I don't care what CADE has to say, they approved it unconditionally. The 3 major regulatory bodies all had objections to the deal, the FTC has sued to block it outright (the same FTC who fanboys thought would approve it by August of last year), the EU had objections to which Microsoft responded to, so we're waiting on a ruling for that & the CMA also had concerns regarding CoD & cloud gaming & offered divestiture as a remedy, to which Microsoft already said no. The CMA put out a well-detailed report & I was surprised by how much they understood the industry.
I don't know why you're acting like I'm refusing Sony played a big part in this, I remember the fanboys on this very forum were talking about how the deal was gonna through without a hitch & Sony wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it. And yet here we are, yea no shit it's not a shocker Sony's the main opposition to the deal for obvious reasons. That's been a well-known fact since the very beginning & their strategy is working so far, so much for the "Microsoft will bribe the regulators to get it through" crowd.
Of course you don't care about what Brazil said, because it doesn't suit your narrative. Biases work that way. We all have them.
I'm not sure if you are an American but the FTC is highly political and has big tech in its cross hairs. When you have a left wing media outlet like the Guardian with a headline that reads "The FTC is back to being the activist US agency progressives sought in 1914" that should give you a little clue. On top of that they just had their arse handed to them with the last big tech case they sued to stop in Meta, and there has been over 71 top line attorneys that have quit the FTC since Khan came in.
Putting your trust in them isn't the wisest of moves, and the chances of them winning a court case against the acquisition is pretty small.
The other thing is that if the Republicans had the Presidency the FTC would not have blocked the move. The FTC is as much politically driven as much as it is about fair trade.
The latest word is the EU will pass it, and the CMA is anyone's guess. Even if the CMA is the only one that blocks it MS will still go ahead with the buyout but will set up another company soley for the UK, which Hoeg talked about. The CMA can't stop the acquisition. MS will make a decision that suits them, and there are ways they can operate in the UK with the CMA not approving the acquisition.
The CMA report was laughable. If you think it was well thought out we have very different high bars. It was nearly word for word from Sony.
It would take hours to write about it, but everyone should listen to Hoegs Law latest video about it. Let's just say he wasnt too glowing about the CMA and Sony in it.
Another thing that is laughable was the CMAs concern about MSs potential dominance in both cloud and subscription services.
Google put a concern in about MS dominance in cloud gaming. I hope GAF remembers how it blamed Google for the death of Stadia through its under investing in it, and making people buy the game to be able to play it on-line. A retarded buisness model if there ever was one.
Google are pathetic.
Nvidia just saw the opportunity to see what they could get from MS and are very happy campers by getting access to all AB and Xbox games. Apparently they are happy for the deal to go through now.
Sony could match Gamepass at any time they want. All they have to do is put in their first party games day and date, and there you have it. Them not wanting to use that buisness model, when they could, kills any argument about it.
And just like MS, Sony could have set up banks of PS5 APUs to do a cloud service. They, again, chose not to. MS is offering its customers the ability to play their games library via the cloud on any device, anywhere, for free with their GP subscription. Maybe Sony fanboys should be asking Sony why they arnt offering that service to them? Demand better.
There is no legitimate concern about MS becoming too dominant in streaming and subscriptions, so lets dismiss that argument.
The only complaint left is by Sony, and MS has played them well.
First they complained that MS would take away COD, so MS offers them a 3 year deal. That wasn't good enough. So MS offers them a 10 year deal. But that wasn't good enough, because by MS having COD on GP it would make people run to xbox. So MS offers them COD on PS+ day and date. Oh but even that's not good enough because Sony is stuck in a model of selling individual games, and not a subscription one, and by them having to pay market rates to get COD on PS.+ it will mean they won't sell as many copies, and won't make as much money.
Fuck, Sony can't catch a break here. No matter what happens, no matter what MS offers them, they are doomed.
