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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adamsapple said:
Lies Liar GIF



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Pop Corn GIF by WWE
 
IFireflyl said:
This entire argument is a catch-22. Without more high-profile games coming to Xbox, they can't get more active users and increased console sales. Without more active users and console sales some high-profile game studios/publishers (such as Square Enix) won't see a point in putting their games on Xbox. I see both sides of the argument being made. The sucky part is that Microsoft did this to themselves after the Xbox 360 era. The suckier part is that Microsoft is using their failure to justify this major acquisition and buy the largest third-party publisher in the world.

In my opinion, it would have been better for Microsoft to make their own exclusivity agreements for high-profile games, even if it would cost them more than Sony would have to pay for the same agreement. This is (still in my opinion) still fair because the only reason they are in this situation is due to their own mistakes, not because Sony isn't playing nice. Microsoft had the advantage in the Xbox 360 era, and they squandered what they had. Instead of having to pay for this mistake (literally, via higher-priced exclusivity agreements), they're just buying the largest third-party publisher in the world to "balance the scales". Microsoft could have simply paid more for the exclusivity deals for 5-8 years. Get the best games for that amount of time, and then you will get the users you're looking for without having to resort to major acquisitions like this. Then you can go toe-to-toe with Sony again.
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Personally I don't think buying ABK really helps MS in the console space much. The biggest console game they gain by a vast margin is CoD, which they wouldn't make exclusive anyways as it makes too much money on PS to pass up, plus they've already promised 10 years of multi-platform that they wouldn't want to go back on since it will hurt any chances of acquisitions in the future. The biggest benefit they get from owning CoD is taking away the PS advantage they got from having the marketing rights. Diablo is the next biggest series that comes to consoles, though newest one is already multi-platform so at best they could exclude PS for Diablo V in however many years down the line that is. Crash/Spyro games may still be made despite ABK even putting Toys for Bob on CoD duty, though those may remain multi-platform despite how funny an Xbox exclusive Crash sounds. Overwatch 2 is reliant on having as much of a player base as possible, and already multi-platform. Candy Crush and WoW are mobile/PC only, so irrelevant in the console wars.

For being a publisher, ABK doesn't make many different game series, especially when you look only at one's that release on console.
 
Handel said:
Personally I don't think buying ABK really helps MS in the console space much. The biggest console game they gain by a vast margin is CoD, which they wouldn't make exclusive anyways as it makes too much money on PS to pass up, plus they've already promised 10 years of multi-platform that they wouldn't want to go back on since it will hurt any chances of acquisitions in the future. The biggest benefit they get from owning CoD is taking away the PS advantage they got from having the marketing rights. Diablo is the next biggest series that comes to consoles, though newest one is already multi-platform so at best they could exclude PS for Diablo V in however many years down the line that is. Crash/Spyro games may still be made despite ABK even putting Toys for Bob on CoD duty, though those may remain multi-platform despite how funny an Xbox exclusive Crash sounds. Overwatch 2 is reliant on having as much of a player base as possible, and already multi-platform. Candy Crush and WoW are mobile/PC only, so irrelevant in the console wars.

For being a publisher, ABK doesn't make many different game series, especially when you look only at one's that release on console.
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The only way they could crush Sony if they make cod exclusive. But at least for 10 years they can't. So almost until ps7.
 
Handel said:
Just that SE only has itself to blame for not growing the audience on Xbox, and it's burned that bridge basically entirely by withholding the first great new FF to release since Xbox has been getting any of the releases(FFVIIR).
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Handel said:
Feed people only shit and wonder why they aren't clamoring for more.
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Why does a remake of FF7 equal a great game at 87MC but FFXIII at 83MC equals a polar opposite as a shit game? What sort of crazy scale are you using?

Using your own logic here with the list:

FFVII(PS1) : 92MC
FFVIII : 90MC
FFIX : 94MC
FFX : 92MC
FFXII : 92MC

FFVIIR: 87MC
FFXIII : 83MC
FFXV: 81MC

FF7R is still lower than previous entries. Is 87 exactly the point where it goes from 'great' straight to 'shit' tier?

