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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//DEVIL// said:
When can we expect the CMA verdict ?

And how come in the US side it's still sleeping ?
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Re the CMA, march 1st but obviously can be pushed back and may be appeals afterwards.
HZGjk3B.jpg
 
thismeinteil said:
And this is why Spencer recently talked about expanding the amount of time COD is on PS. Granted he still hasn't nailed down anything permanent. Just talk of his "intent." Which in PR terms means jack. It can be his intent, but "things change" or "someone else is running the show" are easy cop outs. There's also no question that it's going to affect the last two.

On a side note, not a good look that Spencer refused to file anything addressing the EU's concerns at this point.
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Microsoft knows this process a lot better than you, me, and anybody in this thread does. Microsoft has already submitted every possible thing they need to give to the EU. They literally already provided a bunch of information. You don't automatically throw up your hands and give up major concessions when there's absolutely no reason to and you are confident that, in a deeper investigation, you will be able to prove there are no major competition concerns.

And in my view, the worst possible scenario for anyone hoping this deal is blocked in the EU is the fact that this is two American companies in which there are no legitimate concerns to believe the deal will give any rise to a significant lessening of competition upon full investigation.

And before someone brings up CMA blocking two American companies in the case of Facebook aka Meta and Giphy, Facebook is quite literally one of the world's most dominant players in ad money and controls over 60% of the UK ad market. Google, Amazon and Facebook control over 75% of the digital ad spending market. That total accounts for over 47% of all money spent on advertising period worldwide.

So when CMA steps in to do what they did to Facebook and Giphy, they do so to a player that has a dominant market share far away above and beyond anything Microsoft has currently or can get as a result of the Activision Blizzard deal. The CMA arguably got their big scalp with Meta. They've had it out for facebook since that Cambridge Analytica scandal where Facebook had a company gaining access to everybody's personal data. So Meta aka Facebook was firmly in the crosshairs of this government since 2013. It was a huge scandal that made many look bad, and you can literally do a google search for how many in the British Government had it out for Facebook ever since this scandal. Facebook was seen as not getting adequately punished for it back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
Cambridge Analytica Ltd (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013[6] as a subsidiary of the private intelligence company and self-described "global election management agency" SCL Group by long-time SCL executives Nigel Oakes, Alexander Nix and Alexander Oakes, with Nix as CEO.[6] The well-connected founders had contact with, among others, the Conservative Party (UK), the British royal family and the British military.[7] The firm maintained offices in London, New York City, and Washington, DC.[8] The company closed operations in 2018 in the course of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, although firms related to both Cambridge Analytica[9] and its parent firm SCL still exist.[10]
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DarkMage619 said:
You must have missed the Gamecube and WiiU. Both systems had the same quality Nintendo backed first party and were not successful consoles. The Wii was the effort to correct issues with Gamecube and Switch was in response to WiiU.

It takes more than just good first party to be successful. That is why Nintendo adapted to the market and continued to compete. Sony is more than capable of doing that especially with their superior mindshare, excellent IP and undying fanbase.
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No i didn't. As i've repeatedly said, Nintendo has been reliant on their FP since the days of the NES. That didn't change with the Wii or the Switch
 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
No i didn't. As i've repeatedly said, Nintendo has been reliant on their FP since the days of the NES. That didn't change with the Wii or the Switch
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I'd say up to the SNES they weren't reliant on FP alone, they had mortal kombat, street fighter, fifa, NBA Jam, ISS, etc. Good third party support . It was only N64 and onwards when publishers no longer wanted to take massive losses producing cartridges that Nintendo lost third party support.
 
