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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Iced Arcade said:
Can't wait for this deal to be over so these 2 can start showing off again.

Semi off topic: starting to see Spider-Man 2 ads now (*no gameplay)
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Cannot wait for this game, the first one was so good. I have seen it advertised loads on YouTube
 
Elios83 said:
We don't know how this thing will end but it's clear that Microsoft was at the very least forced to concede a lot more they imagined when they signed this deal in early 2022 and it's not over, regulators have not expressed themselves about the remedies they will end up asking.
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I don't really see the lens you could look from to see that conclusion. They basically offered up CoD staying multiplatform in the opening letters about the deal, that was clearly the expected result for them here. And the only way it would have gone anyway because the CoD machine is so expensive to operate, thus they would have never seriously considered reducing the available customers for the title.

Basically things appear to be unfolding the way MS would have wanted so far.

It's even a stretch to say these proceedings had anything to do with potential future acquisitions either, not when the only thing the regulators seem to care about is CoD and no future franchise they could acquire could ever be in the same league to begin with (what other game has the same pull in the market individually - other than the most successful Nintendo and Sony first-party titles which MS could never acquire anyway).

The first threshold that MS would realistically hit that could block future acquisitions of gaming software developers would probably be the percentage of workforce they controlled. But, they'd have a ways to go before that was a legitimate concern. Though I doubt we'll see them pickup any company with this many employees again anyway.
 
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DaGwaphics said:
I don't really see the lens you could look from to see that conclusion. They basically offered up CoD staying multiplatform in the opening letters about the deal, that was clearly the expected result for them here. And the only way it would have gone anyway because the CoD machine is so expensive to operate, thus they would have never seriously considered reducing the available customers for the title.

Basically things appear to be unfolding the way MS would have wanted so far.

It's even a stretch to say these proceedings had anything to do with potential future acquisitions either, not when the only thing the regulators seem to care about is CoD and no future franchise they could acquire could ever be in the same league to begin with (what other game has the same pull in the market individually - other than the most successful Nintendo and Sony first-party titles which MS could never acquire anyway).

The first threshold that MS would realistically hit that could block future acquisitions of gaming software developers would probably be the percentage of workforce they controlled. But, they'd have a ways to go before that was a legitimate concern.
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I don't remember COD being offered to Nintendo, Xbox + Activision games being offered to nVidia and other cloud competitors when this deal was announced.
I only remember that there was an offer just to Sony, for three years after current deals.
Now it's 10 years and if regulators will ask more they'll have to concede more.
That things didn't go as Microsoft thought, the opposition they faced with regulators was much much stronger than what they expected is pretty much obvious.
Even if CMA/EU approve with remedies there's also an other whole chapter with the FTC in summer. This is not what they expected given they thought that everything would be cleared during the current fiscal year (and a good margin was calculated in that).

Future acquisitions will be much harder because the underlying plan is now clear, they'll be a much bigger entity with a much bigger workforce next time with even less excuses to justify the need to subtract other resources from the competitive market for themselves. Also they're effectively cut out from other huge acquisitions like EA and Take Two.
 
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feynoob said:
$68b is 65% of Sony entire business, not PS.

MS is just a beast on different scale. Xbox is lucky to have that kind of financial backing.
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Why ever get better as running your business when you can just get a big bag of money to try to fix the issue, instead of actually fixing the problem. Why would Xbox ever get better at consistently releasing quality first party games, when they have no skin in the game. Daddy Microsoft will just kiss the boo boos away. Now they'll likely have a bunch more studios that don't have to worry about ever going out of business. I'm sure that will really motive them to release games in the timely manner.
 
GHG said:
It's fucking business. What do you expect Sony to do? You want them to play nice? Should they tell publishers/developers they want to overpay for the deals they agree to? Tell publishers/developers that they shouldn't see the opportunity in having their product(s) being heavily marketed to one of the largest and most active console userbases? Tell publishers/developers not to agree to the terms set out in contracts even if they are happy to do so?

It's up to their competition to bring something to the table that differentiates themselves and makes them attracting both to potential customers and to potential business partners. If they have something unique then it circumvents anything Sony could ever do to make things more difficult for them. That's what everyone's favourite word "competition" is supposed to breed.