You're even ignoring the fact that an xbox user can buy those great games like FFXII, XI, X, or FFVII etc on xbox with their 92MC to get into FF and check out the next one, but they don't. They don't care.
 
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Three said:
Why does a remake of FF7 equal a great game at 87MC but FFXIII at 83MC equals a polar opposite as a shit game? What sort of crazy scale are you using?

Using your own logic here with the list:

FFVII(PS1) : 92MC
FFVIII : 90MC
FFIX : 94MC
FFX : 92MC
FFXII : 92MC

FFVIIR: 87MC
FFXIII : 83MC
FFXV: 81MC

FF7R is still lower than previous entries. Is 87 exactly the point where it goes from 'great' straight to 'shit' tier?

You're even ignoring the fact that an xbox user can buy those great games like FFXII, XI, X, or FFVII etc on xbox with their 92MC to get into FF and check out the next one, but they don't. They don't care.
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The cutoff for a shitty score was 85 you moron. /s
 
Sanepar said:
The only way they could crush Sony if they make cod exclusive. But at least for 10 years they can't. So almost until ps7.
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They never actually signed any 10 year deal with Sony. The current marketing agreement for CoD ends in 2024 or 2025. So realistically it could be as soon as next year when CoD goes Xbox exclusive.
 
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Unknown Soldier said:
They never actually signed any 10 year deal with Sony. The current marketing agreement for CoD ends in 2024 or 2025. So realistically it could be as soon as next year when CoD goes Xbox exclusive.
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Unlikely as they are making agreements with the 3 regulators. Doesn't really matter what Sony signs as MS will have agreements in place with regulators
 
Darsxx82 said:
Nobody has said that they are the same, it is being said that they can produce the same effects in the user and in the market (especially if the clear market leader does it) ...... which is true and the reason why it's are so used.



🏋️
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Same effects or same level of effects? Because from a consumer POV (which I believe this started as) they aren't the same.

Also now that I think of it what timed exclusives did Sony have with ABK?
 
feynoob said:
exclusive contents and timed exclusive contents.

Those annoying things that makes live service boring.

Though, they had a zombie mode locked to PS for 1 year, which is a lot for a call of duty game.

https://www.pcgamer.com/this-call-o...ies-mode-is-playstation-exclusive-for-a-year/
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But like you said yourself they never had any timed exclusives with ABK. Trying to compare DLC to holding back entire games isn't correct in my opinion. They both have different impacts.
 
Yoboman said:
Unlikely as they are making agreements with the 3 regulators. Doesn't really matter what Sony signs as MS will have agreements in place with regulators
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2 of the 3 regulators have already stated no console foreclosure issues exist. So why would they require MS sign a 10 year agreement with Sony? The only thing regulators care about is the cloud.

I don't think MS will make it exclusive but I do foresee Xbox and Game Pass getting perks that Playstation players won't.
 
Three said:
I'm sorry but that doesn't make sense. Your calculation was refuting this point. You tried to show that it wouldn't work to increase GP cost to replace CoD Playstation base game sales loss. If you are saying regulators shouldn't even look at that now that's a different point.

its not the same. Not sure why you think it will be. I've highlighted where you assuming 40M sales of CoD on PS a year would make absolutely the biggest difference :


Your entire calculation is based on replacing 40M sales a year of COD on Playstation. You don't need to replace 40M sales because it doesn't sell anywhere near that much. Users would only need to pay $1.45 which isn't even 2x more let alone x5. Its 0.145x more.
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I really don't think you're grasping my point. You can't weigh the benefits from a different decision against the costs of taking CoD off of Playstation.

Whether you raise Gamepass prices, raise the sub price for a realm on Minecraft, release Zenimax titles on Playstation, the financial benefit of these things do not erase the financially illogical nature of taking CoD off Playstation.

X% of CoD players switch from Playstation to Xbox if an exclusivity strategy is employed. You're saying a $1.45 increase across ALL Gamepass users would make up for the costs of making CoD exclusive. Where as you should only calculate if that increase across the X% of CoD switchers can make up the costs of making CoD exclusive. And the answer is, it cannot.

