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 .
Status
Not open for further replies.
Topher said:
Wii was developed to reach a broader demographic and yes, that is entirely consumer driven .
Click to expand...
That's true as well, but I'll vehemently argue that competition had zero to do with the Wii's existence. It's late here, so I'll leave you with this for now.

https://slate.com/business/2012/10/...-xbox-and-playstation-and-saved-nintendo.html

Article titled "The Pivot" - at least the author here reached the same conclusions that the competition played a significant role here.

"But Sony and American tech behemoth Microsoft, which eyed the market, belonged to a different weight class. They had more resources than little Nintendo could ever dream of. They could draw knowledge and resources from their other lines of business to produce technologically advanced devices."

"But did Nintendo have much of a choice? Nintendo didn't have billions of dollars on hand to make a state-of-the-art machine, but it could, at least, make a fun machine. Nintendo found a niche, stayed there, and outsold its rivals."
 
Draugoth said:
[/URL]

playstation_Rjwagv7.jpg
Click to expand...

Meanwhile at Sony:
SkinnyPassionateAnchovy-size_restricted.gif
 
Menzies said:
That's true as well, but I'll vehemently argue that competition had zero to do with the Wii's existence. It's late here, so I'll leave you with this for now.

https://slate.com/business/2012/10/...-xbox-and-playstation-and-saved-nintendo.html

Article titled "The Pivot" - at least the author here reached the same conclusions that the competition played a significant role here.

"But Sony and American tech behemoth Microsoft, which eyed the market, belonged to a different weight class. They had more resources than little Nintendo could ever dream of. They could draw knowledge and resources from their other lines of business to produce technologically advanced devices."

"But did Nintendo have much of a choice? Nintendo didn't have billions of dollars on hand to make a state-of-the-art machine, but it could, at least, make a fun machine. Nintendo found a niche, stayed there, and outsold its rivals."
Click to expand...


That doesn't change the fact that Nintendo's focus was creating a product that attracted a different demographic of gamer. Your article says that as well.

"Reggie Fils-Aime, chief of Nintendo's North American division, articulated Nintendo's new strategy at the 2006 E3 Conference. "It's no longer confined to just the few," he said. "It's about everyone." Those simple words spelled out Nintendo's strategy from that day forward: Get everyone. Get the kids. Get the teenagers. Get the parents. Get the grandparents. Get boys. Get girls. Nintendo games would not just be the unhealthy addictions of reclusive, pockmarked teenagers or aimless twentysomethings. Nintendo games would be for everyone."

That strategy had a heck of a lot more to do with broadening their base than simply making a less powerful, cheaper console. Again, consumer driven. Factually, we are not talking about mergers and acquisitions here in any case. That's where this comparison falls apart.
 
DarkMage619 said:
It's a good thing there are no monopolies in video games then. MS in this specific case is in third place.
Click to expand...

Are we not talking about a hypothetical scenario where Sony is in fact reliant on COD and would have to adapt if they lost it? And justifying why that's okay?

You can engage in monopolistic practices whether you're in last place or first.
 
Last edited:
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.
Click to expand...
I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but it didn't get any comment, but Microsoft admitting they have lost money on hardware every generation for 2 decades is anti-competition.

There is only so much money the user base has to spend, so if buying up ABK - then maybe EA, or Ubisoft or T2 in addition to owning Bethesda and Mojang - results in tipping the market fully towards Microsoft, then the consumer picks up the tab for those historical hardware losses and has higher priced future hardware that then won't be subsidized when no one is left to compete with cheap and profitable superior hardware.

Developers will lose big too because if Microsoft then becomes a bigger mouth to feed for all their acquisitions and expensive hardware sold at a profit, they are taking a bigger slice of the finite gamer spending, leaving far less for the rest of the industry(dev/pubs) to compete for.

Is that the future you want? Or want to come quicker - if it would happen, anyway? The CMA's job is to block acquisitions that setup such scenarios for UK consumers and businesses.
 
Last edited:
PaintTinJr said:
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.
Click to expand...
... the PS5 APU blocks demonstrate absolutely nothing. No one can look at the bare die shot and make any conclusions about how the texture units operate. This has been proven absolutely nowhere. Feel free to link any evidence you can find.

Just using multiplatform RT games can demonstrate this. They are all the same between the two or better on XSX. Metro Exodus to name an example, 60 FPS game with a very heavy RT pipeline that always has higher resolution on the XSX. Doom Eternal and RE: Village both 60 FPS RT games that perform better on the XSX. Not one of those three games can be said to have bad textures either.

If the PS5 was that much better at RT we would obviously have seen some evidence of it. Or actually have a reputable developer mention it as well.
 
DarkMage619 said:
It's a good thing there are no monopolies in video games then. MS in this specific case is in third place.
Click to expand...
How do you figure? They're number two if we count revenue as the deciding factor.

Number 3 if it's first party software quality and output.

newzoo.com

Top Public Video Game Companies | By Revenue | Newzoo

Newzoo's Top Video Game Companies ranking is updated every quarter. Features the top public video game companies by revenues.
newzoo.com newzoo.com
 
Since CoD's pretty much related to this, official update from Activision Blizzard. New all-time record set for number of players online for the opening weekend & number of hours played through opening weekend.

