwide reveal’ slated for next Thursday
For a while, it seemed as though Call of Duty would be skipping a year, with 2023 set to introduce an expansion-like experience into last year’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare II. Since then, Activision confirmed that we would be seeing a brand new full-blown COD entry this year. Following a number of brief teasers, the team have now officially confirmed that Call of Duty Modern Warfare III’s ‘Worldwide Reveal’ will take place next week.
Read More »COD MWII Warzone rebranded to just ‘Call of Duty’
Ever since the launch of the first Warzone back in 2020, Call of Duty has tied its free-to-play battle royale experience to the mainline games, with Warzone 2 similarly being attached to last year’s Modern Warfare II. in an interesting move, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II Warzone has now …
Read More »Hasbro wants Microsoft to bring back Activision’s old Transformers games
Activision has made many beloved licensed games over the years, most of which have been lost to time. With Microsoft now set to acquire Activision this year, there is some hope that we'll see some classic games return. Hasbro seems to be particularly keen to bring back Activision's old Transformers …
Read More »Snoop Dogg, Nicki Minaj and more coming to Call of Duty
Back in April of last year, real-life rapper Snoop Dogg was added into a number of Call of Duty titles. Now, with Warzone 2 and MW2 out in the world, “The D O Double G” is once again making an appearance – this time being joined by Nicki Minaj, 21 …
Read More »Activision confirms that COD MWII weapons and more will carry over to 2023 title
While it was initially believed that Call of Duty would be skipping 2023 in order to give Treyarch more time to work on their next game, the publisher later revealed that a new standalone Call of Duty title will be coming out this year. Now known to be Modern Warfare …
Read More »Microsoft and Activision extend deadline to complete merger
While Microsoft could have completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard this week after winning its case against the FTC in the US, doing so would have meant closing over the UK's CMA, which did object to the deal back in April. Since then, the CMA has seemingly had a change …
Read More »Microsoft and Sony agree on deal to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation after Activision merger
After Microsoft announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in January 2022, the company extended an offer to Sony to ensure that Call of Duty remains on PlayStation. The offer started off as a multi-year deal but eventually grew into a ten-year deal. So far, Sony has refused to sign the …
Read More »Call of Duty’s Battle.net exclusivity was “a resounding failure”
As part of the Microsoft FTC injunction hearings, many internal documents have been made public, revealing a whole bunch of juicy details on these gaming companies’ inner workings. As part of a document shared by Microsoft, the console manufacturer claimed that Call of Duty’s Battle.net launcher exclusivity was “a resounding …
Read More »FTC plans to appeal court ruling in favour of Microsoft Activision acquisition
Earlier this week, a US judge ruled against the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction to stop Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In the ruling, the judge stated that the FTC simply did not provide enough evidence to prove a theory of harm. Now, the FTC has announced plans to …
Read More »Kotick says it was a mistake for Activision to skip Switch
Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick, spoke on the witness stand this week during the ongoing hearing between Microsoft and the FTC. During the questioning, he was asked about his opinion on Nintendo's position in the market and he promptly admitted that Activision made a mistake skipping Switch this generation. Kotick described …
Read More »Call of Duty almost abandoned Xbox this generation
During the hearing between the FTC and Microsoft last week, we learned new details about the events that preceded Microsoft's decision to acquire both Activision and Bethesda. Sony was in talks with Bethesda to make Starfield a PS5 exclusive, which prompted Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda. A very similar situation almost occurred with Activision pulling Call of Duty.
Read More »Video games are bigger than films and music combined
In a relatively short number of years the video games medium has transformed from a niche hobby to a multi-billion Dollar industry whose influence is being felt across all other mediums. In a new report, it has now been revealed that the video games industry is bigger than both films and music combined.
Read More »Microsoft appeals CMA ruling on Activision Blizzard acquisition
Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is in an interesting position right now. The company was able win over competing cloud companies and the European Commission with its commitments to bring Activision Blizzard and Xbox first-party PC games to rival cloud gaming services. However, in the UK, the CMA has …
Read More »KitGuru Games: Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition has turned into a political circus
The Microsoft-ABK acquisition has turned into a political circus here in the UK and Microsoft is making sure to throw its weight around, going as far as to hint at the possibility of pulling products out of the UK and investing elsewhere.
Read More »Microsoft is now offering a free global license to all cloud gaming services for Activision titles
We've all seen the ten-year deals Microsoft has signed with various cloud gaming companies to offer Activision titles like Call of Duty to rival cloud gaming providers. As it turns out, in order to get its acquisition of Activision Blizzard approved by the EU, Microsoft had to go a step …
Read More »The CMA says it stands by decision to block Microsoft-Activision deal despite EU approval
This afternoon, the European Commission officially approved Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, noting that the remedies offered by Microsoft should be enough to do away with competition concerns. Now, the UK's Competition & Markets Authority has responded, saying it stands by its initial decision. In a series of tweets …
Read More »Call of Duty 2023 will be titled ‘Modern Warfare III’
The reboot of Modern Warfare back in 2019 was met with a great deal of praise, due to the game running on a highly updated engine and offering a solid campaign. Last year’s Modern Warfare II saw a drop in its critical reception for various reasons. Though it was previously announced that there would be no new COD game this year – instead being replaced by an expansion – this is no longer the case, with Call of Duty Modern Warfare III set to be officially announced later this year.
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