Some of you are just as soft and spineless as the current leadership at Xbox. You never heard any of this crap when Peter Moore was in charge. You never heard him cry, he just got on with the job and did what was necessary to make waves and do deals. It's no coincidence that he's built tremendous success everywhere he's been since.
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And that's why Microsoft is buying ABK, its business and competition, they found an alternative and did it, but why it is wrong?
 
Roxkis_ii said:
Why ever get better as running your business when you can just get a big bag of money to try to fix the issue, instead of actually fixing the problem. Why would Xbox ever get better at consistently releasing quality first party games, when they have no skin in the game. Daddy Microsoft will just kiss the boo boos away. Now they'll likely have a bunch more studios that don't have to worry about ever going out of business. I'm sure that will really motive them to release games in the timely manner.
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Because quality games needs quality studios.
 
Elios83 said:
I don't remember COD being offered to Nintendo, Xbox + Activision games being offered to nVidia and other cloud competitors when this deal was announced.
I only remember that there was an offer just to Sony, for three years after current deals.
Now it's 10 years and if regulators will ask more they'll have to concede more.
That things didn't go as Microsoft thought, the opposition they faced with regulators was much much stronger than what they expected is pretty much obvious.
Even if CMA/EU approve with remedies there's also an other whole chapter with the FTC in summer. This is not what they expected given they thought that everything would be cleared during the current fiscal year (and a good margin was calculated in that).

Future acquisitions will be much harder because the underlying plan is now clear, they'll be a much bigger entity with a much bigger workforce next time with even less excuses to justify the need to subtract other resources from the competitive market for themselves. Also they're effectively cut out from other huge acquisitions like EA and Take Two.
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They literally mentioned bringing CoD to Switch in the opening letter. They never talked about Nvidia directly no, but they never planned to not put the game on Steam and other stores to begin with, very little importance to them there. The bit about EA and Take Two is more of a forgone conclusion, I doubt they expected to pickup ABK and then stack EA on top of that. The FTC is probably the thing that surprised them, but still the end result will be basically what they expected. CoD multiplatform and under their control.
 
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DaGwaphics said:
They literally mentioned bringing CoD to Switch in the opening letter. They never talked about Nvidia directly no, but they never planned to not put the game on Steam and other stores to begin with, very little importance to them there.
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Also Xbox games as well to many cloud competitors?
They expected a lawsuit with FTC starting in summer 2023?

Come on, let's not try to deny reality.
Microsoft has already been forced to concede far more than what they wanted, they got the spotlight about their plan to simply buy marketshare in the gaming market and faced much stronger opposition than they expected.
And regulators have not made their final requests for remedies yet...
 
Elios83 said:
Also Xbox games as well to many cloud competitors?
They expected a lawsuit with FTC starting in summer 2023?

Come on, let's not try to deny reality.
Microsoft has already been forced to concede far more than what they wanted, they got the spotlight about their plan to simply buy marketshare in the gaming market and faced much stronger opposition than they expected.
And regulators have not made their final requests for remedies yet...
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I said the FTC was the likely surprise for them. They put their games on stores beside their own anyway, it makes zero difference to MS if a player plays Forza on a Nvidia GPU at home or in a DC, it's just another sale on Steam or whatever store the player bought it from. The cloud angle would have always been completely irrelevant to them, as it has always been to gamers in general LOL. The FTC and the timeline dragging out a bit might not be ideal for them, the end result looks to be shaping up just the way they would have wanted. With the added bonus of Sony working really hard to define a market that includes just Sony and MS, which can only be advantageous for MS going forward.
 
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ulantan said:
Microsoft have quality studios no amount of studios can fix bad management.
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I guess we'll just have to see, won't we?

Elios83 said:
I don't remember COD being offered to Nintendo, Xbox + Activision games being offered to nVidia and other cloud competitors when this deal was announced.
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Nintendo was always on the table. They've been talking about bringing Cloud to Nintendo hardware since the very early days.

