MasterCornholio
Member
So is this going to happen or what?
You getting ready? It's going to be bad news for someone.
No idea where this is going to go at this point.
Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)
- Status
You getting ready? It's going to be bad news for someone.
No idea where this is going to go at this point.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
This is the funniest shit I've seen today. Nutella has finally and completely lost it
Maybe they should write down the names of all the Japanese games they have produced in the last 10 years to find the answers to why Xbox is doing so badly in Japan?
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
- High On Life
- STALKER 2
- Warhammer Darktide
- ARK 2
- Yakuza Like a Dragon (next-gen version)
- Crossfire
- Valheim
TheUndeadGamer
Member
I look forward to seeing the light at the end of this tunnel hopefully soon, whichever way this goes. I just want it to be over. 
solidus12
Member
Astray
Member
It's like the divorce trial of gaming lol.I look forward to seeing the light at the end of this tunnel hopefully soon, whichever way this goes. I just want it to be over.
DarkMage619
$MSFT
I wouldn't say any of these are AAA games. Especially compared to titles like Final Fantasy, Silent Hill, and Street Fighter. Yes both companies get timed deals but let's not pretend Death's Door and Tunic are anywhere near what Sony grabs.
Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Which one of those is AAA?
laynelane
Member
I typed "is [game name] AAA" in google and Crossfire, Stalker 2, and Warhammer Darktide came up as AAA games. I didn't check every title, though.
Banjo64
cumsessed
High on Life. $60 game timed exclusive. Money hatting is not limited to AAA games.
Just going toright back at the laughing reaction. So many of us (Xbox/PC owners) were enjoying and celebrating High on Life. Ridiculing the low review scores. Talking about what a great game it is. But now when we talk about money hatting, High on Life somehow doesn't count? Yeah....I'm laughing.
Tunic
Octopath
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Barakov
Member
Sounds like Nadella and Kotick are reading from the same silly script.
Bobby Kotick warns UK risks ‘becoming Death Valley’ if it blocks Microsoft deal | VGC
Activision Blizzard’s CEO claims regulators are “confused” about who’s competing with who in games…www.videogameschronicle.com
I can smell Kotick's and Nadella's desperation. I simply want this deal to fall through just to see the endless amount of grief it would cause the higher ups of both companies.
ToadMan
Member
Kind of embarrassing that the CEO hasn’t managed to
Also he didn’t mention confidence in the deal closing … something they’ve been trotting out from the get go.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Yeah, I didn't include Death's Door or Tunic in that list. Only included AAA games.
All of them are.
- High on Life is a full-priced $60 AAA game that became the biggest Game Pass launch.
- Stalker 2 is a full-priced AAA game, a sequel of a franchise that has sold over 15 millions copies.
- Warhammer Darktide -- the marketing company itself calls a AAA game. Who are we to argue it's not? Amazon also purchased its TV/Movie rights
- ARK 2 -- ARK is also classified as a AAA game.
- Yakuza LAD -- Yakuza is a full-priced AAA game, published by a billion-dollar publisher, SEGA.
- Crossfire -- Crossfire is a AAA game with over 650 million players, developed by Remedy Entertainment, a AAA game developer that also made Control and Alan Wake.
- Valheim -- One of the biggest modern games that sold over 10 million copies and now has been locked by Xbox as an exclusive
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SenjutsuSage
Banned
Sony not taking calls from Activision. This won't backfire at all.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Oh yes, there are so many. But I see they are already making excuses that the ones I mentioned are not even AAA games lol. The ever-changing goal posts.
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laynelane
Member
He wants to talk to Sony about future opportunities? Now? That's very interesting.
bxrz
Member
The Medium and HoL don't compare to Final Fantasy. Not even acknowledging Tomb Raider and PUBG cause those are last gen and therefore, irrelevant
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Bobby already looking for future marketing agreements? This may indicate that the MS deal is closer to falling through.
Sony might be bound legally to not deal with them right now; just my speculation but not sure.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Both Final Fantasy and High On Life are full priced AAA games. Whether one is of a lower quality and offers less content is a separate issue.