Back to the 40M issue, let's say there are only 10M CoD players on Playstation. If only 15% switch to Xbox, those who switch could nearly pay 5x as much on Xbox and Microsoft would still not be eclipsing the costs of not selling CoD on Playstation.

10M PS CoD players. At $50 a sale that would be $500M

15% of those players switch to Xbox Gamepass Ultimate in the event that CoD is taken off Playstation. 15% of 10M is 1.5M. At $180 a year for Gamepass, that would be $270M (falling short of the $500M cost of making CoD exclusive)

Now we increase Gamepass' price. Raising it $5 a month would bring the price to $240 a year. In this cost/benefit analysis, we only view what NEW CUSTOMERS (those who have switched from Playstation) would bring, NOT the entire subscriber base.

At that new price of $240 a year, the 1.5M switchers would bring in $360M, still short of the $500M loss from not being on Playstation. Even if we bumped up the percentage of users who switched to 20%, the benefit still falls short of the cost.

-------‐--------------

If you believe that we should count the benefit of a Gamepass price increase across ALL subscribers against the price of making CoD exclusive, okay. I can show you how that would be financially illogical too.

I've already shown the cost of making CoD exclusive outweighs the benefit of switchers.
Let's say to the tune of $100M

A price increase of $1 a month across the entire Gamepass subscriber base (for shits and giggles lets say there are 50M subscribers). That's $600M. The benefit of raising Gamepass prices severely outweighs the cost of making CoD exclusive. You end up with a net positive of $500M.

However, the decision to increase Gamepass prices is not contingent on making CoD exclusive. A price increase can be done at anytime for any reason.

Scenario A) CoD is made exclusive (-$100M)

Scenario B) Cod is not made exclusive (+$500M)

Scenario C) Cod is made exclusive AND Gamepass prices increase (+$500M)

Scenario D) Cod is not made exclusive AND Gamepass prices increase (+$1.1B)

You look at scenario C and since it's comparable to scenario B, you think that it's financially viable to do scenario C. But you're ignoring or forgetting that scenario D is financially the most favorable. And NOT doing scenario D in favour of doing scenario C is financially illogical.
 
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feynoob said:
exclusive contents and timed exclusive contents.

Those annoying things that makes live service boring.

Though, they had a zombie mode locked to PS for 1 year, which is a lot for a call of duty game.

https://www.pcgamer.com/this-call-o...ies-mode-is-playstation-exclusive-for-a-year/
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Modern Warfare 2019 also had an exclusive game mode called Special Ops Survival that was exclusive for 1 year on PS4. It came to Xbox and PC a full calendar year later.

www.thegamer.com

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Special Ops Survival Mode Will Be PlayStation Exclusive For An Entire Year

Modern Warfare will feature a game mode exclusively on the PlayStation for an entire year before it becomes available for players on the Xbox and PC.
www.thegamer.com www.thegamer.com
 
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BeardGawd said:
2 of the 3 regulators have already stated no console foreclosure issues exist. So why would they require MS sign a 10 year agreement with Sony? The only thing regulators care about is the cloud.

I don't think MS will make it exclusive but I do foresee Xbox and Game Pass getting perks that Playstation players won't.
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EU ruling is April 25
Don't think the EU regulators themselves have said anything

UK April 26
UK have ruled out console issues in their provisional findings but additional responses are still likely before the end of the month
At this point UK have made no changes to their request for structural/behavioural remedies

US who knows when

After everything MS have said and also saying they want more acquisitions they'd be very foolish to go back on their statements. And they would still be hoping Sony signs to get EU and US over the line and ensure no additional changes in the UK

If MS need to sign off on behavioural remedies they won't just get to leave out their main competitor
 
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thread got locked , any ways lets see phil spencer speak japanese if he really cares about japan



jimbo is just beating phil on every level
 
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They did nothing in Japan for 20 years and now they lobby the congress to investigate their own incompetence?
Hilarious!
Maybe nothing it's a harsh word, they did bother to buy couple of exclusives 10 years ago and paraded Spencer through Japan for 1or 2 years...

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Why are threads getting locked now with no mod post with a reason? I've seen more than a few locked like this.
This never happened 2 years ago...
 
