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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No.
The merger will either happen in 2023, or not at all.

If EU and CMA agree, Microsoft will just do the Merger and force the FTC to seek an injunction. They won't wait for the late and slow FTC own litigation process.
But it probably won't be done until June 2023. Now the timeframe is end of 2023
 
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Fuz said:
Oh god, two more years of this shit.
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gene wilder suspense GIF
 
I think CMA and/or the European Commission will end it far sooner than that.
Also neither Microsoft nor Activision want to see their strategies stucked in a limbo forever. They need to operate competitevily asap and not with their hands tied.
I think there will be a major turnaround point early next year around February/March, either Microsoft settles the issues with regulators and officially signs to give some heavy concessions (way more than just the 70$ version of COD on Playstation, Activision could become some sort of independent subsidiary) to close the deal or we might see a withdrawal with Microsoft paying the penalty to Activision (it's peanuts to them btw) and move on to an other strategy or targets.
 
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That's still assuming a lot. We'll see how things progress with the CMA and EU.

I give this deal about 25-30% chance of actually going through.

The FTC hasn't requested an injunction, so very interested to see the strategy here.

At this point, it seems that they're looking for more significant concessions across the board.
 
FalsettoVibe said:
Let's say this real goes through........what are the chances that MS is allowed to do another 6 or 7 billion dollar deal a year or so following?
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Microsoft won't be making a purchase on this scale again this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to own activision. Remember phils mentor was Ed fries who also wanted to build Xbox gaming division by buying studios unfortunately he wasn't able to to secure blizzard before cause he wanted too. Also he wanted to purchase capcom and few other studios including rockstar as well back in the day but wasn't allotted the bid amount so they got outbid. If you listen to his unfiltered episode you can see a lot of foresight to what Phil's doing. You can see they still talk and have a close relationship as to what Phil's doing. But they'll mostly make smaller purchases from now on even if they attempted to buy someone for 7,8,9 billion wouldn't come close to to no where near 70 billion. This going to through is going to force Sony to keep buying which would mean more acquisitions and Microsoft will continue as well. Hell WB was on the market for 4 billion not that long ago.
 
Thirty7ven said:
Meta/Amazon/Tencent would have no incentive to take games away from PlayStation or Xbox. The whole boogie man what if story about them is a bunch of bullshit. No MS isn't a white knight, unless you're a die hard Xbox fanboy who has an axe to grind with PlayStation because of some stupid reason.
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Ok but this time rewrite it and try not to come off like a petulant child.

Meta can't even handle owning Oculus. You thinking they'd do better with ABK? Also, you have no idea if they would withhold games from anyone. You're assuming they wouldn't because it fits the narrative you want to believe.
 
bentanchorbolt said:
Ok but this time rewrite it and try not to come off like a petulant child.

Meta can't even handle owning Oculus. You thinking they'd do better with ABK? Also, you have no idea if they would withhold games from anyone. You're assuming they wouldn't because it fits the narrative you want to believe.
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Come back when you have an argument to make.

P.S Deez nutz

- petulant child
 
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feynoob said:
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Hard to disagree, in my opinion. Khan's FTC is coming in from an ideological "anti-big tech" angle that I don't think it can really back up, at least given its currently presented arguments. They're just making noise for the sake of it, rather than because they have an actual path to block this. Curious to see if they have anything more substantial in the lead up to trial. The speaker does highlight the redacted nature of their complaint; they might have things we haven't seen yet.
 
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ZehDon said:
Hard to disagree, in my opinion. Khan's FTC is coming in from an ideological "anti-big tech" angle that I don't think it can really back up, at least given its currently presented arguments. They're just making noise for the sake of it, rather than because they have an actual path to block this. Curious to see if they have anything more substantial in the lead up to trial. The speaker does highlight the redacted nature of their complaint; they might have things we haven't seen yet.
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If there is a something serious that could hurt consumers they should reveal that to the public. What they have presented publicly is pretty durn weak.
 
ZehDon said:
Hard to disagree, in my opinion. Khan's FTC is coming in from an ideological "anti-big tech" angle that I don't think it can really back up, at least given its currently presented arguments. They're just making noise for the sake of it, rather than because they have an actual path to block this. Curious to see if they have anything more substantial in the lead up to trial. The speaker does highlight the redacted nature of their complaint; they might have things we haven't seen yet.
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Funny, in the video she says the challenge is to prove MS will have an incentive to cut off rivals. That's going to be a challenge? Really?

Also lol at the host acting like he knows anything about the console market, these people don't get told what to say at all.
 
ZehDon said:
Hard to disagree, in my opinion. Khan's FTC is coming in from an ideological "anti-big tech" angle that I don't think it can really back up, at least given its currently presented arguments. They're just making noise for the sake of it, rather than because they have an actual path to block this. Curious to see if they have anything more substantial in the lead up to trial. The speaker does highlight the redacted nature of their complaint; they might have things we haven't seen yet.
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Like I said before, FTC has a very weak argument. They're biding their time to either have MS pull back from the deal like Nvidia, or they will demand a more favorable level of concessions soon.

MS has 12 days to appeal this, let's see if they exercise that.
 