But High On Life is also charging the same AAA price because they believe their game belongs to the same AAA category.
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demigod
Member
Lol what a stupid question by Fox, probably set up by kotick. They’ve been subpoenaed by ms, you think it’s a good idea of them to go speak with activision? Yeah this deal is getting blocked and they know it.
Warablo
Member
They'd probably do this method if Sony or Nintendo allows Gamepass on their system. I don't think they're spending all this money to publish games on Sony unless Game Pass is there.
Some of those games are trying to AAA, but I don't even think the Stalker devs have worked on Stalker in 13 years.
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SenjutsuSage
Banned
Nope. Not exactly. Kotick is saying that this is normally around the time where Sony would most want to engage with them to discuss future opportunities. It doesn't mean he's allowed to engage in them. He just acknowledges that the deal is about to end, and Sony isn't even on the phone knowing their deal with Activision is about to end, even if those discussions can't be held. He's simply saying Sony isn't behaving like a company that truly feels it needs Activision Blizzard. And he's correct.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Sony's deal with Activision isn't ending. It runs until 2025, so they have plenty of time to renegotiate (assuming MS/ABK fails).
Also, Sony is a party to litigation now. I don't think they can legally communicate with other party to strike another deal.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
But that's not the criteria for classifying a AAA game.
Bioware last worked on Dragon Age in 2014. Dragon Age Dreadwolf will release after 11-12 years. It'll still be classified as a AAA game.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Sounds like Kotick knows either the deal is dead or CMA will ask for heavy concessions, perhaps to such a degree that the deal isn't worth the hassle.
This is great news. MS should now focus on getting all their current studios in order.
This is great news. MS should now focus on getting all their current studios in order.
Warablo
Member
What classifies a AAA game? Are you trying to say Bioware and GSC games are comparable? GSC devs are literally in a war right now.
Warablo
Member
Basically Sony is now challenging Microsofts 4th extension. Still not even responding to the FTC subpoena either.
Thankless Sony is unwilling to comply with Federal Trade Commission's subpoena over Microsoft-ActivisionBlizzard merger, at least in its original form
This is counterintuitive. One would think that Sony's PlayStation chief Jim Ryan has a Lina Khan poster above his bed because the Federal Tr...
Sony is officially fighting Microsoft's subpoena in FTC's Activision Blizzard merger case: public filing confirms PlayStation maker brought motion to quash on Friday
This is a follow-up to my Saturday (February 4) post, First procedural dispute between Sony and Microsoft in Activision Blizzard FTC proceed...
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Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Era MS shills are having a mini meltdown over this latest development in their thread. Remember Kotick was painted as the anti-christ, now it's poor 'Bobby K fighting against the ideologically evil CMA' !!
ToadMan
Member
I tend to agree but the regulators don’t at this stage.
The FTC already complained that it doesn’t have the resources to police complex post acquisition clauses.
So let’s say MS put out a spinoff - a Diablo rythm dancing game lets say (hey MS I’m trademarking that concept) - is it a new game or not? Who decides? Should this come under the forced non-exclusivity or not?
What if it’s obviously a Diablo series game but they just called it Die-Ablocks or something and took it MS exclusive
I mean some of the ridiculous arguments in this thread about where games would have been released if not for acquisitions are just a taster. Except now the regulator gets called in to wrangle these arguments
I don’t see how the regulator could ensure that post acquisition MS weren’t just stealing the market and robbing consumers through the back door.
To me the only solution is for MS to ring fence ABK to it’s own independent division that operates standalone. They did it with mojang - dump mojang into that division and run them as totally separate entities or even go as far as making them wholly owned subsidiaries.
That would be a legitimate business move, regulators would be ok because consumers would be ok. MS can even bring that stuff to GP under this scenario and the regulators don’t have to keep looking at MS’s dodgy dealing.
But deals here and there for qualifying products is just too complex and open to abuse by MS. So far the regulators aren’t into that kind of solution.
1. Regulators said nothing about cloud relating to this acquisition.
2. The “options” (ok lol but whatever) you claim MS offers negatively impact consumers. The regulators don’t like that - hence the lawsuit.