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The last good CEO explained why MS struggles in Japan

He also explained why they pay for exclusives

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/e3-peter-moore-talks-xbox-360

Sony does seem to be doing better than you in Japan...-
One would hope so. Although they're getting beat; what, better in relation to us, but getting outsold six to one last month by Nintendo?

The Xbox original didn't do very well in Japan. You went into this generation being bold about saying this time we're going to get it right, and yet you're still shifting 3000 a week...
Yeah, we move three, depending... We had Trusty Bell [Eternal Sonata in the West] ship a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, the numbers are the numbers. We shipped 7000 that week, and we trickle on.

Simply measuring hardware sales in Japan people only see a very small part of the very complicated relationship I deal with... And that is being part of the global publishing infrastructure with the Japanese publishers.

When you go over there it is about face, honour and respect. They respect the fact we compete in the Japanese market. They also respect that their own market is flat-to-declining and they've taken a more global view.companiesompanies, they don't like foreign games.' Whatever excuse I could make, but that would be disingenuous to what we need to give to Japan.

Japan is far deeper than simply looking at Famitsu numbers and saying we're only selling 3000 units. It's still the cradle of our industry. It's still where some of the greatest games are made.

We're going to be representing a lot of the Japanese publishers in Europe... You're going to see more of that from us.I've the greatest respect for all of those people, and I like to think they have the greatest respect for us. They like the fact that we go in and we compete and we try.

But they're not buying Xbox 360s.
The Japanese underground consumer is probably not buying it as much as I would like; that's a fair comment. But again if that's your only measurement...

I'm trying to make the point that it's more complicated. There are greater benefits that you don't see simply by Japanese Famitsu sales every week.

I just won't take no for an answer. We're just going to continue to develop games over there - Lost Odyssey's going to be fabulous - and we're going to keep hammering away.

Do you think you have the right strategy? Because it doesn't appear to be working.
Well, it depends what working means. That one measurement...

It's quite an important measurement.
Hardware and what we do with our domestic subsidiary in Japan is not turning out the way I would have hoped. Fair comment. The overall uber-strategy of ingratiating ourselves with some of the most powerful publishers in the world so we can deliver millions of units of games around the world - that is working.

So you'd rather have the relationships...
I'd rather have both, but right now I'm happy... You're probably right - we've done it either wrong, or haven't executed well, or somehow Sakaguchi was the wrong guy, or marketing has been flawed. But we're just going to keep going at it.

So what has been going wrong?
It's tough to say you've done something wrong... We flew out and met Sakaguchi-san three years ago in Hawaii where he lives, and we sat down and we figured this whole thing out.

If the complaint last time was you don't have Japanese RPGs, well, we went and got Japanese RPGs - and Blue Dragon's sold well. It hasn't blown the doors down by any means, but we believe in him.
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Going back to what you were saying about how games are more expensive these days and costs are rising, you recently spent USD 50 million on Grand Theft Auto 4 content...
No we didn't. Take-Two I think reported something - I can't speak for companies that are publicly traded that are not Microsoft - but they reported, and didn't attribute it to us but reported getting revenues for, I can't remember the phrasing in their accounts, but recognising revenue for content in the future... We didn't make a statement.

The official line was "no comment on rumour and speculation". Presumably you would have given them a lot of money to secure that exclusive...
We have a business arrangement, because there's a cost involved for Take-Two and Rockstar to go and do things. Clearly business arrangements are always private... It's no different from business arrangements that Sony has, no different than business arrangements Nintendo has.

Yes, we're delighted to be able to have that episodic content, and that stuff doesn't come for free. But we're not going to comment on somebody else's financials; that would be rude of us.

So it's not bribery, to use Jack Tretton's phrase.
That was a strange comment. I'm not going to get involved in that, but saying they've never had a business relationship with a publisher to make content for the PlayStation platform...

We do it all the time. We're not shy about saying we'll sit down with publishers and ask how can we invest in making their game better on our platform. We did it with Guitar Hero, and it worked out very well.

Jack made a statement and I'm not going to get lured into a battle... He knows how to run his business.
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POKEYCLYDE said:
I really don't think you're grasping my point. You can't weigh the benefits from a different decision against the costs of taking CoD off of Playstation.

