Microsoft: Acquiring mobile portion of Activision Blizzard is “key strategic objective”
The comments were made in the response to key CMA remedies for the merger
Mobile gamers rejoice! 
Hmmm, pulls all Acti Blizz mobile games from iOS and Android… relaunches Windows Phone as the only platform those games will be available on 
It’s quite ironic, but D1 and D2 LOD legacy might well be the only games one can keep playing in a few years, because of the always online-nonsense which will put an end to them all; D2R, D3 and D4 once they shut the servers down.
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MS will probably make all blizz games X-box only,
and if Bill Gates has any say you’ll probably have to get the jab before you can buy it.
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I might be mistaken and it’s a “console exclusive” feature, but D2R has offline mode doesn’t it?
I thought you can even import original D2 and LoD characters.
D3 has offline mode only on console (shouldn’t be hard to apply one last patch for PC before they shutdown the servers)
It does, but it requires battle.net DRM before you start offline mode.
Short of using mods there’s no circumventing this, and now and again you get the message you need to go online anway for “verification”.
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They will do REMASTERD…probably with RTX + some extra content (maybe one class more?)
…but not now, maybe next 3-5 years it will be announced.
Have any of you have ever been in a buy out or take over a company? I have and it will not be good for the people at Blizzard.
I work for Sweetheart Cup. The CEO thought his children won’t be able to run the company. They sold 51% of the company to Fort Howard Paper. That company knew nothing about Plastic goods. They took a company that was #1 on wholesale plastic goods to #15 with in a few yrs.
So if every body thinks it is going to good for your D3. You better hold your breath. It might not be good for your games here. But we’ll have to wait see what happens.
Microsoft has been in the gaming business for decades , they do know how that works so that’s comparing apples and oranges.
Now how a sale will affect the games is clearly unknown at this point, in that you’re correct.
Yeah, anyone thinking the servers will 100% stay up forever hasn’t been paying attention to “online services” for a while now. I’d say the only thing that’s arguably sustained D2 from Blizzard’s perspective is the minimal backend it requires as an older game with a dash of customer loyalty. MS won’t have the latter going for them even if it is an easy layup, and the moment some bean counter sees they could save $50k+/yr or whatever by pulling the plug, it’s gone.
Pragmatically, Blizz should’ve released the “offline mode” patch for D3 a long time ago. Nonetheless, the irrational fear of piracy continues to plague the industry, as well as the reality that players would likely mod the game into an exponentially better state once they got the entirety of code.
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Only EA has killed more gaming studios than Microsoft.
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I would be happy if they just finished the story with one more exp. pack. I hate loose ends!
From what I understand, D4 may have retconned a few things in D3… I’m not sure what but it’s probably their way of tying off the loose ends.
But agree that the ending of RoS left a bit too much open and it would have been nice for them to finish up the story. Not sure how they’d go from super saiyan Nephalem hero to the King of the North storyline they were gonna go with.
Unfortunately, the cost and effort associated with putting together a new storyline (CG cutscenes, the voice acting, new tilesets, etc, etc) prohibits it from being developed as a $20 DLC, esp now that D4 is out.
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So you did not play D4 and you do not know? If they did a D3 expansion that covered the events from the end of RoS to the beginning of D4 I would be okay with that. I am sure they will have something Diablo to talk about at Blizzcon just not sure what.
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Yeah the Story of D4 has so many logic flaws and ignored previously occured events from D3.
If it’s supposed to be a direct continuation of the story, it’s certainly not a satisfying one.
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I played the story 3 times which events are you referring to?
I’m trying very hard to avoid any spoilers for when I do play the D4 campaign.
Same. But my guess is this will be Diablo Immortal 2… not what I want of course, just what I think will happen.
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Bill Gates hasn’t been CEO of Microsoft for decades
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One possibility is over the next 5 years we may see a glut of new IP’'s that are pushed out quick from development.
I can easily see a big change in the quality content and heart used.
The joke isn’t that he could it’s that he would. 