Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?

  • Yes, will be approved without changes.

    Votes: 221 24.9%

  • Yes, will be approved but with structural changes to ABK.

    Votes: 102 11.5%

  • Yes, will be approved but only with behavioral concessions.

    Votes: 262 29.6%

  • No, will not be approved.

    Votes: 301 34.0%
  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
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Not open for further replies.
ReBurn said:
It's funny how the entire argument is "prove me wrong" and then accusing others of bad faith participation when they ask for the info to support the "prove me wrong" claim.
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And your criticism might be fair if the reason for my inability to prove my point - in numbers - is the very motivation why MSFT has obfuscated that information.

They used to report console sales figures then stopped when it was no longer positive numbers compared to PlayStation, and similarly with Live numbers IIRC. So, there is a pattern of Xbox info only being shared when positive. If we can't draw a negative inference for this - which they would have every shareholder reason to sing from the rafters if it was an actual long term RoI - then when could we?

We already know they claimed they'd be No. 1 in gaming (I forget the time frame Bill said) and despite the billions in seed money buying developers for OG Xbox they've never been more than joint 2nd, briefly in 2 decades of re-investment with project kinect, and project gamepass/xcloud, most recently. If failing to achieve your objective in a 5 or 10 year product cycle isn't a failure, and lack of signs of RoI to go with it, isn't a financial failure too, and you've reinvested billions extra since, and had large costs for an RoD situation, then I'm feel up and down are mixed up for me.

I mean look at it this way, Xbox didn't even do a new pack-in controlpad R&D for the series consoles. Is that the actions of a division that is flush with success, or billing out all its costs to any other project it can, in your opinion?
 
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Series got a new controller. MS simply didn't value the features Sony added to their new controller, the same way that they didn't value a touch pad last time. Or at least they don't see enough value in it to include the features in the base controller just yet. If these features prove to be more than cheap gimmicks they can be copied.

With that said, I can see MS sticking with a basic controller for as long as possible. Building games around gimmicky controllers would just make it more difficult for different devices to offer players the same experience. Not something you want to do if mobile and PC users are part of your long-term plan.
 
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GHG said:
SenjutsuSage SenjutsuSage works at Microsoft after all.

Seriously, that looks like something a neogaf poster threw together in 5 minutes and it's on their website?
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"Hey Regulatory Boards, we promise not to take games off PlayStation, look at our slide, see, see. But them and Nintendo will still be the largest, even if we did the "greater competition" thing."
 
DaGwaphics said:
Series got a new controller. MS simply didn't value the features Sony added to their new controller, the same way that they didn't value a touch pad last time. Or at least they don't see enough value in it to include the features in the base controller just yet. If these features prove to be more than cheap gimmicks they can be copied.

With that said, I can see MS sticking with a basic controller for as long as possible. Building games around gimmicky controllers would just make it more difficult for different devices to offer players the same experience. Not something you want to do if mobile and PC users are part of your long-term plan.
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You mean circling back to an earlier point I made about Gamepass/Xcloud are riding Xbox, so it doesn't get a new (R&D) loss making pack-in controller - which is an important new hardware launch sales driver - because it is at odds of the project picking up the tab - thus exposing that xbox as a division is no longer MSFT's platform, and an afterthought in the business strategy.

Has there ever been another new console launch(excluding addon CD drives) that didn't get an evolved new controller? I can't think of one.

Also, to my other point in days past Xbox as a division would have heavily subsidized the Series S to be half the price of a digital PS5 IMO, but it looks like they don't have the money or inclination to do that
 
Louay said:
[/URL]

WHpgIPP.png
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Despite looking like shit I think it's really telling that most of those arguments are unrelated to the console world and are more about the business side or mobile gaming world.

Even as they purchase AB they still take jabs at Apple (ecosystem / payment / mobile) as much as Sony/Nintendo.
PaintTinJr said:
You mean circling back to an earlier point I made about Gamepass/Xcloud are riding Xbox, so it doesn't get a new (R&D) loss making pack-in controller - which is an important new hardware launch sales driver - because it is at odds of the project picking up the tab - thus exposing that xbox as a division is no longer MSFT's platform, and an afterthought in the business strategy.

Has there ever been another new console launch(excluding addon CD drives) that didn't get an evolved new controller? I can't think of one.

Also, to my other point in days past Xbox as a division would have heavily subsidized the Series S to be half the price of a digital PS5 IMO, but it looks like they don't have the money or inclination to do that
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Just stop dude, you're not good at this at all.

