So CMA has opened the door, very slightly to the strictest of all possible behavioral remedies. And if Microsoft doesn't come up with something good, they will want full divestiture of either COD business or Blizzard business to allow the deal to go through.
In other words, commit to all games multi-plat for 20 years, or even permanently if they won't budge for 20 years. Allow all competitors license access to ABK games on their game pass and cloud competitors, including Sony, Nvidia etc.
Offer Sony new COD games day one on ps+ for up to a year then afterwards they need to pay to extend.
But if the current situation stands, looks like I owe
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
a game possibly. Will watch. They straight adopted all Sony talking points. FTC seems to have successfully influenced it. But there is still hope, but Microsoft's remedy offers will have to be ironclad to avoid divesting.
I tried to warn 'ya buddy
Jokes aside, in the case MS want to push against divestiture and the 10-year offer was not enough, I don't see a 20-year offer being enough, similar to what another poster said. Keeping COD multiplat in perpetuity might, but that has a lot of caveats. For example, how are competitors able to negotiate for marketing deals in absolute good faith when they have to go through a direct competitor for those deals?
On the one hand, I can see how that situation actually levels the playing field, because in a scenario where MS has to keep COD multiplat in perpetuity, that goes for keeping all access possibilities fair & equal for themselves & competitors. So while Sony wouldn't be able to negotiate for marketing deals, Microsoft cannot do marketing deals with the IP, either. So whatever platform gets more sales is down to the strength of that platform's advertising and brand power. Or maybe better to say, it's not that both MS & Sony would be locked out of marketing deals, it's more like neither could have exclusive marketing deals with the IP. They could both advertise COD for their respective platforms with creative license so long as no actual lies are present (i.e "only available on PlayStation/Xbox!" when factually it's on both platforms).
Of course what complicates this is Game Pass; say in a case MS are forced to keep COD multiplat in perpetuity, and therefore all releases get same native releases on all platforms, same updates, same quality & feature support, same marketing arrangements, same services arrangements etc...does that allow each platform holder to decide if they want to include the game in their subscription service or not? Because I can easily see MS saying "screw it" and putting a new COD in Game Pass, whereas Sony refuses for PS+, but the macro factors at play would be that MS doesn't really rely much whatsoever on COD revenue or even Xbox revenue, whereas COD is a decent chunk for PlayStation's revenue and PlayStation is an absolute core pillar of Sony's whole business. So of course Sony aren't going to give away something like COD for "free" in PS+, whereas for MS they can do that for it in Game Pass and not break a sweat, because even if it leaves tons of money on the table, it's ultimately pennies compared to the money MS makes from their actual corporate pillars.
And I think that's the kind of thing regulators are taking into consideration, which is probably a reason they are more opposition on the deal than Microsoft thought they'd be.
You guys saying the deal is dead need to take your time and read again.
Not everyone's saying the deal is dead. However, one of Microsoft's reasons for the deal was absolutely to have control over COD. If they're going to potentially be forced to divest COD, chances are they lose a massive motivation to see the deal through, and decide to walk away. Which would betray that a core reason they were interested in the deal was in fact for control over COD and, most likely, using it as leverage against competitors to push heavy-handed terms at detriment of competitors, for stuff like Game Pass on competitor platforms.
MS potentially being forced to divest Blizzard could result in the same thing, though maybe to a lesser scale. Although Overwatch, Starcraft, WoW, Diablo etc. are very valuable IP in their own right.
As much as i hate bobby he was right in his recent interview with cbnc, regulators have no idea, MS would be incredibly dumb making cod an exclusive and even if they did how many people would jump consoles? I cant see it being significant especially since a majority of people that have playstations have had nothing but playstation, ps3 one of the worst consoles to ever come out still sold well due to loyalty
The point is that MS have been trying to argue that Sony would be totally fine without COD as a means of getting approval for the acquisition, which both somewhat contradicts claims by them that the deal isn't about COD/COD not being that important, and that they have no plans to remove the IP from competitor platforms like PlayStation.
Simply by positing those scenarios of a PS being well without COD (which could very well be true, financially speaking) shows that there's at least some intent for them in the future to remove it from the platform, or to make it materially worst of an offering on competitor platforms through one or several means, something they would not do if they actually felt COD was not of substantial value in the acquisition of ABK.