Three said:
I'd say up to the SNES they weren't reliant on FP alone, they had mortal kombat, street fighter, fifa, NBA Jam, ISS, etc. Good third party support . It was only N64 and onwards when publishers no longer wanted to take massive losses producing cartridges that Nintendo lost third party support.
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Sure they had a level of third party support they don't have today, but the story remains the same no matter which console you look at where FP has reined king for them.
 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
No i didn't. As i've repeatedly said, Nintendo has been reliant on their FP since the days of the NES. That didn't change with the Wii or the Switch
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I disagree. The NES and SNES had some of the best 3rd party games in the business back then from Final Fantasy to Chrono Trigger. Nintendo was the market leader before Sony entered the business. None of this changes the fact that Sony doesn't need CoD to be competitive in the video game industry.

Ass of Can Whooping said:
Sure they had a level of third party support they don't have today, but the story remains the same no matter which console you look at where FP has reined king for them.
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You don't appear to be aware of how big those 3rd party titles were for the earlier Nintendo platforms. It only reinforces how Nintendo adapted as the market changed and they couldn't rely on those big 3rd party titles any more. The adapted in the same Sony could if necessary if market conditions change. It's how companies remain relevant and competitive. Nintendo is a great case study in how to adapt and Sega showed what not to do.
 
DarkMage619 said:
I disagree. The NES and SNES had some of the best 3rd party games in the business back then from Final Fantasy to Chrono Trigger. Nintendo was the market leader before Sony entered the business. None of this changes the fact that Sony doesn't need CoD to be competitive in the video game industry.


You don't appear to be aware of how big those 3rd party titles were for the earlier Nintendo platforms. It only reinforces how Nintendo adapted as the market changed and they couldn't rely on those big 3rd party titles any more. The adapted in the same Sony could if necessary if market conditions change. It's how companies remain relevant and competitive. Nintendo is a great case study in how to adapt and Sega showed what not to do.
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A company being forced to adapt to consumer driven decisions or market changes is one story. Being forced to adapt due to monopolistic practices is another entirely.
 
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Anyone that thinks that the NES and SNES weren't the popular consoles they were because of the wide diverse third party support those two consoles enjoyed clearly weren't around when they were the market leaders.
 
Topher said:
That's all fine, but it was entirely consumer led. Sega "died" because consumers choose different products. This is not comparable to what we are talking about in mergers and acquisitions at all. Again, I'm not saying Sony will not be able to compete in this new power structure that we will have, but this constant comparison to Nintendo is just a false equivalency on many levels.
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Sega died by having crappy security which was broken weeks in to the consoles lifetime and that Sony were aggresive with exclusivity deals back then. Sega relied on their arcade games to try and push the consoles but a 20 minute arcade experience didn't translate to good home games. examples Daytona and Sega rally, great in arcade form but console form had little content
 
yurinka said:
I guess you didn't read the 'we believe in generations' interview, where Jim Ryan didn't say at all that they weren't going to do crossgen games. Instead he explained there that they will going to continue supporting PS4 during several years and explained the reasons of why they were going to continue releasing games there for a while.
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Now you are claiming it was mis understood? Yes i read the full interview. I think you are confused.
 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
A company being forced to adapt to consumer driven decisions or market changes is one story. Being forced to adapt due to monopolistic practices is another entirely.
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I'm sure at the time Nintendo were none too pleased that they were competing against two giants who could subsidize losses on hardware for the power advantage over them.
 
Menzies said:
I'm sure at the time Nintendo were none too pleased that they were competing against two giants who could subsidize losses on hardware for the power advantage over them.
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That's not a monopolistic practice. Again, false equivalence. And that's not even true in the first place. Nintendo had the power advantage over Sony with both the PS1 and PS2
 
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reksveks said:
DMA press release

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_6423

Relevant cause of King
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Sigh! Another email to submit! Tips of fingers now heavily callused.

Dear DMA,

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to review this acquisition on behalf of all Sony gamers.

Secondly, in regards to whatever points you ask microsoft to respond to, and this is critically important, dont believe Phil Spencers lies!!!

Thirdly, to ensure that Sony gamers continue to get access to COD, please ensure that Phil puts any promises regarding COD access in a written contract, preferably using his own blood. And make it a long wordy Contract. If he passes out, all the better!