UjrjS9O.jpg

This has been posted countless times, it's from the Epic vs Apple trial, it's about the gaming division, it's from 2019 and it shows MS gaming division profit being between 1.6 and 2.3 bn USD. Since then MS revenue has increased by +/- 60%.
 
PaintTinJr said:
You mean circling back to an earlier point I made about Gamepass/Xcloud are riding Xbox, so it doesn't get a new (R&D) loss making pack-in controller - which is an important new hardware launch sales driver - because it is at odds of the project picking up the tab - thus exposing that xbox as a division is no longer MSFT's platform, and an afterthought in the business strategy.

Has there ever been another new console launch(excluding addon CD drives) that didn't get an evolved new controller? I can't think of one.

Also, to my other point in days past Xbox as a division would have heavily subsidized the Series S to be half the price of a digital PS5 IMO, but it looks like they don't have the money or inclination to do that
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Not circling back on anything. Company Y including a more expensive controller doesn't equate to company X wanting to do the same. That's the error in your logic. It leads you to an even bigger error of thinking they were unable to do so due to R&D constraints. The fact this thread even exists is proof enough that financial constraints aren't a thing in the gaming division. Also, if they were struggling to find those R&D dollars, seems like they would have only developed one APU and one console, rather than creating two completely distinct designs.

Regarding XSS pricing, I don't see any of the hardware vendors taking a bath on hardware at any point in the future. Those days have passed, break even is the new name of the game with Sony and Nintendo even abandoning that to make some extra profit. MS will probably just keep selling at cost and instead of doing a formal price cut on the XSS they might opt to just lower the price via special arrangements with retailers the same as they did the 1S (which was formally the same price as the PS4 but was on store shelves at $50 - $80 less almost all the time).
 
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Xbox must be making a loss cause they decided not to implement a random new feature on a controller is a dumb take personally.

Simplest explanation is that they didn't think it need a new feature.
 
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PaintTinJr said:
Your lol emoji-ing is on par with your maturity in your posting.

If you are going to claim Xbox isn't a financial failure for MSFT while blatantly hiding its numbers in other divisions to obfuscate the failure size over the years, you aren't arguing in good faith.
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If you are going to make a nonsensical claim like Xbox is a financial failure you should easily be able to prove your claim with facts data and statistics. I've seen no indication that any of your claims are true.

Chukhopops said:
UjrjS9O.jpg

This has been posted countless times, it's from the Epic vs Apple trial, it's about the gaming division, it's from 2019 and it shows MS gaming division profit being between 1.6 and 2.3 bn USD. Since then MS revenue has increased by +/- 60%.
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I appreciate you bringing actual data.
 
Chukhopops said:
...

UjrjS9O.jpg

This has been posted countless times, it's from the Epic vs Apple trial, it's about the gaming division, it's from 2019 and it shows MS gaming division profit being between 1.6 and 2.3 bn USD. Since then MS revenue has increased by +/- 60%.
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So, the money they make from gaming on the App Store, Google PlayStore and Windows store on old Nokia from games unrelated to Xbox are all rolled in then, yes? A case that was largely about smartphone market revenue cut and a case in which an Xbox employee gave evidence that they have never made any profit on any of their consoles sold, ever. So, a percentage loss on at least 150M units and counting then, yes? And if this includes the Gamepass/Xcloud subs then you need to add another $10 billion to the costs for Minecraft + Bethesda, no?

Or if you subtract those subs, and the unrelated non-xbox smartphone game profits then you aren't running at profits anywhere near that, are you? to recover many years of running at a loss IMO. Let's face it, if that includes smartphone/windows store casual game profits from MTX too, that's a modest return for such a notable OS company IMO.
 
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PaintTinJr said:
And if this includes the Gamepass/Xcloud subs then you need to add another $10 billion to the costs for Minecraft + Bethesda, no?
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Don't think you understand assets but okay.

That MS page really goes in for the mobile app distribution issue that regulators have at the moment.
 
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reksveks said:
Don't think you understand assets but okay.

That MS page really goes in for the mobile app distribution issue that regulators have at the moment.
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But it isn't an asset of Xbox, just MSFT, so you either can't credit xbox for the (100%) returns (just 30% as platform cut) or have to factor this as another expense to make the Xbox platform sustainable as part of its RoI if being fair to say it stands on its own two feet IMO.
 
