Hello everybody, and welcome to the first post for The Tired News Round-Up! This post will be highlighting the biggest news of the day, and of course the stuff I found interesting. I don’t think this will be a daily thing at all, considering there’s not always a bunch of cool and interesting news tidbits that release every day, but today there was definitely some juicy stuff, so let’s get into it!
Listen to the audio version here: Tired News // January 18, 2022
Microsoft is Acquiring Activision Blizzard
This is the biggest news of the day, and quite possibly for a while. Today, out of seemingly nowhere, Microsoft announced that it will be acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. This is by far the biggest acquisition in the gaming industry. Why exactly did this happen? Or more importantly, how? Well, that still seems like it is up in the air. Microsoft, according to The New York Times, cited the metaverse as a reason for buying the giant developer/publisher. What does that mean exactly? I’m still not entirely sure. I know Facebook is now called Meta or something like that. It sounds ridiculous. I like the other story circulating about how Microsoft saw an opportunity to buy the company because of the controversy that has been going on for months now. Sounds like Bobby Kotick won’t be around as CEO after the merger, which I say good riddance. Kotick initially didn’t want to sell to Microsoft and hoped that another company would outbid them. But Kotick had very little leverage with the board members at this point, considering many people were calling for him to resign.
My Take: This is wild. I really didn’t have Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard on my Bingo card this year. Seeing the news dropped this morning, I genuinely thought it was a joke or some bad rumor. But no, it’s very real, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. This is an amazing opportunity for Microsoft and Xbox as a whole. More games on their platform are great. Xbox is my main console of choice, so ultimately if all these games become exclusive, I won’t be affected. But I do hate to see people getting shafted on their console of choice just because Microsoft has some deep ass pockets. Can you imagine Call of Duty being Xbox exclusive? Yuck. Hopefully, they keep a lot of these games multiplatform. Game franchises that have always been multiplatform, should preferably stay that way. But I guess they are not doing that with Bethesda titles, so I guess we will see what happens!
Ubisoft+ is Coming to Xbox
This announcement came out a little while ago, but it still seems like people might be confused by it, for some weird reason. Ubisoft+ is the equivalent of Xbox Game Pass, but with Ubisoft-owned titles. So you can get all of the Ubisoft games and the deluxe editions, for a monthly fee. I love most of what Ubisoft puts out, but the service has been exclusive to PC until now that is. It is making its way to Xbox, just like EA Access was its own subscription service. It is currently not an offering with Game Pass like many seem to think. The only thing that is kind of telling of the future possibility of Ubisoft+ coming to Game Pass as a packaged deal, is the fact the Rainbow Six: Extraction will be a day one title on Game Pass. Now, why would Ubisoft allow something like this for probably one of their more anticipated titles of the year? Who knows, but I’m sure Microsoft paid a pretty penny for it. The service costs $14.99 a month and includes access to over 100 Ubisoft titles.
Dying Light 2 is 500 Hours Long?
A lot of people on Twitter blew up after the Dying Light accounts tweeted out that it will take players around 500 hours to 100% the game. As someone who generally understands the wording of things like this, automatically just assumed that it meant to get all achievements, collectibles, and all the branching narratives. Basically means you will be playing the game multiple times if you want that 100%. Hence, 500 hours.
But no. Everyone thought one playthrough meant it will take 500 hours. Even gaming outlets jumped on this. I have to assume it was for the outraged clicks, but this whole “controversy” blew me away. After a bit, the Dying Light Twitter account showed off a graphic, saying the main story with no side quests is roughly 20 hours, and with side quests is an additional 60 hours. So 80 hours for a playthrough and all the side quests in that single playthrough.
My Take: I’m surprised at how many people thought it was for a single playthrough. 80 hours sounds like a great time to me. I still play the first game and have spent a lot of time in it. Not 500 hours, I’m sure, but a lot of time. I cant imagine myself playing through the game a second time any time soon after the first completion, but I did play the first game twice on separate consoles, so it’s a possibility.
The Tired Obsidian 
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