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

Do you believe the deal will be approved?


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Not sure why you are disputing the poll numbers so badly. In terms of the consoles they match up relatively well with console spend.

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This indicates 60% on PS vs 40% xbox

The poll indicates 62% on PS vs 38% xbox.

Did you see the article where it said more players on PC than anywhere else?

The poll didn't indicate that.
 
I legitimately hate Metacritic, RT, etc.

IDGAF what some random journo has to say about a piece of media, I have the people I trust who's tastes in gaming align with mine. They're the people who's opinion I will trust after they take the time to play it when making purchasing decisions.
 
I legitimately hate Metacritic, RT, etc.

IDGAF what some random journo has to say about a piece of media, I have the people I trust who's tastes in gaming align with mine. They're the people who's opinion I will trust after they take the time to play it when making purchasing decisions.
MC is the only score that really matters.

If I need an opinion then I can listen/watch a few selection of YouTubers.
 
Titanfall 2 died because it was worse than the prequel.

it wasn't... the campaign alone made the game a better package, and the MP changes are highly subjective. I prefer some things from Titanfall 1 and other things from Titanfall 2.
I was bummed that they removed the Burn Cards for example, but imo the Titan classes were an improvement as they felt way more distinct from each other and were easier to balance.

I also liked how batteries worked in Titanfall 2 as they were way more important and encouraged teamplay
 
it wasn't... the campaign alone made the game a better package, and the MP changes are highly subjective. I prefer some things from Titanfall 1 and other things from Titanfall 2.
I was bummed that they removed the Burn Cards for example, but imo the Titan classes were an improvement as they felt way more distinct from each other and were easier to balance.

I also liked how batteries worked in Titanfall 2 as they were way more important and encouraged teamplay

Cracking Up Lol GIF by HULU


It died simply, because it was launched between COD and Battlefield. Simple as that.
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I was a huge Titanfall fanboy when the first released. I clocked 223 hours into it and got all the achievement points, 1000/1000. Loved the game.

Booted up TF2, played a few matches and forgot about it. Maps were bland and it just felt simplified compared to the first.

Yes it had more titans and guns, but where there previously were only one lmg, one smg etc there were now multiple weapons for the same objective.

Titanfall 1 was insane because it had focus on multiplayer. Then they focused alot on campaign in the second, making it a decent campaign with a multiplayer component slapped on it.

You had your original playerbase which were online players, and changed the focus to single player with an online component. It was destined to Doom and I don't care what either of you say.
 
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I was a huge Titanfall fanboy when the first released. I clocked 223 hours into it and got all the achievement points, 1000/1000. Loved the game.

Booted up TF2, played a few matches and forgot about it. Maps were bland and it just felt simplified compared to the first.

Yes it had more titans and guns, but where there previously were only one lmg, one smg etc there were now multiple weapons for the same objective.

Titanfall 1 was insane because it had focus on multiplayer. Then they focused alot on campaign in the second, making it a decent campaign with a multiplayer component slapped on it.

You had your original playerbase which were online players, and changed the focus to single player with an online component. It was destined to Doom and I don't care what either of you say.
Titan fall 2 failed simply, due to launching between these 2 titles, which caused the game to sell less.

https://www.looper.com/304174/why-titanfall-2-was-a-complete-flop-despite-being-a-great-game/
Titanfall 2 was released on Oct. 28, 2016. The date fell right between the releases of EA's Battlefield 1 on Oct. 21 and Activision's Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare on Nov. 4. At the time, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said that the two EA games would cater to different types of fans, strengthening the company's position in the shooter genre, and even predicted that Titanfall 2 would do better than the original Titanfall. Unfortunately, he was wrong.
Despite its name, Battlefield 1 from EA Dice was the 15th installment of a long-running shooter series, and Call of Duty, of course, continues to be a juggernaut. Both were established franchises, and Titanfall 2 simply couldn't compete with the two bigger names. EA did not release numbers, but financial firm Morgan Stanley estimated in January 2017 (as reported by VentureBeat) that Battlefield 1 had sold 15 million units, just behind Infinite Warfare, while Titanfall 2 lagged at 4 million copies sold.

