Microsoft on ostamassa itselleen Activision Blizzardia, mutta kaupan ei odoteta saapuvan päätökseen ennen kuin vasta vuoden 2023 puolivälissä. Activision on toki jo työn touhussa suunnittelemassa tulevaisuuttaan. Venture Beatin haastattelussa istuva toimitusjohtaja Bobby Kotick nimeää kolme asiaa, joita hän ei ole voinut tehdä, mutta jotka saattavat olla nyt mahdollisia. Ne ovat Guitar Hero, Skylanders ja Candy Crushin laajentaminen.
"You look at all the opportunities that we get with a company like Microsoft. I'll give you one great example. [Xbox boss] Phil and I started riffing on things for the future. I'll give you three that are really compelling. I wanted to make a new Guitar Hero for a while, but I don't want to add teams to do manufacturing and supply chain and QA for manufacturing. And the chip shortages are enormous.
We didn't really have the ability to do that. I had a really cool vision for what the next Guitar Hero would be, and realized we don't have the resources to do that."
Skylanders kuoli kuutisen vuotta sitten, mutta nyt se voisi tehdä paluun?
"And Skylanders too. One of the great disappointments of my career is that other people came in and they came out with crappy alternatives. And they dumped all of these crappy alternatives in the market, and basically destroyed the market for what was a really cool future opportunity.
If you look at Skylanders, with its hardware and manufacturing and supply chain, there are the same kinds of things that we can't do but Microsoft can."
Candy Crushin pitäisi puolestaan olla nykyistä sosiaalisempi kokemus.
"And in these conversations I was sharing my frustration about not having enough social capability in Candy Crush. I really want to be able to have a Candy Crush experience where players can play games against each other. And they can socialize. And they can have voice over IP and video over IP.
That's a more social game, but it's rooted in being able to play the game against another person or other people. There is nothing but opportunity for the kinds of things that we can't do on our own, and the resources that they have for us to just make a difference."
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