Imagine having a buisness model where not having one third party game, the exact way you want it on.your console, will destroy your buisness. Imagine having a buisness model where you say that if you lose COD that you will "reduce the potential return on producing innovative first party games, thereby diminshing SIEs ability and incentive in new games"
One would have thought that the Sony first party studios would be making money on their own games and therefore should be able to fund themselves.
Lmao, "everything going your way." The bolded part still remains true, Sony heavily invested in their first-party over time & churned out some quality titles including some of the best games from last-gen. TLOU, TLOU2, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Marvel's Spider-Man, Death Stranding, Bloodborne & etc. Games like Returnal (new IP) & Spider-Man were funded & published by Sony themselves with Housemarque & Insomniac who were third-parties at the time before they got acquired after the games were successful. Look at how much of a powerhouse Insomniac became now with their insane output already this gen, an absolute steal for Sony for just $230M, that's how it's done.
The result of those investments they made paid dividends for them as the consumers (including me) & the market chose them over Xbox because of what they had to offer, they earned the market share they have today because they learned from their past mistakes & actually invested in their first-party output. All of these IP's (with the exception of Spider-Man which funny enough Phil passed on when Marvel asked) were formed under Sony, they weren't taken away from other platforms like you keep whining about. No one was complaining when Xbox acquired studios like Ninja Theory or Playground, PS players started complaining when publishers like Bethesda were acquired & they found out games like Starfield, the next Fallout & Elder Scrolls will be permanently yanked off PlayStation, which is exactly what Microsoft plans to do with Call of Duty if the deal goes through.
Now tell me, what major multiplat IP did Sony recently take away from Xbox permanently & called it first-party?
No one was complaining when MS bought Ninja Theory? I couldn't count how many times I have heard Sony fanboys complaining that they sold to MS. I read all about how Ninja Theory and Sony worked really closely together historically.
Gamerant ran a story saying "Why Hellblade 2 deserves a Playstation release"
Push square put out an article where it said "In the aftermath of the announcement, many voiced their disappointment, calling the developer a "traitor" that has abandoned its own independence."
I'm not sure where you were when it was announced but there was a shit ton of outrage about MS buying Ninja Theory.
Yes, Bethesda games won't be on PlayStation anymore. They are owned by Microsoft, and the exact same thing would have happened if they were bought by Sony.
Do you think if Sony had the money, and Zenimax approached them to sell, they would have bought them?
And if they bought them do you think Sony would have kept these games on xbox?
Of course they would.
The talk about pulling games away from PlayStation is just embarrassing and is no different to port begging.
Did Bethesda intend to release Ghostwire and Deathloop on Xbox at the same time as PS before Sony paid them not to? Did they intend to release Starfield on Xbox at the same time when Sony was trying to get it exclusive?
Steller Blade was announced for Xbox and was being developed for it before Sony grabbed the publisher rights and scrapped the xbox version. Are you outraged by Sony's actions?
Let me guess, Sony is now paying for all the development so they should get to have it exclusive.
Sure, and MS is paying for all the development of Bethesda games after they bought them, so it's fine for them to make them exclusive as well.
The difference between me and you is I'm not hypocritical about it.
I didn't get upset when Sony bought Bungie even though they used to be owned by MS and had such history with xbox.
I don't care if Sony makes their games exclusive.
I accept that both MS and Sony do the exact same thing, and if they haven't its only because they haven't had the opportunity to do so, and that's the exact reason why Sony hasn't pulled a major IP off Xbox, because they haven't had the opportunity to do so.
I also find it amusing that you think that MS buying a company and not putting it on PS is bad, but Sony paying Capcom to take SF5 off Xbox is ok. That's some busted logic you have, regardless of how you try to defend it.
It ain't Sony's fault Phil sucked at his job when it came to investing in their own first-party output last-gen, take it up with him.
People always show their bias at some point.
Phil played no role in MS reducing their first party studios, he took over and reversed that trend.