Elios83 said:
That things didn't go as Microsoft thought, the opposition they faced with regulators was much much stronger than what they expected is pretty much obvious.
Even if CMA/EU approve with remedies there's also an other whole chapter with the FTC in summer. This is not what they expected given they thought that everything would be cleared during the current fiscal year (and a good margin was calculated in that).
Click to expand...

They always signaled from day one that they expected the deal to close in the June timeframe.

Elios83 said:
Future acquisitions will be much harder because the underlying plan is now clear, they'll be a much bigger entity with a much bigger workforce next time with even less excuses to justify the need to subtract other resources from the competitive market for themselves. Also they're effectively cut out from other huge acquisitions like EA and Take Two.
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Future mega acqusitions, yes.
The regulators wouldn't break a sweat if they bought developers for relatively cheap.
 
Ozriel said:
Future mega acqusitions, yes.
The regulators wouldn't break a sweat if they bought developers for relatively cheap.
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I really doubt they'll have any trouble completing even relatively large acquisitions going forward. If Sony closed Bungie, MS should have no issues with purchases of that size or somewhat larger, even another Zenimax type deal should not be a problem. I doubt they'll get away with spending $70b on something again though.
 
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Ozriel said:
I guess we'll just have to see, won't we?



Nintendo was always on the table. They've been talking about bringing Cloud to Nintendo hardware since the very early days.



They always signaled from day one that they expected the deal to close in the June timeframe.



Future mega acqusitions, yes.
The regulators wouldn't break a sweat if they bought developers for relatively cheap.
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No they didn't expect the deal to close in the June timeframe, they stated they expected it to be completed during the current fiscal year which meant everything between July 2022 and June 2023.
And again there's a lawsuit with FTC *starting* in summer 2023.

It's obvious that things didn't go as they wanted. They didn't want to be forced to give up on totally controlling COD for 10 years (see what they proposed to Sony initially), they didn't want to sign legally binding contracts to support all their cloud competitors with all their games for 10 years and so on. That happened because Sony bitched, nVidia bitched and so on.
These are all compromises they were forced to accept by the strong opposition they got.
And again let's wait to see which are the regulators' final requests because just two weeks ago some people were talking about Microsoft leaving UK :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
Dane said:
And what was Sony doin all these years? Because definetely buying their way from the start was one of them.
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If that's what you want to believe then so be it.

Every high quality game and product they've ever released - bought. It's so simple that one wonders why Microsoft have waited so long to attempt an acquisition like this. They should have been on top since 2002.
 
BeardGawd said:
It's funny how Sony is able to use all their advantages (userbase, studios, etc) to get ahead but MS can't use their advantages (money).
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They can. Sony uses their market share to negotiate for timed exclusivity. Microsoft can negotiate for it by offering more money to compensate for lost Playstation sales. That would be the "level playing field" approach.
 
POKEYCLYDE said:
L5fSWMq.jpg


Highlighted from the CMA's document itself. You do not use current Xbox users in your LTV model.

The % of switchers is so low that the CMA did not see Microsoft not losing billions of dollars in the model they used from making CoD exclusive.

If the % was higher, it would be easy to come to a different conclusion.
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You're misunderstanding what I'm saying here, the LTV is based on current users and the current sub cost built into that LTV. You can't increase subscription costs specifically for switching CoD users only, it's impossible therefore your model doesn't make any sense in context.

The point is that the LTV is variable, as subscriptions become more dominant it becomes more variable and under MS control.
The LTV used was based on 5 yrs of xbox profits and losses but it was old. subs were lower and game sales higher. They adjusted the LTV to more recent values which are lower and have artificially been kept low because the subscription is low margin and cannibalised higher margin sales (to build user base and promote diversion). In a possible foreclosure strategy MS can use this LTV to suggest that there is no input foreclosure risk but in less than 2yrs (2025) can recoup all lost PS sales with a $1.45 increase without risk of dilution. The LTV is no longer static, it would increase from the current xbox user LTV.
 
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Varteras said:
Lol right. We all know what's going to happen. Kotick is going to be put in charge of Xbox eventually
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I mean as much as I despise the man I would not be surprised if a) he's been bending Satya's ear about staying and b) quietly planning his Xbox empire after deposing Phil.
 