Grossed $800M through opening weekend instead of the rumored $600M.



 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
Are we not talking about a hypothetical scenario where Sony is in fact reliant on COD and would have to adapt if they lost it? And justifying why that's okay?

You can engage in monopolistic practices whether you're in last place or first.
Click to expand...
You should look up what a monopolistic practice is. What does a third place monopoly look like anyway? Sony blocks games that were previously on Xbox regularly and MS adapted. MS focusing on Game pass, PC day and date games and the XSS are all examples of adapting to market conditions.

In a hypothetical removal of CoD Sony would be able to adapt as well. MS in last place leaves them even fewer options than Sony in first place would. Plus Sony has superior first party software and the superior brand so they'd have plenty of ways to maintain their market dominance.
 
DarkMage619 said:
You should look up what a monopolistic practice is. What does a third place monopoly look like anyway? Sony blocks games that were previously on Xbox regularly and MS adapted. MS focusing on Game pass, PC day and date games and the XSS are all examples of adapting to market conditions.

In a hypothetical removal of CoD Sony would be able to adapt as well. MS in last place leaves them even fewer options than Sony in first place would. Plus Sony has superior first party software and the superior brand so they'd have plenty of ways to maintain their market dominance.
Click to expand...

Monopolistic practice are moves in which you take to gain control in a market. Moves such as buying multiple massive third party publishers. You do not need to be a monopoly to engage in said practice. Should be obvious
 
Last edited:
//DEVIL// said:
When can we expect the CMA verdict ?

And how come in the US side it's still sleeping ?
Click to expand...

Someone posted it earlier, I can't find the source but it basically said that FTC doesn't comment on on-going investigations until they have their final recommendation.
 
HoofHearted said:
Agreed - why not simply post an "update" on twitter that provides a link to the formal/official statement on their website.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what they are doing. There are links saying "read more" which take you to their website with official documents regarding the case they are referring to.
 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
Monopolistic practice are moves in which you take to gain control in a market. Moves such as buying multiple massive third party publishers. You do not need to be a monopoly to engage in said practice. Should be obvious
Click to expand...
No that would be competing. I am not sure if you really understand competition in business but making decisions to make your brand more appealing and other brands less is the entire essence of competition. Hurting your competition through legal means is what competition is all about. Why do you think Sony continues to block and delay games on Xbox? Don't they know that hurts MS and their customers? I hope you have been calling them out.

Nothing about this transaction is illegal. MS is not 'taking control of the market' by acquiring Activision. Activision is one large publisher in an industry with several large publishers. They were also in bad shape as their stock price and internal issues with harassment have shown. MS provided the company a way to get out of some of its issues. Now all of Activision's issues will be on MS to solve. Sony did not offer a solution that I am aware of.

This acquisition is far from monopolistic especially since even after the acquisition MS will still not be the biggest company in gaming (third place remember). If we are focused on reality, MS has repeatedly said that CoD would remain on PlayStation so what about that is monopolistic? Remember when people saying Bungie purchase was no big deal cause Destiny would not be removed from Xbox. Well same principle here.

This is competition and as a customer you should be happy to see it. Any time a company has complete domination of an industry consumers suffer. Nintendo in the 80s and 90s and Sony right now have not been great for the customer even if their bottomlines were great. A company making more money isn't necessarily good for you. It should be pretty obvious.
 
Topher said:
That's exactly what they are doing. There are links saying "read more" which take you to their website with official documents regarding the case they are referring to.
Click to expand...
People need to stop looking at this with platform tinted glasses on. It's tainting their worldview.
 
Zathalus said:
... the PS5 APU blocks demonstrate absolutely nothing. No one can look at the bare die shot and make any conclusions about how the texture units operate. This has been proven absolutely nowhere. Feel free to link any evidence you can find.

Just using multiplatform RT games can demonstrate this. They are all the same between the two or better on XSX. Metro Exodus to name an example, 60 FPS game with a very heavy RT pipeline that always has higher resolution on the XSX. Doom Eternal and RE: Village both 60 FPS RT games that perform better on the XSX. Not one of those three games can be said to have bad textures either.

If the PS5 was that much better at RT we would obviously have seen some evidence of it. Or actually have a reputable developer mention it as well.
Click to expand...
This getting way off the topic of Series gaining commercial mindshare by having and advertising MC RT exclusive to Windows native MC and Series, and how MC RT needs released on both PS5 and Series. So, if you want to respond to this comment in the spoiler, DM or quote it in a suitable existing MC or technical thread to continue it.

Here's a quote from Cerny himself in the Road to Ps5 talk which correlates to the BVH and "next-gen" texture use in the original UE5 demo, compared to the Coalition struggling with lesser results in their effort with vertex painting in their UE5 test.

"
Using the same strategy as AMD's upcoming PC GPUs.

The CUs contain a new specialized unit called the Intersection Engine which can calculate the intersection of rays with boxes and triangles.