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reksveks said:
That MS page really goes in for the mobile app distribution issue that regulators have at the moment.
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All their public statements about the deal seem to be more for the ears of regulators than anyone else, tbh.

It's funny in a way, but it does give us quite a bit of insight into how they are trying to combat the regulators fears.
 
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PaintTinJr said:
But it isn't an asset of Xbox, just MSFT, so you either can't credit xbox for the (100%) returns (just 30% as platform cut) or have to factor this as another expense to make the Xbox platform sustainable as part of its RoI if being fair to say it stands on its own two feet IMO.
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Can someone explain to me, as a consuming gamer, why I should give a fuck about all this nonsense?

Gaf has turned from a gaming forum to a online basecamp for armchair specialists in analytics.

Guys seriously get a hobby. Gaming is probably boring for you.
 
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I'm like ok MS. You coming here saying that you are basically the messiah, the most benevolent company that everyone else is greedy and this disruptive business model is so brilliant that anything different is anticonsumer. Why should I believe a triple trillion-dollar company?

But we all know MS(Xbox) is coming from a losing position. They are so desperate to be competitive (even basically admitting they couldn't compete with the "Traditional Bussines Model") that now, they are throwing the house of the windows....We don't even have hard data about the viability-profitability of all of this....SUS to me.

I mean...This ain't cheap all right. MS didn't get to be a Triple Trillion Dollar Company by being a charity. I believe MS is like: "Bruh. Xbox aint growing and is not competing, we need to change the game" but this new game is so fucking expensive and MS is not like: "Oh sure, let´s throw even more money at Xbox". No way jose.

MS wants results and they want them asap.
 
R3claimer117 said:
lol can't wait till this deal goes through so I can see how much longer you'll enjoy paying 70 dollar for games you can get in game pass.
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What are even talking about? I am talking about the graphic of videogame revenue.

Yisus, some people have been so damage over the years by Xbox incompetence that:

"can't wait till this deal goes through so I can see how much longer you'll enjoy paying 70 dollar for games you can get in game pass"

Parhetic and sad.
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
What are even talking about? I am talking about the graphic of videogame revenue.

Yisus, some people have been so damage over the years by Xbox incompetence that:

"can't wait till this deal goes through so I can see how much longer you'll enjoy paying 70 dollar for games you can get in game pass"

Parhetic and sad.
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Relax bud, you're already looking for hidden interpretations in simple infographics.
 
DarkMage619 said:
Perhaps you can speak plainly about what you are talking about. It will help to keep people from projecting thoughts on to you. Please bestow us with your wisdom.
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I'm pretty sure he is talking about snake on the Nokia bringing about the end of arcades.
 
DarkMage619 said:
Perhaps you can speak plainly about what you are talking about. It will help to keep people from projecting thoughts on to you. Please bestow us with your wisdom.
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akKnmzh.gif


This is what I see I that graphic:

1. We can have 2 groups:
  • Handheld-Mobile: 85 B
  • Console-PC: 73 B
You could say that is no fair or whatever (the graphic is basically grouping handheld and mobile already).

Nvidia/AMD/Intel heavily market their GPU's toward gaming. In other words; if you want to game in PC...you need a GPU. Let's say PC-Console is the Desktop-Couch experience.

2. Both groups have very different videogame design philosophies:

Just to name one example:
Fallout shelter
Fallout 4.

3. install base on both market is weird (quickly googling)

Let's be generous and say that the market size of the Couch-Desktop experience is about 400 million devices.

Handheld-Mobile...let's slice a couple of billions and say that there are 4 Billions handheld-mobile devices.

To me (as a said) saying that:

"mobile gaming is by far and wide the biggest revenue generating gaming medium"

is not as straightforward as it seems.

why?
the fact that the revenue of console-PC with such lower install base can be compared with mobile-handled tells me:

4. Something is very weird with the mobile-handheld market. Is like:

100 console-pc players are more valuable in terms of money that 1000 mobile-handheld gamers.

Despite some similar (if not identical) experiences between markets like Genshing Impact or Call of Duty Mobile.

I think genuinely speaking there is a difference between how this content is meant to be played:

Fallout Shelter : 5-15 minutes sessions.
Fallout 4: 2-4 hours to put a number.
The point is minutes vs hours.

So, you could say that mobile gaming is way bigger and makes more money. Ok so:

1. Does this make it better?
2. Do you want mobile game design philosophy to be followed by Console-PC?


EDIT: Plot Twist: is not one ot the other market; is both.