Under Phil Microsoft bought Obsidian, Ninja Theory, InXile, Compulsion, Undead Labs, Playground, Double Fine, Bethesda and now buying ABK. He set up a new AAA studio in the Initiative.
Not only did MS buy them with his leadership but he invested in them and upgraded Undead Labs, InXile and Ninja Theory from indie and AA to AAA studios.
He increased Playground from a one team studio to a two team studio, both AAA.
Under his leadership Xbox was Publisher of the year in 2021. (And that didnt include Bethesda titles either)
While Sony fanboys whinge on forums and twitter about how Phil is terrible, xbox players love what he has done, and his industry peers and giving him award after award. Im pretty sure he doesnt give a shit about what some salty Sony fan says.
Alot of fanboys dont like the current situation because all their talking points in the console wars are coming to an end.
MS now has more quality first party studios than Sony does now. MS has more valuable IP than Sony does.
The only talking points they have is that Phil lied, MS took games away from them (The same games they claimed they didnt want anyway) and MS is buying things that Sony can't afford.
Times have certainly changed.
They've been in the industry for 2 decades now & have always been a major player alongside Sony, they didn't just become a "big deal" over night because of a $69 billion deal that has yet to even go through. No one's gonna care if MS continues acquiring studios the way Sony has been doing now, as long as big publishers aren't being bought out resulting in established IP's being taken away from the competing platform. I still don't know what the fuck Phil's doing & why Asobo Studio hasn't been acquired yet, they're a capable developer who have a lot of potential under Xbox first-party. I've played both Plague Tale games on PS & they were great
Sony bought a big publisher when they entered the console space.
What you are saying is that its ok to have done that decades ago, just not now.
I didnt hear you complaining when it was reported that Sony was one of the parties trying to buy WB games, and im sure if they had of then it would have been a brilliant master-stroke.
Do you honestly think Sony hasn't bought a big publisher because they believe that goes against the "spirit" of acquisitions? If so I have a bridge I would like to sell you.
Sony hasnt done that because they didnt have the funds to do it. If Jim Ryan had a 69 billion to buy ABK he would have jumped on it. To think you believe that Jim would have said "No, I don't believe we should buy a big publisher because that just wouldn't be right" is quite amusing.
What you really want is for MS to limit themselves to buying only the things that Sony is also able to do. You dont think its fair that MS has more money to spend. That's it, nothing more. You want to keep the same console gaming landscape that existed during the PS4/XO generation.
Well the bad news is that thats not how the world works.
Sony and its fanboys dont set the rules of international business. Sony tried to use the advantages it had to gain a leg over Xbox, and MS is using the advantage it has to gain one over Sony.
Don't worry, regulators will do their jobs. They'll care then, just like how they went from thinking no concessions would be needed for ABK, to signing all these licensing deals with other companies & offering Sony a 3-year CoD licensing deal before upping that to 10 years after more unexpected regulatory scrutiny. I guarantee you they won't think about acquiring any major publishers after this ABK mess gets resolved, that's the one good thing to come out of this deal.
I'm sure the regulators will do their job as well, and I am 100% sure that MS will challenge a negative outcome if they get one with the options available to them.
Don't forget however, that the regulators may well agree to the acquisition with the remedies offered by MS, and judging by how much faith you have in them I would expect you to come in here and say they got it right.
Another thing to come out of this deal is that there is no way Sony would be able to get a purchase of a WB or Ubisoft or T2 through any regulators. We saw how much they were concerned about the fourth placed market player buying one, so the chances of the market dominant player getting anything through is zero to none.
And for the record, MS.doesnt need another publisher. All they need after this is a few individual studios like Asobo, Certain Affinity, Squanch, Avalanche etc, which wouldn't need to go through any regulators, and they are set.
there's no more the xbox version and so? There's no more the redfall ps5 version and so? Is not illegal and is not a scandal 