There are other factors that contributed: Forbes, for example, speculated that, as Titanfall was an Xbox and PC exclusive, people didn't realize that the sequel wasn't. Ultimately, though, EA's timing miscalculation was a big problem. In trying to knock out its competition with two shooter releases in a single month, it instead hurt its own bottom line.
 
Titanfall was supplanted by Apex legends which I think is the same universe ( correct me if I'm wrong on that )
correct
Apex Legends and Titanfall share a universe—they always have and always will. It's sometimes more subtle and sometimes more blatant. Apex Legends takes place 30 years after Titanfall, includes the Apex Predators from the latter, shares several weapons, and some legends, like Valkyrie, have backgrounds defined by Titanfall lore. Apex Legends was conceived as a battle royale title set in Titanfall's Universe, and while those two markers will always be shared, Apex Legends is a huge success for Respawn and EA.
 
Titan fall 2 failed simply, due to launching between these 2 titles, which caused the game to sell less.

https://www.looper.com/304174/why-titanfall-2-was-a-complete-flop-despite-being-a-great-game/

What you quote is what is believed why it failed.

If Titanfall 2 were great then it would have had a playerbase. Period.

But I like you ignore someone who was a major TF fanboy's statement on why I could clock 223 hours into TF1 and barely over 40 hours of TF2, from where some of these hours are also from the campaign.

You do you ✌️
 
What you quote is what is believed why it failed.

If Titanfall 2 were great then it would have had a playerbase. Period.

But I like you ignore someone who was a major TF fanboy's statement on why I could clock 223 hours into TF1 and barely over 40 hours of TF2, from where some of these hours are also from the campaign.

You do you ✌️
I understand that you like the franchise. But the fact are facts. The game simply didnt perform financially well, due to bad release timing. Titanfall 2 could have been saved, had they released in a different time, instead of shoehorning between these 2 gaints.
If it was simply a bad gameplay, they could have done a rework, patch the game, and fix it. It wasnt that.
 
Its scientific poll, which can be used to estimate the userbase.
50k is enough data to gauge on that.

The factors which I listed to you, supports it. Any advantages MS has in US or UK would be diminished, if we used global users. PS has more users globally. Japan and asia alone can increase that advantage.

PC is only on battle net. Not on steam.

PS is the only platform which would benifit masively from their userbase.
It's… it's not a scientific poll. It's Twitter, which is a botfest.
 
It's… it's not a scientific poll. It's Twitter, which is a botfest.
The account who is done this poll, is someone who is engaging with game's community. Not some fanboy, which gives us some accuracy.
The poll is 50k, which gives us enough data.
The poll result is closely the same as the platform split. There is no community, which has over 60% of vote.

Hence the poll qualifies as a scientific poll, or else the poll would have irregularity.

The only difference about the poll, is the site.
 
MC is the only score that really matters.

If I need an opinion then I can listen/watch a few selection of YouTubers.
Correction, sales / user count are the only score that matter. Journos can call a game (or anything) selling like hotcakes trash all they want, if the money's flowing the market speaks for itself.

Example: the existence of pop music.
 
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MC is the only score that really matters.

If I need an opinion then I can listen/watch a few selection of YouTubers.
Correction, sales / user count are the only score that matter. Journos can call a game (or anything) selling like hotcakes trash all they want, if the money's flowing the market speaks for itself.

Example: the existence of pop music.


Honestly these are all subjective metrics.

I've, and I'm sure plenty of others, have enjoyed my fair share of games that have not been the highest meta scorers of millions of sellers.
 
The account who is done this poll, is someone who is engaging with game's community. Not some fanboy, which gives us some accuracy.
The poll is 50k, which gives us enough data.
The poll result is closely the same as the platform split. There is no community, which has over 60% of vote.