You could have a unified product between markets or specific versions for each. At the end of the day is money.

We see a tons of shity copy-cats/low effort GaaS games on mobile...I think those kind of games are even more fucked when big companies actually bring those IP to mobile.
 
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So, you could say that mobile gaming is way bigger and makes more money. Ok so:

1. Does this make it better?
2. Do you want mobile game design philosophy to be followed by Console-PC?
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I don't think anyone needs to read it as an either/or situation, mobile gaming *does* make more money, but it doesn't mean everyone should unanimously agree that it is better or worse than the other mediums.

Hence companies are not abandoning the 'traditional' gaming formats, but rather starting new studios and ventures to get a foothold into the mobile gaming section.
 
twilo99 said:
Why are so many people so sure this deal is going to happen?
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because there's no reason it wouldn't given that there have been way bigger acquisitions in the entertainment industry before, and usually those were done by market leading companies too, which Microsoft isn't.

so we have the company with the smallest market share buying a decently big publisher, that's not gonna be blocked.
even with their combined revenue Microsoft and Activision would be just behind Nintendo alone.

if this was Nintendo buying Activision I think it would be on way shakier ground
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
100 console-pc players are more valuable in terms of money that 1000 mobile-handheld gamers.
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I'll give you that, there's a good chance that someone with dedicated gaming hardware (PC or console) is going to spend more on games than the person that plays occasionally on a smartphone. The mobile market is a numbers game, the net can be cast very wide allowing the devs to find some whales that will spend a decent amount on a game (at least that would be what they would hope happens).
 
PaintTinJr said:
So, the money they make from gaming on the App Store, Google PlayStore and Windows store on old Nokia from games unrelated to Xbox are all rolled in then, yes? A case that was largely about smartphone market revenue cut and a case in which an Xbox employee gave evidence that they have never made any profit on any of their consoles sold, ever. So, a percentage loss on at least 150M units and counting then, yes? And if this includes the Gamepass/Xcloud subs then you need to add another $10 billion to the costs for Minecraft + Bethesda, no?

Or if you subtract those subs, and the unrelated non-xbox smartphone game profits then you aren't running at profits anywhere near that, are you? to recover many years of running at a loss IMO. Let's face it, if that includes smartphone/windows store casual game profits from MTX too, that's a modest return for such a notable OS company IMO.
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Well yeah, as a platform holder MS makes some of its revenue from sales of other games on their platform, it's the same for Sony or Google or Apple.

That's why it's so valuable to be a storefront / platform holder, you make 30% of everything sold on your platform.

Your argument went from « MS doesn't make any gaming division money » to « if you remove the parts that make money then they lose money », which I guess is progress, but not particularly relevant to anything.

As from Minecraft, MS bought Mojang in 2014. for 2.5bn. Between 2016 and 2022, Minecraft sold 138M copies for a lifetime total of 238M. Add to that the MTX content and franchise revenue and I'd bet it's one of the most profitable gaming deals MS has ever done.
 
jhjfss said:
UQjJsPD.png
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Is this 100% accurate?, if so it is very telling.
ChorizoPicozo said:
Nice graphic. What am I supposed to take from this?
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Well if you look at it you can clearly see console gaming has stayed pretty stagnant since 2006 while PC and mobile is growing, which is pretty obvious when you look at the evidence of what is happening across these companies.

That's if the graph is accurate. If it is it is very telling.

Also, you say Microsoft has failed and that's why they are trying something new, which I agree with to an extent and from looking at the graph you can see that they are honest in their statement of reaching more game players....but I would say and I'm sure you can agree from seeing this graph that Sony as the market leader has failed and they have not grown console gaming or reached more of an audience in 20 years...which is further backed up by them moving to PC gaming and primarily focusing on TV and movies using games to support their other entertainment interests and signing off big titles that only support this. Including remasters of titles that are not even a generation old.

Sony should be exploring ways to grow the console user base but it looks like they have just moved to PC. I'm sure they will push for more mobile stuff soon too.
 
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DenchDeckard said:
Well if you look at it you can clearly see console gaming has stayed pretty stagnant since 2006 while PC and mobile is growing, which is pretty obvious when you look at the evidence of what is happening across these companies.

That's if the graph is accurate. If it is it is very telling.
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This year might be a weird one cause mobile has seen double digit declines and console is single digits largely due to HW growth but yeah, typically mobile revenue has been growing faster than console.
 
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