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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feynoob said:
The issue with this take is that MS has a big partnership with nvidia. They wont risk harming nvidia because of that. They need nvidia for their azura.
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-microsoft-accelerate-cloud-enterprise-ai

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/roundup-of-ai-breakthroughs-by-microsoft-and-nvidia/

Also the model of the 2 companies are complete different.

Xcloud uses gamepass model, while geforce now uses B2P model.
MS would gain more users who will buy their products. Plus they have the advantage of subscription mode.

MS would have to fuck up royally in order for geforce now to overtake them.
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Nvidia needs partnerships with cloud providers as well as other computing companies such as Microsoft or VMware (they already have several partnerships with VMware for AI, Datacenters, among others) for their business to grow.

I agree Geforce Now takes a different approach from Gamepass. On GFN you can play those games purchased on other stores such as Steam, you're paying to be able to play a small selection of the games you have purchased on Steam remotely, while on the other hand Gamepass offers a library of titles to be played pretty much as a rental service, but you don't need to purchase those titles to play them.

I don't think MS took much time to decide to sign the deal with Nvidia, probably just the opposite best timing to sign a partnership with them to offer their titles on GFN, so people buy them.
 
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DaGwaphics said:
That would be the direct outcome of intentionally using Windows to hurt Nvidia (pushing developers to support Linux and alternative APIs over DX in order to keep games running well on the GPUs 90% of the market is using). Plus, this is an option, as absurd as it is, that MS could move forward with regardless of whether or not they own CoD/ABK which is beside the point of this probe (this is about what new leverage ABK could give MS).
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I agree with what you are saying because the point I'm making is that any great deal offer to Nvidia to offset the CMA cloud SLC is hollow if in all situations Microsoft would always have the upper hand should Nvidia gaming cloud efforts stand in the way of Microsoft's gaming c;loud efforts - as the new owner of ATVI. Nvidia technically aren't a proof of competiton in the SLC if Microsoft can partially foreclose them at any stage - say compared to an Amazon, Google, Apple, etc getting a great deal.
 
PaintTinJr said:
I agree with what you are saying because the point I'm making is that any great deal offer to Nvidia to offset the CMA cloud SLC is hollow if in all situations Microsoft would always have the upper hand should Nvidia gaming cloud efforts stand in the way of Microsoft's gaming c;loud efforts - as the new owner of ATVI. Nvidia technically aren't a proof of competiton in the SLC if Microsoft can partially foreclose them at any stage - say compared to an Amazon, Google, Apple, etc getting a great deal.
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By what, trying to sabotage their own operating system so that games would still be built to support Nvidia's infrastructure and not MS's? Doesn't sound terribly smart for MS. Windows is worth 10x more to MS than any branch of gaming ever will be, they will never use Windows to take out Nvidia, or AMD, or Intel, or HP, or Dell, etc. The immediate Anti-trust actions taken against them for that would never be worth the risk.
 
PaintTinJr said:
I didn't mention anything about linux directly, or intended to indirectly.

And I'm not saying they will, all I was suggesting is that with Microsoft's old lockstep partner Intel (Wintel) now in the discrete GPU business, if Nvidia getting a deal for ATVI content for Geforce Now started to eat into Microsoft's cloud gaming plans/expansion - or outstrip their growth - Microsoft can dethrone Nvidia in preference to Intel or AMD in the Windows Desktop GPU space anytime they want through the HAL and indirectly compete with a successful Geforce Now, by having the capability to easily damage one of Nvidia's lucrative main core business functions. Just like Microsoft would do with any business partner.

If this is a controversial take, then I wonder how people think Microsoft became the behemoth they are today.
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If you read Nvidia's 10K filling the past 20+ years there has always been this interesting note:

"In 2000, we entered into an agreement with Microsoft to develop and sell graphics chips and license certain technology to Microsoft and its licensees for use in the Xbox. Under the agreement, if someone makes an offer to purchase at least 30% of the outstanding shares of our common stock, Microsoft may have first and last rights of refusal to purchase the stock. These provisions could delay or prevent a change in control of NVIDIA"

Basically Nvidia can't be sold without first being offered to Microsoft. So I doubt Microsoft would dump them for Intel.
 
phil_t98 said:
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Another widely ridiculed thread. Still not sure what point you are trying to make here. That thread that was made months before PS+ was revamped into tiers but your original post was talking about the number since then.

My point was that PS+ numbers have not changed greatly before or after the PS+ changes. And any thread that compares numbers prior to PS+ being revamped are not comparing apples to apples. That would be PS+ vs XLG. Comparison since the changes are not completely accurate either since Game Pass is not built on top of tiers with XLG as the base like PS+ is.

phil_t98 said:
Yeah but you know and I know that people been touting numbers since ps+ and PSnow have merged. So it is bigger
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Clintizzle said:
Lulu Cheng just told us she is starting an OnlyFans (idk why tbh, this deal is going to make her $$$$$).
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drooling GIF
 
C2brixx said:
If you read Nvidia's 10K filling the past 20+ years there has always been this interesting note:

"In 2000, we entered into an agreement with Microsoft to develop and sell graphics chips and license certain technology to Microsoft and its licensees for use in the Xbox. Under the agreement, if someone makes an offer to purchase at least 30% of the outstanding shares of our common stock, Microsoft may have first and last rights of refusal to purchase the stock. These provisions could delay or prevent a change in control of NVIDIA"