Hence the poll qualifies as a scientific poll, or else the poll would have irregularity.

The only difference about the poll, is the site.
bruh GIF
 
That is poll for you.
Its only worth is to check whether the data is relevent or not.

The real data is with activision and blizzard.

But in any case, that data is in line with this data.
Not sure why you are disputing the poll numbers so badly. In terms of the consoles they match up relatively well with console spend.

86045_2_microsoft-may-lose-billions-keeping-call-of-duty-off-playstation_full.png


This indicates 60% on PS vs 40% xbox

The poll indicates 62% on PS vs 38% xbox.
 
Correction, sales / user count are the only score that matter. Journos can call a game (or anything) selling like hotcakes trash all they want, if the money's flowing the market speaks for itself.

Example: the existence of pop music.
Metacritic and those ratings are just forum, social media, and media outlet score.
Outside of that, no one really cares about it.

Games would sell good, if they are fun. That is what matters to publishers. Their games selling well.
 
Honestly these are all subjective metrics.

I've, and I'm sure plenty of others, have enjoyed my fair share of games that have not been the highest meta scorers of millions of sellers.
So do I. But meta scores are far and beyond the most representative of a game's quality. (Without agenda driven ulterior motives, meme adjectives)
Just a personal example:

Let it Die ≈ Play until Pay Wall, unbalanced, grindy as fuck, ugly, Random Number loot drops, bad loading times...

That's was conversation around it.

Let it Die MC Score 71 = Good game.

The art direction, music (one of my favorites soundtracks) and overall aesthetics made enjoys the game. 71 one is a perfect score for that game.
 
So do I. But meta scores are far and beyond the most representative of a game's quality. (Without agenda driven ulterior motives, meme adjectives)
Just a personal example:
Its not. Metacritic is just shiny boot. It means nothing to the masses, who would buy the game.
Outside of social media people, it useless.

The game's quality is determined, how long can it retain people. How much do people enjoy the game. How much replay value do people get from the game.

You can make a nice graphic game, and fuck the story, and you will still get a good review, because graphics are nice. Even though the story of the game is crap as shit.

I dont have an issues with metacritic. But its targeted towards people who wants validation about their games.
 
Correction, sales / user count are the only score that matter. Journos can call a game (or anything) selling like hotcakes trash all they want, if the money's flowing the market speaks for itself.

Example: the existence of pop music.
Mmno. publishers, film studios definitely use scores as part of the equation in their projections and shit like that. (This is talking about them)

for the consumers in general tho, reviews also play their role. In the context of video games; well, people are going to engage in different ways.

for me, the only score that matter is Metacritic (critic score) There is no bullshit about it, is a number that encompasses the consensus. I find it the equalizer among the discord/controversial clickbaity drama.
 
People have been saying for months that Sony cannot compete in the cloud gaming space and that Microsoft doesn't care about console sales. NOW the install base is a factor and MS needs this deal to go through to compete with Sony.
 
People have been saying for months that Sony cannot compete in the cloud gaming space and that Microsoft doesn't care about console sales. NOW the install base is a factor and MS needs this deal to go through to compete with Sony.
As far as I can remember, People here have been saying that cloud gaming is dead, due to technology limitation.
It wont replace anything at all, since the latency is a huge problem.

You can ask our expert GHG GHG if you want.
 
People have been saying for months that Sony cannot compete in the cloud gaming space and that Microsoft doesn't care about console sales. NOW the install base is a factor and MS needs this deal to go through to compete with Sony.
 
Still cracks me up any government regulator looks at the current state of Epic, Tencent, Playstation, Apple store/gaming, Google Play/Store, Xbox, Nintendo, Steam and entities like nVidia, Roblox, Unity/Unreal, Ubisoft etc and thinks ActiBliz is a monopoly. Cracks me up still. Due diligence and back-channel leverage are the likely culprits to this so far textbook approval process. There is still little doubt for me this doesn't go through, likely with some conditional amendments that MS/Xbox will happily agree with and quickly move on.
 