Fourthly, under no circumstances should MS have any say whatsoever in what they do with Acti/Bliz should this deal be approved (LOL-as if you will). Just because they spent $70B doesnt give them the right to run the business as they see fit. In fact, MS should be enforced (again, blood written contract preferred) to give all profits that they make from COD sales on Xbox/Windows to Sony. This profit re-distribution will support this struggling, and much loved underdog. Sony are barely able to keep the lights on with their current measly portion of overall COD sales, and this will really be the nail in their coffin.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to a humble warrior gamer.
 
freefornow said:
Sigh! Another email to submit! Tips of fingers now heavily callused.

Dear DMA,

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to review this acquisition on behalf of all Sony gamers.

Secondly, in regards to whatever points you ask microsoft to respond to, and this is critically important, dont believe Phil Spencers lies!!!

Thirdly, to ensure that Sony gamers continue to get access to COD, please ensure that Phil puts any promises regarding COD access in a written contract, preferably using his own blood. And make it a long wordy Contract. If he passes out, all the better!

Fourthly, under no circumstances should MS have any say whatsoever in what they do with Acti/Bliz should this deal be approved (LOL-as if you will). Just because they spent $70B doesnt give them the right to run the business as they see fit. In fact, MS should be enforced (again, blood written contract preferred) to give all profits that they make from COD sales on Xbox/Windows to Sony. This profit re-distribution will support this struggling, and much loved underdog. Sony are barely able to keep the lights on with their current measly portion of overall COD sales, and this will really be the nail in their coffin.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to a humble warrior gamer.
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Kim Kardashian Eww GIF by Saturday Night Live
 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
That's not a monopolistic practice. Again, false equivalence. And that's not even true in the first place. Nintendo had the power advantage over Sony with both the PS1 and PS2
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Why stop there?

I think you could make the argument that such practice falls under predatory pricing and squeezed them out to a degree. They didn't have the luxury of diversified products and services they could leverage losses against. Not really a moral beacon of fairness you would say.
 
Menzies said:
Why stop there?

I think you could make the argument that such practice falls under predatory pricing and squeezed them out to a degree. They didn't have the luxury of diversified products and services they could leverage losses against. Not really a moral beacon of fairness you would say.
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Except, they didn't, as I just said lmao. You're just making shit up now
 
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PaintTinJr said:
Yeah, PS5 definitely is, pretty sure cross-gen Spiderman on PC with RT shows this is the case even with the PC using more memory, a new full desktop CPUs -rather than console mobile enhanced variants - but even on XsX, where it effectively loses half or more of its BVH acceleration performance in texturing heavy rendering, because it is either Texture unit or BVH unit per clock on XsX, and it has 2060 level fillrate, unlike the PS5 which is pushing 3070ti level.
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It sounds like you are implying the PS5 is dramatically better at RT then the XSX. This is not true, all RDNA2 chips accelerate RT the same way.
 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
So you're starting with the Wii? The best selling console of that generation and the same generation that nearly killed Sony?

Seriously?
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I think I need to stop here as I haven't even a clue what you're even attempting to debate here.

I'm talking about Nintendo pivoting against the power race, having recognized the deeper pockets of their rivals. Correct me if I'm wrong, you're seemingly exculpating this as fairness in competition, and acquisitions as morally wrong?
 
Menzies said:
I think I need to stop here as I haven't even a clue what you're even attempting to debate here.

I'm talking about Nintendo pivoting against the power race, having recognized the deeper pockets of their rivals. Correct me if I'm wrong, you're seemingly exculpating this as fairness in competition, and acquisitions as morally wrong?
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You're talking nonsense about predatory pricing as though a PlayStation console has ever been cheaper than a Nintendo console while being more powerful
 
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Zathalus said:
It sounds like you are implying the PS5 is dramatically better at RT then the XSX. This is not true, all RDNA2 chips accelerate RT the same way.
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Not dramatically better - outside high frame-rate - or possibly not even better when frame-rates are lower -say 30fps - in a deferred setup when texturing is less than it could be., like a game like Control.