Three said:
You're misunderstanding what I'm saying here, the LTV is based on current users and you can't increase subscription costs specifically for switching CoD users, it's impossible therefore your model doesn't make any sense in context.
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The LTV can't be based on current users. It has to be based on users gained from making CoD exclusive.

Based on research you can estimate how many new users you would gain from that decision.
Three said:
The point is that the LTV is variable, as subscriptions become more dominant it becomes more variable and under MS control.
The LTV used was based on 5 yrs of xbox profits and losses but it was old. subs were lower and game sales higher. They adjusted the LTV to more recent values which have artificially been kept low because the subscriptions are low margin and cannibalise higher margin sales. In a possible foreclosure strategy MS can use this LTV to suggest that there is no input foreclosure risk but in less than 2yrs (2025) can recoup all lost PS sales with a $1.45 increase without risk of dilution. The LTV is no longer static, it would increase from the current xbox user LTV.
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The trade off for lost sales of CoD on Playstation is new Xbox Users.

Those new Xbox users can buy multiple games, subscribe to services, buy microtransactions. This is their LTV, all of the monetary value THEY add is weighted against how much money Microsoft misses out on by making CoD exclusive.

It does not make sense to weigh decision B's benefit against the costs of decision A. Decision B can be made independently of decision A. When you use decision B's benefit to cancel out decision A's cost you are foregoing decision B's benefit. This is financially illogical.
 
gothmog said:
I mean as much as I despise the man I would not be surprised if a) he's been bending Satya's ear about staying and b) quietly planning his Xbox empire after deposing Phil.
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If I were in Satya's position, I would certainly be considering the fact that Kotick has made ABK very successful (commercially) by a significant margin compared to any third-party company not called Tencent. I would be thinking of the possibility of an Xbox division ran by someone like him.
 
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Varteras said:
If I were in Satya's position, I would certainly be considering the fact that Kotick has made ABK very successful (commercially) by a significant margin compared to any third-party company not called Tencent. I would be thinking of the possibility of an Xbox division ran by someone like him.
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Xbox fanboys are warming up to him lately.
 
ulantan said:
Microsoft have quality studios no amount of studios can fix bad management.
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more Studios=more Output=More games=LESS MANAGEMENT ISSUES
When you have multiple studios releasing games, people wont pay attention to troubled studios, but people dont want to see it that way.
 
feynoob said:
more Studios=more Output=More games=LESS MANAGEMENT ISSUES
When you have multiple studios releasing games, people wont pay attention to troubled studios, but people dont want to see it that way.
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True to some extent. Self motivated studios who retain their visionaries like Bethesda Game Studios & Double Fine will be fine. If there's any studios that need a strong guiding hand though they'll be lost in the void.
 
Roxkis_ii said:
Why ever get better as running your business when you can just get a big bag of money to try to fix the issue, instead of actually fixing the problem. Why would Xbox ever get better at consistently releasing quality first party games, when they have no skin in the game. Daddy Microsoft will just kiss the boo boos away. Now they'll likely have a bunch more studios that don't have to worry about ever going out of business. I'm sure that will really motive them to release games in the timely manner.
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Somebody is mad lol
Unknown Soldier said:
The same regulators we were all sure they would block the deal like last week?

No, I trust these regulators about as far as I can throw them.
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Your trust was never the regulators concern, only ensuring that MS's acquisition won't create a monopoly.,
 
feynoob said:
more Studios=more Output=More games=LESS MANAGEMENT ISSUES
When you have multiple studios releasing games, people wont pay attention to troubled studios, but people dont want to see it that way.
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These studios will be managed by the same people that let these mediocre games release that put Microsoft in this position, But yeah let's bring all these studios into a system that's failing, surely then the blockbusters will roll out.
 
feynoob said:
List them.

Aside of halo MP and bleeding edge(small project), none of their main devs had bad games.

Poor launch, yes. But not straight up bad game.

Crackdown 3 was from a 3rd party developer. In fact most of their issues was from 3rd party exclusive deals.
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I am not talking about MS. I am talking about your hypothesis.

if you want to talk about MS. you are going to loose my friend.
 
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