Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, revealed that he would like to see Microsoft bring back some of the studio’s franchises, citing Guitar Hero and Skylanders.
In an interview with VentureBeat, Kotick revealed that while both franchises were quite popular in the past, they ended up being discontinued for various reasons. One of them was the need for a manufacturing team, something that I was not prepared to organize, but that may be possible now that Activision Blizzard is going to be bought by Microsoft.
Kotick also hopes that Microsoft will use its social integration tools to make the Candy Crush series an even more engaging multiplayer experience.
“Phil Spencer and I started discussing ideas for the future,” said Kotick. “I’ll give you three that are convincing. I wanted to make a new Guitar Hero for a while, but I didn’t want to create production manufacturing, logistics, and quality control teams. And the chip shortage is huge. “
“We couldn’t do that. I had a cool vision of what the next Guitar Hero was going to be, and I realized we didn’t have the resources to do it.”
Skylanders encountered a similar problem, Kotick explained. “Skylanders too. One of the big disappointments of my career is that other people came into the market and created shoddy alternatives. And they put all these alternatives on the market and destroyed the market for what was a very good future opportunity.”
“If you look at Skylanders, with its hardware, manufacturing, and supply chain, we have the same kinds of things that we can’t do, but Microsoft can,” concluded Kotick.
Then the CEO addressed Candy Crush, one of the most popular games on mobile platforms:
“In these conversations, I’ve shared my frustration that I haven’t introduced enough social capability into Candy Crush. I want to have a Candy Crush experience where players can play against each other. And where they can socialize and have voice and video. This is a more social game, but it’s rooted in playing the game against another person or other people. There’s no shortage of opportunities for the kinds of things we can’t do alone and the resources they have to make a difference.”
Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard took everyone by surprise, and the industry is still recovering from the shock waves of this deal. There are many unanswered questions, and we will need time for the future to materialize in practical results.
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