But these aren't standard RDNA2 - or at least the PS5 definitely isn't - so unless you have a source that contradicts the analysis of the old-next-gen thread PS5 APU photographs, and instead says the PS5 also has a texture & BVH unit in the same logical block(forcing them to operate alternately on a separate clock state (for texturing or BVH) - like Microsoft states for the Series consoles in their technical presentation, then its normal to assume the photograph analysis of PS5 is correct, IMO.

Look at Morales/Spiderman 60fps RT mode. Higher framerates for RT are an IPC/cache limit, so using cycles per unit exclusively for texturing or BVH acceleration is a lower IPC when frame duration is made smaller. The xbox BVH setup doesn't fit with the PS5 need of GPU cache scrubbing that will help maximise per clock useable cache data. And the more texture layers per object the more the Series configuration will eat cycles if it also needs BVH acceleration for RT use but is swamping all those units for texturing for most of 16.6ms.

Just look at the technical details we got from UE5 demos, prior to the Matrix - the Matrix looks no more textured than spiderman on PS4 IMO - The timings for nanite and lumen on PS5 were way ahead of the Coalition's experimenting metrics, despite the Coalition's use of vertex painting to avoid texturing too.
 
You are still here? 🤡
No amount of wishful thinking and console warrior analysis will stop this deal. It will go through.
Cod stays on ps and the rest is xbox exclusive. THE END.
 
Menzies said:
The relevancy is that rivals in competition regularly force competitors to adapt. Without competition why would Nintendo make a risk by releasing the Wii?

There is commonality at a high-level. Fierce competition is what made Nintendo differentiate.
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Sure, but we are not talking about consumer driven competition here. That is my point and that is a key difference. These surface level comparison leave out important details.
 
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Topher said:
Sure, but we are not talking about consumer driven competition here. That is my point and that is a key difference. These surface level comparison leave out important details.
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Got that right. Absolutely nothing consumer driven about not being able to take on $200+ in losses on every console sold and taking a blind risk with an unproven motion controller.
 
Menzies said:
Got that right. Absolutely nothing consumer driven about not being able to take on $200+ in losses on every console sold and taking a blind risk with an unproven motion controller.
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Every console generation involves risk. Wii U took even bigger risks and consumers rejected it. But we are light years away from talking about mergers and acquisitions. That's the point.
 
Topher said:
Sure, but we are not talking about consumer driven competition here. That is my point and that is a key difference. These surface level comparison leave out important details.
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Another thing that gets casually glossed over is that the regulators aren't merely looking at this from Sonys perspective. They are looking at it to protect consumers in general.
 
Topher said:
Every console generation involves risk. Wii U took even bigger risks and consumers rejected it. But we are light years away from talking about mergers and acquisitions. That's the point.
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That's your point. Another point might be that they were forced to pivot due to competitors wallets absorbing losses which has nothing to do with consumer driven decisions. Good thing for them it paid off more than it hasn't.
 
Menzies said:
That's your point. Another point might be that they were forced to pivot due to competitors wallets absorbing losses which has nothing to do with consumer driven decisions. Good thing for them it paid off more than it hasn't.
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They pivoted because Sony proved to them that chasing power doesn't actually work. Nothing to do with absorbing losses.
 
Menzies said:
That's your point. Another point might be that they were forced to pivot due to competitors wallets absorbing losses which has nothing to do with consumer driven decisions. Good thing for them it paid off more than it hasn't.
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Wii was developed to reach a broader demographic and yes, that is entirely consumer driven .

Hendrick's said:
I find it anything but normal.
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Uh.....ok? Not sure why it isn't "normal" when agencies having presence on social media is factually the norm.
 
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Menzies said:
Got that right. Absolutely nothing consumer driven about not being able to take on $200+ in losses on every console sold and taking a blind risk with an unproven motion controller.
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That is MS fault. They want better device, then they need to take that risk. Has nothing to do with games.
 
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