Thirty7ven said:
Funny, in the video she says the challenge is to prove MS will have an incentive to cut off rivals. That's going to be a challenge? Really?...
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It'll be virtually impossible in context: Microsoft entered into a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to their platforms for the next ten years and offered the same deal to Sony. It's forgoing the "foreclosure strategy" the FTC is claiming its trying to play. It's clear Microsoft needs the multi-platform income to justify the USD$70b expenditure. After ten years, the deal might have paid for itself, and arguing for indefinite availability is going to be a tall order given the deal on offer. 10 years is a long ass time.
So, the FTC has to show Microsoft likely plans to break those agreements. Given their basis was the accusation that Microsoft lied to the CMA - a claim the CMA recently refuted - and Microsoft can demonstrate it honoured every agreement in place when it purchased Zenimax, the FTC has an enormous challenge ahead of it. It's the problem with rolling ahead with an ideological opposition as opposed to a legal or regulatory one: if Microsoft can damage the FTCs case enough, it has an opportunity to get the deal through without new concessions, a situation the FTC could have avoided had it played its hand better.
 
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bitbydeath said:
Imagine all the new games being held back for 2025/2026 though, would be a banger year!
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Thank god we don't have to imagine cause they'll not be waiting 2 years for anything. Microsoft had already fast track their decision for EC. They're meeting with CMA this week if they get a good signal from both there's no doubt they'll close their deal while waiting for whatever court date they'll have to go to. If the FTC loses in 2 weeks against meta they'll be 7 cases they've lost. If they lose the one in the summer at the Supreme Court they'll be at 8! Not sure how Lina survives that but Microsoft will be 9. If EC and CMA signal to be objecting Microsoft will just cut their loses in January and move on.
 
R3claimer117 said:
Thank god we don't have to imagine cause they'll not be waiting 2 years for anything. Microsoft had already fast track their decision for EC. They're meeting with CMA this week if they get a good signal from both there's no doubt they'll close their deal while waiting for whatever court date they'll have to go to. If the FTC loses in 2 weeks against meta they'll be 7 cases they've lost. If they lose the one in the summer at the Supreme Court they'll be at 8! Not sure how Lina survives that but Microsoft will be 9. If EC and CMA signal to be objecting Microsoft will just cut their loses in January and move on.
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I wouldnt be happy about that.
Ftc isnt the issue here, as people claim it to be.

The real hidden boss is the CMA. If they shutdown this deal, then MS can kiss goodbye this deal. Their result is the difference between this deal passing and failing.
 
feynoob said:
I wouldnt be happy about that.
Ftc isnt the issue here, as people claim it to be.

The real hidden boss is the CMA. If they shutdown this deal, then MS can kiss goodbye this deal. Their result is the difference between this deal passing and failing.
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They also have an appeal process but I'm not sure if Microsoft wants to be fighting legal battles on all fronts if they can get those two to go along. The Chinese already said they'll go with whatever the EC decides. They can close in the us and battle the FTC if that's the only objection. Just like Amazon and mgm.
 
R3claimer117 said:
They also have an appeal process but I'm not sure if Microsoft wants to be fighting legal battles on all fronts if they can get those two to go along. The Chinese already said they'll go with whatever the EC decides. They can close in the us and battle the FTC if that's the only objection. Just like Amazon and mgm.
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No, that wont work.
CMA has a clear argument, as their argument has foundation unlike EU and FTC.

If CMA disagrees with this deal, that would mean EU would also deny the deal. This would lead to other small regulators to deny the deal too.

In essence, CMA can cause a huge avalanche with their decision.
 
Is paul tassi ok?
www.forbes.com

A Wild Idea: Could Xbox Release ‘Starfield’ On PlayStation To Appease Regulators?

Alright look, this idea may sound insane, but this entire situation is proving to be increasingly insane the longer things go on, so I’m not going to rule out anything when it comes to Microsoft attempting to secure this Activision Blizzard deal in the wake of Sony-fueled regulator pushback.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
Alright look, this idea may sound insane, but this entire situation is proving to be increasingly insane the longer things go on, so I'm not going to rule out anything when it comes to Microsoft attempting to secure this Activision Blizzard deal in the wake of Sony-fueled regulator pushback.

The current situation is that the FTC is suing to block the deal in part because they believe Microsoft misled regulators and said or heavily implied they wouldn't need to take Bethesda games like Starfield or Elder Scrolls exclusive when that deal was being proposed, even though that's eventually what they did. The EU regulators seem to dispute that, saying Microsoft never specifically promised that, but it's something the FTC seems concerned with anyway, and has been an undercurrent of this whole case. If huge games like Elder Scrolls and Starfield have been made exclusive in the wake of a multibillion dollar acquisition, why couldn't that happen with Call of Duty, even if Microsoft says it won't?

Enter my wild idea: That Microsoft changes their mind, and promises that Starfield will also release on PlayStation. Maybe not day and date with its Xbox Game Pass launch, but they promise that it will come to PlayStation if Sony will allow it.
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R3claimer117 said:
The Chinese already said they'll go with whatever the EC decides.
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When did they say that? Last I read, China wanted to examine the EU's concerns.

"According to the report, the Chinese regulator wants to first examine the concerns that the European Commission has over the merger. The Commission recently opened an in-depth probe, worrying that Microsoft could make Activision Blizzard games exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem and harm competition in the games market."

gameworldobserver.com

Chinese regulator refused to review Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard under simplified procedure | Game World Observer

China is one of the countries that should investigate the $68.7 billion deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. The local regulator also wants to review the issues that other governments have with the acquisition.
gameworldobserver.com gameworldobserver.com
 
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