I think our regulators will be looking at the sustainable revenue from companies like Activision and PlayStation against the revenue the market currently brings into the UK coffers (just from profitmaking industry companies) and then considers if MSFT's disruptive acquisition is going to help or hinder that status quo or help or hinder the growth potential with other players in the future.
Xbox failing to be self-funding and completely opaque in its revenue returns/losses for over two decades works against MSFT desire to acquire Activision IMO, and signals that the deal is just more profits for MSFT with complete collateral damage to the UK games market and depletion in money flowing back in taxes.
I think it's more than just profits. While most people focus on COD (because that's the distraction they want you looking at) the Acti purchase also includes King, the mobile company. They own 1000's of games and have massive reach. It gives Xbox chance to add games to mobile and bring mobile games to gamepass. Think of the whale % on mobile games vs console games. If Microsoft can bring some of those whales over to gamepass xbox's strategy will be complete as hardcore and casual gamers are now old markets and mobile gaming is the new market microsoft are focusing on.
Just to flesh that out a little bit, remember during the 360 days Microsoft changed focus from hardcore gamers onto casual gamers, who were a bigger market at that the time. Those 'casual' gamers are now the equivalent of the 360-era hardcore gamers, in that the casual market is now dwarfed by the mobile market
Given the way our economy in the UK is very large for a smallish population nation, and the games industry is a substantial part of the economy - and a driver for higher education for people wanting to work in the industry - I think the deal will always look to regulators at best like it serves MSFT and damages the market, and is against the UK economy short-term and long-term interests.
MS will have a hard time in the UK and Eu getting this deal passed. I can't see they've helped themselves by talking about recording party chat for naughty words, especially with Acti AND Blizz coming out and saying the same. It would mean a potential massive chunk of the gaming industry running into privacy issues in the EU and UK
Reasoning Google exit from gaming business on Microsoft's purchase of ActiBlizz is disingenuous at best.
Stadia was doomed regardless of this deal. No publisher outside of Ubisoft supported that platform and Google was not willing to invest.
Spending money on content is and always will be only way to get into business. Sony spent billions while trying to suffocate competition when they got into gaming. Microsoft invested billions into developer support when making first Xbox. It's literally impossible to enter the market without billion investment regardless of ActiBlizz purchase.
But it would not surprise me if Google will try to screw Microsoft over with claims that they shut down stadia because of this purchase. Even if it is not true.
You're looking at it back to front. Stadia was dead day 1. I believe the reason it has been killed now and not 6 months ago or in 6 months' time, is because Google have seen the ROI possibilities with going 100% software.
Comparing this deal and the new route of entering the market with software instead of hardware is disingenuous. Sony entered the hardware market in 91 with the Phillips CDI (the idea they tried again with the PS3), after the debacle with Nintendo. Sony aggressively got into the console industry because Nintendo's decision to go cartridge, and Sega dropping out (who were going CD in the future) caused Sony to potentially lose a lot of revenue from not being able to sell their CD format. They repeated this idea with PS2, which at the time was the cheapest DVD player on the market by at least 50%. Most people in the UK bought a PS2 as a dvd player 1st, again which was the format Sony was pushing. Then they did it again with PS3 and blu ray...
Not sure that Satya wants to sell and his position relative to shareholders is stronger than Ballmer.
People are again missing the purpose of Gamepass, it's for the mtx revenue from the MS store.
He wouldn't be selling his position. Xbox would still be part of Microsoft and be funded by them, but it would be an independent department. I don't 100% know the details but in the UK the main phoneline provider is BT (british telecom) and they used to own almost all ISP and internet service. The UK regulators said that this was a bit bollox and forced BT to spin off their internet side called 'Open Reach'. So Open Reach is now a separate company but still owned and funded by BT, sort of
Gamepass is for mobile whales. That's what Microsoft are aiming for. Purchasing Acti (King) allows them to push Gamepass games through kings' software to access 100's of millions of phones and new customers.
www.videogameschronicle.com
nowhere near the same scale bud. You can look at a mix of Cable TV offerings and prices in the US and most games designed for subscription services / F2P like you see on mobile phones noawadays in that kind of scenario.