Still cracks me up any government regulator looks at the current state of Epic, Tencent, Playstation, Apple store/gaming, Google Play/Store, Xbox, Nintendo, Steam and entities like nVidia, Roblox, Unity/Unreal, Ubisoft etc and thinks ActiBliz is a monopoly. Cracks me up still. Due diligence and back-channel leverage are the likely culprits to this so far textbook approval process. There is still little doubt for me this doesn't go through, likely with some conditional amendments that MS/Xbox will happily agree with and quickly move on.

Activision Blizzard being a monopoly isn't a question being entertained in any of this. The question the CMA is trying to answer is whether this transaction will "significantly lessen competition". That's a MUCH lower bar than questioning whether a merged identity will form a monopoly.

Personally, I think these type of reviews are good when we are dealing with multi-trillion dollar corporations. I have no idea what a "textbook approval process" looks like or why this one fits in that box, but I know I'd rather regulators get it right and not rubber stamp the largest acquisition in the history of the video game industry.
 
Yeah, they really don't have a tenable position going for "lessen the competition", when historically the industry has never had so many large companies in so many market segments. Which leads one to label it "textbook" as there really isn't a cause for concern.
 
Yeah, they really don't have a tenable position going for "lessen the competition", when historically the industry has never had so many large companies in so many market segments. Which leads one to label it "textbook" as there really isn't a cause for concern.

Not so sure. I don't think anyone thought this would get to phase 2 and yet here we are. I'd bet this is going before the tribunal. That's where MS will prevail in the end.
 
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I legitimately hate Metacritic, RT, etc.

IDGAF what some random journo has to say about a piece of media, I have the people I trust who's tastes in gaming align with mine. They're the people who's opinion I will trust after they take the time to play it when making purchasing decisions.
I have no idea how MC works but it feels like an interesting innovation would be to self-curate the reviewers you tend to align with and trust, and see the revised score as produced just by them.
 
I have no idea how MC works but it feels like an interesting innovation would be to self-curate the reviewers you tend to align with and trust, and see the revised score as produced just by them.
Yeah I don't know how that happens without corpos knowing everything about me down the time I prefer to take a shit. I'd rather stick to hearing what outfits like Last Stand Media have to say about something.
 
Not so sure. I don't think anyone thought this would get to phase 2 and yet here we are. I'd bet this is going before the tribunal. That's where MS will prevail in the end.
Microsoft absolutely planned for phase 2 reviews in most major markets hence the reason they said the deal would close in June 23. No one knowledgeable believed this would be a quick and easy deal. 18 months is about right for a deal of this size.
 
Not so sure. I don't think anyone thought this would get to phase 2 and yet here we are. I'd bet this is going before the tribunal. That's where MS will prevail in the end.

A deal like this takes 12-18 months since the announcement of the intention of acquisition.

As an example, Broadcom made public it's intention to purchase VMware back in May 2022 for $61bn. Broadcom stated they expect to close the deal sometime in Broadcom's fiscal year 2023, which starts next November 1st, but the word on the street is that it might close between March 23 and Oct 23 since it depends on regulatory as with any M&A, also their background when it comes to acquisitions is terrible (CA, Symantec..), so not only the FTC, the CMA, or the EU might delay the process, since because all of them will get the deal to phase 2 due to the history behind Broadcom and their acquisitions, and the size of the deal.
 
As far as I can remember, People here have been saying that cloud gaming is dead, due to technology limitation.
It wont replace anything at all, since the latency is a huge problem.

You can ask our expert GHG GHG if you want.

This isn't Final Fantasy, you can't just summon me on a whim to discuss something random.

That said, I did find the whole notion that a twitter poll is "scientific" equal parts concerning and amusing. Wallahi, we are finished.
 
MC is the only score that really matters.

If I need an opinion then I can listen/watch a few selection of YouTubers.
I mean, if you want to fanboy and get extra inches by telling everyone the MC of your games.