Whether you raise Gamepass prices, raise the sub price for a realm on Minecraft, release Zenimax titles on Playstation, the financial benefit of these things do not erase the financially illogical nature of taking CoD off Playstation.
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If this were the case any foreclosure strategy either partial or total would be financially illogical. If there is some legal reason for competition law that you're trying to bring up then that's fine please point to the law but you're trying to refute that it's mathematically possible to recoup the cost of a foreclosure strategy by a price increase with some incorrect math.

POKEYCLYDE said:
X% of CoD players switch from Playstation to Xbox if an exclusivity strategy is employed. You're saying a $1.45 increase across ALL Gamepass users would make up for the costs of making CoD exclusive. Where as you should only calculate if that increase across the X% of CoD switchers can make up the costs of making CoD exclusive. And the answer is, it cannot.
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Why? Why would what you're saying make any sense? Why would the price rise for only people who switch from PlayStation COD? Would there be a question before you subscribe to gamepass asking "did you play COD on Playstation before?" and offer you a different price to any other subscriber?

Why wouldn't a feasible strategy be to increase the price for everyone?
 
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adamsapple said:
Modern Warfare 2019 also had an exclusive game mode called Special Ops Survival that was exclusive for 1 year on PS4. It came to Xbox and PC a full calendar year later.

www.thegamer.com

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Special Ops Survival Mode Will Be PlayStation Exclusive For An Entire Year

Modern Warfare will feature a game mode exclusively on the PlayStation for an entire year before it becomes available for players on the Xbox and PC.
www.thegamer.com www.thegamer.com
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This was not a core game mode. I can tell you don't play COD.
 
Handel said:
Personally I don't think buying ABK really helps MS in the console space much. The biggest console game they gain by a vast margin is CoD, which they wouldn't make exclusive anyways as it makes too much money on PS to pass up, plus they've already promised 10 years of multi-platform that they wouldn't want to go back on since it will hurt any chances of acquisitions in the future. The biggest benefit they get from owning CoD is taking away the PS advantage they got from having the marketing rights. Diablo is the next biggest series that comes to consoles, though newest one is already multi-platform so at best they could exclude PS for Diablo V in however many years down the line that is. Crash/Spyro games may still be made despite ABK even putting Toys for Bob on CoD duty, though those may remain multi-platform despite how funny an Xbox exclusive Crash sounds. Overwatch 2 is reliant on having as much of a player base as possible, and already multi-platform. Candy Crush and WoW are mobile/PC only, so irrelevant in the console wars.

For being a publisher, ABK doesn't make many different game series, especially when you look only at one's that release on console.
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You feel it doesn't help them much because you're looking at it solely from an exclusives point of view.

This will significantly boost Microsoft's gaming revenue, have a meaningful impact on Gamepass subscriptions and negates the impact of Sony's marketing deals with COD.
 
Ozriel said:
This will significantly boost Microsoft's gaming revenue, have a meaningful impact on Gamepass subscriptions and negates the impact of Sony's marketing deals with COD.
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Personally, I think ABK deal gives Microsoft a lot of leverage in gaming. Especially with mobile - Xbox ecosystem becomes very strong - especially PC-Xbox-mobile route. With ABK they get a lot of influence due to sheer size of influence ABK had on the gaming market.

Though of course a bunch of stuff in gaming market had to be fixed.
 
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MasterCornholio said:
But like you said yourself they never had any timed exclusives with ABK. Trying to compare DLC to holding back entire games isn't correct in my opinion. They both have different impacts.
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It's a dick move period.
You don't withhold an entire content like that from a game like COD, which is a yearly release.
 
Varteras said:
SE doesn't owe Xbox or its gamers anything. They're going to do whatever makes the most business sense at the time. Not worry about maybe giving them another chance to buy their games and possibly waste time and money doing it. Maybe down the road they'll give it another shot but that time is clearly not now.
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I would imagine expanding their audience should be a priority now they're lamenting about sales underperformance of many of their titles. But Square's been making weird decisions lately, so…
 
Ladies and lads. Will I get into trouble if I post my Resetera Xbox Fanboy tier list? Just got back from my 2 week ban after posting the Neogaf version.
 
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