3. Sony doesn’t have to prove anything - they are a witnesses to the case not a defendant or a plaintiff. The regulators care about the negative impact on consumers, not Sony.
Even if MS demonstrates that Sony isn’t financially impacted - in fact even if they prove Sony makes more money after this deal - it doesn’t matter.
It’s not MS vs Sony in court - that battle is only taking place in your mind.
In court, it’s MS vs consumers represented by regulators, and the majority of consumers aren’t happy with the moves MS is making simply because the majority of those users are not on MS platforms, and don’t wish to be forced to change to MS platforms as a result of acquisition.
ZehDon
Gold Member
As much as I hate that I'm about to type these words: I think Bobby Kotick is correct. Activision Blizzard isn't anywhere near as important to Sony as they've tried to convince the regulators, and I think this farce is one of the reasons why Sony is basically not complying with anyone. I can only speculate as to why - but if they had the numbers to stop the deal, they'd be sharing them to stop the deal.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
They already have. That's why:
- FTC has filed a lawsuit to block the deal.
- EU didn't approve the deal and has handed Microsoft a whole list of objections they have.
- And CMA raised multiple concerns, didn't approve the deal, started the phase 2 investigation, and is now expected to now block the deal.
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Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Yes, both are AAA games.
Which is extremely sad from a humanitarian perspective but doesn't affect the AAA status of their games and franchise.
gothmog
Gold Member
Nah. It's important to Sony and they have shown much better numbers than Microsoft to back it up. It's not a farce. Three regulatory bodies have expressed concern. Sony isn't talking because they are probably advised to not talk with the parties while this is being dealt with.
Would argue that they would have to file a federal injunction for this wording.
The other two are accurate, will be interesting couple of days.
Banjo64
cumsessed
Oh shit man Kotick about to make us a third world country.Sounds like Nadella and Kotick are reading from the same silly script.
[/URL]
I’d say the regulators have your card marked matey. This doesn’t scream confidence.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
They will eventually if they have to. But you know that they have time for that phase.
Yes, I think we're finally in the endgame now. Just a few more days. We may not get a 100% final decision, but we'll get enough information to reasonably establish where this is all going.
ZehDon
Gold Member
The FTC's own people know they can't win. If Sony had shared numbers sufficient to kill the deal, Khan's FTC would be trumpeting like no tomorrow.
The EU's basically gone into negotiations with Microsoft. If they had numbers from Sony sufficient to kill the deal, they'd just kill the deal, rather than trying to get the issues ironed out. The numbers can't be too scary.
The CMA went to bat based solely on Sony's laughable objections and parroted their rhetoric. After the first pitch, it would seem Sony's objections aren't worth going to bat for.
Sony's position is that they will literally go out of business if the deal is allowed to go through. Based on their record breaking profits, I suspect it's pretty clear that that's not even remotely possible.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
You should read and catch up with the details of the acquisition process so far. A lot of the information in this comment is wrong.
gothmog
Gold Member
Source for Sony's position that they will literally go out of business?
bxrz
Member
High On Life is not a AAA game. Its an indie game from an indie developer.
A game being AAA has nothing to do with price.
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Yeah but still think I would say that the FTC have done something else other 'filing a lawsuit to block' or maybe add the caveat that they have filed in administrative court.
I am interested to see what the markets are, I would be interested to see if the CMA actually offer any potential remedies that they would accept. I think they may get 'weird' aka outside of just COD licensing if they do.
Warablo
Member
Think it was either their 1st or 2nd response to the FTC clear back at the start.
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Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Are you expecting structural remedies? It feels like it'd be too complicated to propose, implement, and monitor.
FTC has also hinted that they are not interested in structural remedies because of the complications involved. I feel the CMA will also think on the same lines. What do you think about its possibility?
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
So we're carving up our own definitions then? lol
Anyway, how about other games then? Octopath Traveler is published by SquareEnix, so that should not be counted as an "indie game" right? $60 price tag. So that is a AAA game locked by Xbox, right? Yakuza LAD next-gen, Warhammer Darktide, STALKER 2, etc. should all count too, right?
mrmustard
Banned
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