I have literally never given a fuck about MC. I have never checked MC before buying a game.

I do check reviews on steam though, as you have to have the game to review. Given the majority pays for the games there there's typically less bias than some mainstream fanboy reviewer tossing high score on their favorites franchise which they got for free.
 
Not so sure. I don't think anyone thought this would get to phase 2 and yet here we are. I'd bet this is going before the tribunal. That's where MS will prevail in the end.
Microsoft themselves did predict June 2023 (they were probably hedging their bets) but it always indicated that it was going to phase two imo.

I think the main unknown that not many predicted is the CMA apparent focus on Sony's concern (so much so that they have really seemed to defined one of the markets specifically to concentrate on those concerns. I do expect that the EU and US will be focus on other markets and issues.
 
As far as I can remember, People here have been saying that cloud gaming is dead, due to technology limitation.
It wont replace anything at all, since the latency is a huge problem.

You can ask our expert GHG GHG if you want.

Microsoft said cloud is growing at a slow pace as gamers are unwilling to change or very slow to adopt.

Latency is a part of that slow growth.
 
Microsoft said cloud is growing at a slow pace as gamers are unwilling to change or very slow to adopt.

Latency is a part of that slow growth.
Yes you are right, which makes CMA point very weird.
This slow growth makes sure MS doesn't gain any advantage in this field.

It will take years for cloud gaming to be in dominant position.
 
This isn't Final Fantasy, you can't just summon me on a whim to discuss something random.

That said, I did find the whole notion that a twitter poll is "scientific" equal parts concerning and amusing. Wallahi, we are finished.
I blame the poll part on my current class. Still in learning progress for it though.
 
Personally, I think these type of reviews are good when we are dealing with multi-trillion dollar corporations.
CMA questions is nothing but a weak questions, which is bad against someone like MS.

It might be a good question for you, but with what MS have right now, it's an utterly a trap questions for the CMA.

MS is a ruthless company, which uses public outlook for their benefits. Considering to what they have done for xbox, it raises questions whether the CMA understands their questions or not.

Also, the person that is defending MS, is the first obstacle for the CMA. That person was the one responsible for bringing down that Nvidia arm deal. CMA would need some solid questions to prove their ground.
 
Microsoft said cloud is growing at a slow pace as gamers are unwilling to change or very slow to adopt.

Latency is a part of that slow growth.
What's weird is, if you stream old gen games on gamepass they look and feel like shit.

But if you stream stuff like deathloop and Hellsinger, then it looks pretty native, has really good response time and only have a few minor graphic update artifacts.
 
Fair enough. I think I took issue more with you saying Judge's injury "may" have had an impact as if what he said may or may not be true. If that is not what you meant then that is fine. I agree with you that Covid impacted every company in the industry. I do think Judge's situation, based on his own words, had an additional impact.

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That's also the issue I had with your comment. You seemed to be calling him a liar and downplaying the injuries that he had. Not saying that covid didn't have an impact but the game would still get a delay regardless based off what Judge told us.

I'm inclined to believe him BTW. As to the outcome of the situation I'm happy that SSM chose to wait for him to recover instead of replacing him with someone else. Your at least able to recognize that correct?
 
Microsoft themselves did predict June 2023 (they were probably hedging their bets) but it always indicated that it was going to phase two imo.

I think the main unknown that not many predicted is the CMA apparent focus on Sony's concern (so much so that they have really seemed to defined one of the markets specifically to concentrate on those concerns. I do expect that the EU and US will be focus on other markets and issues.

Yeah, you are right ( intheinbetween intheinbetween and DarkMage619 DarkMage619 as well). Slipped my mind that Microsoft had already anticipated this timeline.
 
Just because people spend more money on one platform isn't reflective of player base. They could all be tight arsed on PC LOL
That's generally the case. The PC and mobile areas have significantly more users than the console space but the spend per user is much lower than consoles.
 
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