After more than a year that they could not come to a new agreement and let games being removed from Chinese market (except Diablo Immortal), Blizzard Entertainment will return to China via Xbox consoles.

Back in November 2022, when Activision Blizzard were still independent, could not reach a new business agreement beyond the availability of Diablo Immortal (a whole different agreement) and let January 2023 as the official month of most of Blizzard Entertainment games to be retired.

This week's announcement is basically a Microsoft Gaming led gaming success in China gaming market, that includes to explore bringing new NetEase games to Xbox consoles and other platforms.

NetEase hasn't been in the bench despite losing a powerful partner like Blizzard (which rumors saying that in part, is was due disturbed communication with unpleasant misunderstandings for then CEO Bobby Kotick), as buying and investing in Westerns gaming studios.

For immediate effect, Chinese gamers will expect the recovery of access of previous available titles like World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and other titles in the Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and StarCraft franchises.

Of course, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer considers this agreement a new Xbox victory for bringing more games to more players around the world.

#Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹 🎮

Former Volition employees, including Saints Row Reboot directive director founded a game studio called Shapeshifter Games that will serve as co-developers for other gaming studios.

No new project/joint venture has been announced yet.

#Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹🎮

Sefton Hill & Jamie Walker, founders of #Rocksteady Studios, opened a new gaming studios called Hundred Star Games for AAA games dev & already have 25 people hired.

They left Rocksteady in October after rumored creative scuffle /w WB Games.

#Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹🎮

Microsoft confirmed that Xbox will ran a new ID@Xbox presentation or a showcase from the independent gaming Studios community and heading to Xbox console and PC.

The rumor since the weekend is Sony's reactive move where the Japanese company is looking and scouting potential games for Playstation exclusive deals from South Korea gaming studios.

Amazon Games taught us about how serious Korean developers are on gaming with Lost Ark.

Of course I am defining "reactive" due the performance of the FTC on pleading on their case for the Preliminary Injunction against Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard and that Sony foresee the transaction to close.

Final recap of Day 2 of FTC Preliminary Injunction against Microsoft buying ABK:

-As with Jim Ryan, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida originally didn't have any issue as Phil Spencer called himself the day it was announce the transaction
-Spencer reiterates that Xbox exclusive games are not the 100% od the day-to-day at Microsoft Gaming nowadays
-Spencer: “Sony has a significant catalog of exclusives games. It’s drastically larger, dramatically larger than what we have on Xbox today. Both Sony and Nintendo’s first-party is stronger than Xbox.”
-FTC tried to reinforce Spencer saying under oath that Call Of Duty will be still releasing for Playstation
-At the same time, Spencer did acknowledged that beyond the 10 year mark thing cannot be assured as it will depend the state of trhe gaming market itself
-FTC tried to make it sound weird that Microsoft is paying almost $70 billion for a gaming conglomerate just to get ahold of mobile gaming studios as main target, but Spencer backfired that mobile gaming is one of the footprints that Xbox is aiming at
-FTC for the third time brought Nintendo narrative
-A common-sense info that the FTC should know, but their lawyer asked if Microsoft needs to pay the agreed fee to Activision Blizzard shareholders right away. Spencer replied: “No, when you acquire something it’s not a payment. It’s really a transfer of cash into an asset called Activision that you believe it retains the value that you have acquired. It’s incorrect financially.”
-FTC called Dov Zimring, Google’s former Stadia product lead as witness
-FTC asked Zimring to describe Stadia
-Zimring: “To our knowledge we had the best technology in the market. We had performance capabilities that didn’t exist in the [cloud] market like 4K.”

“We had prototyped on Windows early on... the mission we had established at the very beginning was to enable revolutionary experiences... we saw Windows as limiting to innovate in that regard because we didn’t have control over the operating system.”

-Zimring acknowledged that Stadia SDK was Linuix-based due operating cost saving
-The closure of Stadia Games & Entertainment with the sudden stop of investment for AAA games was due wrong projected numbers
-Originally, Google was willing to spend five years building AAA games for Stadia
-FTC returned to Spencer
-FTC wanted to a third time force Spencer to peldge on COD availability on Playstation but WAS CUT BY THE JUDGE WHO APPEARED TO BE ANNOYED ON THE FTC LAWYER LINES OF QUESTIONING THAT WERE STRAIGHT DISSINGENOUS.

Judge: "I don’t need that, I’m going to cut off your questioning."
-Judge wrapped things for today and will NOT ACCEPT this process to go beyond next Thursday, pretty much in line of Microsoft desired timeframe (5 days)

Final recap of Day 2 of FTC Preliminary Injunction against Microsoft buying ABK:

-As with Jim Ryan, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida originally didn't have any issue as Phil Spencer called himself the day it was announce the transaction
-Spencer reiterates that Xbox exclusive games are not the 100% od the day-to-day at Microsoft Gaming nowadays
-Spencer: “Sony has a significant catalog of exclusives games. It’s drastically larger, dramatically larger than what we have on Xbox today. Both Sony and Nintendo’s first-party is stronger than Xbox.”
-FTC tried to reinforce Spencer saying under oath that Call Of Duty will be still releasing for Playstation
-At the same time, Spencer did acknowledged that beyond the 10 year mark things cannot be assured as it will depend on the state of the gaming market itself
-FTC tried to make it sound weird that Microsoft is paying almost $70 billion for a gaming conglomerate just to get ahold of mobile gaming studios as main target, but Spencer backfired that mobile gaming is one of the footprints that Xbox is aiming at
-FTC for the third time brought Nintendo narrative
-A common-sense info that the FTC should know, but their lawyer asked if Microsoft needs to pay the agreed fee to Activision Blizzard shareholders right away. Spencer replied: “No, when you acquire something it’s not a payment. It’s really a transfer of cash into an asset called Activision that you believe it retains the value that you have acquired. It’s incorrect financially.”
-FTC called Dov Zimring, Google’s former Stadia product lead as witness
-FTC asked Zimring to describe Stadia
-Zimring: “To our knowledge we had the best technology in the market. We had performance capabilities that didn’t exist in the [cloud] market like 4K.”

“We had prototyped on Windows early on... the mission we had established at the very beginning was to enable revolutionary experiences... we saw Windows as limiting to innovate in that regard because we didn’t have control over the operating system.”

-Zimring acknowledged that Stadia SDK was Linux-based due operating cost saving
-The closure of Stadia Games & Entertainment with the sudden stop of investment for AAA games was due wrong projected numbers
-Originally, Google was willing to spend five years building AAA games for Stadia
-FTC returned to Spencer
-FTC wanted to a third time force Spencer to pledge on COD availability on Playstation but WAS CUT BY THE JUDGE WHO APPEARED TO BE ANNOYED ON THE FTC LAWYER LINES OF QUESTIONING THAT WERE STRAIGHT DISSINGENOUS.

Judge: "I don’t need that, I’m going to cut off your questioning."
-Judge wrapped things for today and will NOT ACCEPT this process to go beyond next Thursday, pretty much in line of Microsoft desired timeframe (5 days)

Indeed this is not productive of the Sony's narrative of "Microsoft making it more difficult to compete" if independent gaming studios don't feel threatened, which IMO had "more to lose" in the acquisition.