To use the Intersection Engine first you build what is called an acceleration structure.

f:id:keepitreal:20200329150107j:plain


Its data in RAM that contains all of your geometry.

There's a specific set of formats you can use their variations on the same BVH concept. Then in your shader program you use a new instruction that asks the intersection engine to check array against the BVH.

While the Intersection Engine is processing the requested ray triangle or ray box intersections the shaders are free to do other work."

On the XsX, if the shader is doing texture lookups, which is a common thing in next-gen games with models using 8 or more textures per surface, then it would be blocking the corresponding intersection Engine processing in that scenario with each sampler lookup(using standard 2x AF)

In the statement I bolded from Cerny he is surely saying they can both(shader texturing and BVH) operating at the same time on PS5, no?

So, either that's not what he means, and the corresponding lumen time measurements stated for the first UE5 demo on PS5 and the Coalition UE5 test on XsX aren't representative of comparative use of lumen doing BVH work on each hardware with heavy next-gen texturing, or my assertion is correct and the PS5 being designed around low latency, high frame-rate PSVR2 too has meant the texturing and BVH functionality(which isn't exclusive for RT) can both be active per clock.
 
Don't see the issue. Sony, just like Nintendo, would be just fine without COD. WiiU was the last time Nintendo had one, they're doing ok. And I'd say most believe Sony has better 1st party games. MS is in 3rd place.

Deals goes through for me. I wanna replay COD campaigns on Gamepass.
 
SteadyEvo said:
Don't see the issue. Sony, just like Nintendo, would be just fine without COD. WiiU was the last time Nintendo had one, they're doing ok. And I'd say most believe Sony has better 1st party games. MS is in 3rd place.

Deals goes through for me. I wanna replay COD campaigns on Gamepass.
Click to expand...
Awkward The Simpsons GIF
 
SteadyEvo said:
Is the deal gonna happen or not?
Click to expand...
Probably.

Sony is simply using Microsoft's need for approval to sweeten their terms regarding the COD franchise.

It went from till their current deal expires, to several years after the deal expires, and now its COD will always be on Playstation.

Idk how much sweeter it can get than that. Sony got pretty much what they wanted, unless they want Crash back too. Lol.
 
Topher said:
That's exactly what they are doing. There are links saying "read more" which take you to their website with official documents regarding the case they are referring to.
Click to expand...
I get that - my point is there's not a need for 5 different tweets to provide updates here - a simple - "Latest status/updates for this can be found here: <link>".
 
HoofHearted said:
I get that - my point is there's not a need for 5 different tweets to provide updates here - a simple - "Latest status/updates for this can be found here: <link>".
Click to expand...

And then no one who followed that twitter page would ever get notified that there was an update. Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Maybe I'm not following what you are saying, but CMA is using twitter the same way every other company or entity does.
 
Topher said:
And then no one who followed that twitter page would ever get notified that there was an update. Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Maybe I'm not following what you are saying, but CMA is using twitter the same way every other company or entity does.
Click to expand...
Yes they would - all that needs to be done is another tweet with a quick status/update to go back and review the main page that has been updated / published with latest edits.

My point is - Publishing detailed updates spanning multiple tweets via twitter like CMA just did doesn't really make sense as twitter really isn't designed for that.

I agree with you that companies use twitter for updates - however - most companies simply provide a single tweet linking to the page detailing latest content/updates relevant to what they want to communicate.

Publishing multiple updates across multiple channels yields ambiguity with respect to source of truth for the content being distributed to the public. As an official release - create a single source of truth and use the medium as designed to guide users/readers to the source of truth instead of establishing multiple copies of it...
 
Last edited:
HoofHearted said:
Yes they would - all that needs to be done is another tweet with a quick status/update to go back and review the main page that has been updated / published with latest edits.

My point is - Publishing detailed updates spanning multiple tweets via twitter like CMA just did doesn't really make sense as twitter really isn't designed for that.

I agree with you that companies use twitter for updates - however - most companies simply provide a single tweet linking to the page detailing latest content/updates relevant to what they want to communicate.

Publishing multiple updates across multiple channels yields ambiguity with respect to source of truth for the content being provided. As an official release - create a single source of truth and use the medium as designed to guide users/readers to the source of truth instead of establishing multiple copies of it...
Click to expand...

Are you talking about the three tweets regarding the Activision Blizzard acquisition? Ok......I guess. No real harm in doing that when someone asked them a question about it either though. They did provide a link back to their site at the end for more information. Most of their tweets are like the Nvidia one. Short summary of the update with a link.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

MS/ABK is advertising games that don't exist for data collection
46
2K
POKEYCLYDE replied
My apologies to Ubisoft, Sony, Activision, EA, MS etc. for making a big deal out of $70 games
2 3 4
156
6K
MDSLKTR replied
Microsoft, Activision Deny Report Regarding Financial Performance
Business Hardware  2 3
131
11K
Jaybe replied
What happened to all the people that were cheering over that MS Activision acquisition?
Drama  5 6 7 8 9
414
18K
GateofD replied
Microsoft has Closed the Activision Blizzard King Deal
22 23 24 25 26
1K
99K
MasterCornholio replied
Top Bottom