author: Michael Zegar
Microsoft Tried to Acquire Blizzard Twice Before; Insiders on Xbox Strategy
A former Microsoft employee has spoken out about attempts to take over Blizzard Entertainment and the creators of Command & Conquer. One of them was thwarted by, as he put it, „a French waterworks company”. Meanwhile, Jez Corden shed some light on the Xbox handheld prototypes and Halo Infinite's battle royale mode.
A few days ago we wrote about an Activision Blizzard shareholder urging investors to vote against acquisition of the company by Microsoft. It turns out that this is not the first, nor the fifth or even tenth time that something has stood in the way of Redmond giant's takeover of the company responsible for World of Warcraft. In a recent episode of the XboxEra podcast Ed Fries - former VP of Publishing at Microsoft - spoke about the earlier attempts to acquire Blizzard Entertainment.
Microsoft vs. "French waterworks company"
In the podcast, Fries spoke on why he considered buying Blizzard in the 1990s.:
"I've been a big fan of Blizzard. After all, real-time strategies are the roots of our PC gaming business. Warcraft was, of course, their biggest product."
In 1994, Blizzard was purchased by educational software development company Davidson & Associates.
Two years later, when the latter was up for sale, Fries tried to acquire Blizzard along with it. However, his offer was outbid by the Cendant corporation, which offered services to businesses and consumers, primarily in the real estate and tourism industries.
The third company in turn was also put up for sale two years later. Unfortunately also this time Fries' efforts came to nothing, because the French company Vivendi beat him to the punch. XboxEra guest amusingly commented on the whole incident:
"Blizzard is put up for sale for the second time. Once again, I make an offer and this time it gets outbid by a French waterworks company.|
After Blizzard released World of Warcraft the studio's value increased so much that Microsoft gave up on making further offers (until now).
Microsoft vs. EA
Fries was also a big fan of Westwood Studios, which is responsible for the Command & Conquer series, Dune 2000 and Blade Runner.
At one point in his career at Microsoft, he had a bid almost fully prepared to buy the developer.
However, he was getting married at the same time. Before he left for his honeymoon, he ordered his employees to finalize the initiative to take over Westwood Studios. When he returned, it turned out that the creators of Command & Conquer had been purchased by Electronic Arts.
Blizzard and NFTs
It seems that "Blizzard is not interested in incorporating NFTs into their games (at least for now). President of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Ybarra informed about it on his Twitter in response to the article posted by VGC about a survey in the studio, which asked developers about their interest in non-exchangeable tokens. He wrote:
"No one is doing NFTs."
Xbox's handheld
In a recent episode of the Windows Central Gaming podcast Jez Corden - editor of Windows Central - admitted that he had heard that Microsoft is testing prototypes of its own portable console.
He pointed out that this doesn't mean an imminent start to their mass production - but it's quite likely, according to him, given that the handheld fits perfectly into Microsoft's strategy of reaching out to the largest possible group of gamers.
Xbox's haptic controller
Corden also mentioned his friend - Rand al Thor 19 - who predicts that the next Xbox Elite controller could have adaptive triggers and haptic vibration, known from DualSense controller for the PlayStation 5 console.
A Windows Central editor points out that Rand al Thor 19's predictions have not infrequently proven to be true. What's more, Microsoft itself has in the past expressed interest in these features.
Corden, however, claims that if the Redmond giant is indeed going to introduce the above "waterworks" to its controller, it will do so for the new version of the standard gamepad and not just the more expensive Elite model.
Certain Affinity, Halo Infinite and "Tatanka"
A week ago Certain Affinity - in the past involved with the Halo and series and Call of Duty - announced the strengthening of collaboration with 343 Industries, which is responsible for Halo Infinite.
- According to Corden, the cooperation will mean much more frequent updates for Halo Infinite, which will supply the game with new content.
- It is possible that the game will soon include a battle royale mode, which has reportedly been in development at Certain Affinity for two years, and is codenamed Tatanka.