Basically Nvidia can't be sold without first being offered to Microsoft. So I doubt Microsoft would dump them for Intel.
Click to expand...
Learn something new every day
 
C2brixx said:
If you read Nvidia's 10K filling the past 20+ years there has always been this interesting note:

"In 2000, we entered into an agreement with Microsoft to develop and sell graphics chips and license certain technology to Microsoft and its licensees for use in the Xbox. Under the agreement, if someone makes an offer to purchase at least 30% of the outstanding shares of our common stock, Microsoft may have first and last rights of refusal to purchase the stock. These provisions could delay or prevent a change in control of NVIDIA"

Basically Nvidia can't be sold without first being offered to Microsoft. So I doubt Microsoft would dump them for Intel.
Click to expand...
Ironically for this thread that sounds a lot like Microsoft got a forever deal from Nvidia, given that was 23 years ago - a bit more than the 10years.

Forever under our boot agreement means Nvidia isn't real competition to Microsoft in the cloud space, so them getting a 10year deal to sway regulators is completely disingenuous if they are as much in lockstep with Microsoft as Intel have been over the years, and this type of agreement really does shine a light on how the Windows OS monopoly expands Microsoft's reach unfairly into other markets via partners.

You have to wonder if all the regulators are aware of this agreement when considering the Cloud SLC argument.

With all the lobbying talk about Microsoft paying for Senators to throw shade at PlayStation in Japan for inquires, that contract clause should really be triggering a big investigation why AMD can compete with GPU performance on Linux with opengl and vulkan APIs where it is all open, but are seemingly hamstrung below their technical specs on Windows against Nvidia when all GPU apis pass through an opaque closed source Hardware Abstraction Layer.
 
PaintTinJr said:
This type of agreement really does shine a light on how the Windows OS monopoly expands Microsoft's reach unfairly into other markets via partners.
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This deal isn't related to Windows though, it imo clearly was a deal to covers Microsoft's arse if they were still reliant on nvidia for their consoles. MS having relationship (possible good ones) with manufacturers isn't a surprise.

PaintTinJr said:
Forever under our boot agreement means Nvidia isn't real competition to Microsoft in the cloud space, so them getting a 10year deal to sway regulators is completely disingenuous
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This deal doesn't mean that nvidia is under MS boot.

Unfortunately you do seem to be drawing some very unusual conclusion (I would almost say conspiracy theories) today.

PaintTinJr said:
contract clause should really be triggering a big investigation why AMD can compete with GPU performance on Linux with opengl and vulkan APIs
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Microsoft does a shit tonne of work with AMD as well but that doesn't seemingly to impact AMD ability/desire to work on open gpu tech. Unfortunately you need real evidence to start an investigation of this kind.
 
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PaintTinJr said:
Ironically for this thread that sounds a lot like Microsoft got a forever deal from Nvidia, given that was 23 years ago - a bit more than the 10years.

Forever under our boot agreement means Nvidia isn't real competition to Microsoft in the cloud space, so them getting a 10year deal to sway regulators is completely disingenuous if they are as much in lockstep with Microsoft as Intel have been over the years, and this type of agreement really does shine a light on how the Windows OS monopoly expands Microsoft's reach unfairly into other markets via partners.

You have to wonder if all the regulators are aware of this agreement when considering the Cloud SLC argument.

With all the lobbying talk about Microsoft paying for Senators to throw shade at PlayStation in Japan for inquires, that contract clause should really be triggering a big investigation why AMD can compete with GPU performance on Linux with opengl and vulkan APIs where it is all open, but are seemingly hamstrung below their technical specs on Windows against Nvidia when all GPU apis pass through an opaque closed source Hardware Abstraction Layer.
Click to expand...
Is this some conspiracy bullshit dude, AMD gpus are performing where they should. DX,OpenGL and Vulkan are all just APIs, A 7900XTX will not trade blows with a 4090, just because a game runs on Vulkan lol.
 
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reksveks said:
MS and Nvidia currently have a decent relationship in my opinion, I suspect that MS is one of Nvidia biggest customers thanks to the LLM supercomputer project that they built.

I am not sure MS will want to compromise that. Search and LLM in general is too lucrative
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I'm still holding out hope the next Xbox console is nVidia based, they just outdo AMD by a long shot IMO e.g. first to develop features, GeForce Now, DLSS, chip iterations, drivers/game support, RTX Voice, filters, shadowplay etc. The real roadblock I suppose is price, nVidia love a premium charge.
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z said:
I'm still holding out hope the next Xbox console is nVidia based, they just outdo AMD by a long shot IMO e.g. first to develop features, GeForce Now, DLSS, chip iterations, drivers/game support, RTX Voice, filters, shadowplay etc. The real roadblock I suppose is price, nVidia love a premium charge.
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Honestly 0 chance of happening, MS would want to mantain Xbox/PC parity and for that just AMD and Intel can do it.
 
PaintTinJr said:
Ironically for this thread that sounds a lot like Microsoft got a forever deal from Nvidia, given that was 23 years ago - a bit more than the 10years.

Forever under our boot agreement means Nvidia isn't real competition to Microsoft in the cloud space, so them getting a 10year deal to sway regulators is completely disingenuous if they are as much in lockstep with Microsoft as Intel have been over the years, and this type of agreement really does shine a light on how the Windows OS monopoly expands Microsoft's reach unfairly into other markets via partners.

You have to wonder if all the regulators are aware of this agreement when considering the Cloud SLC argument.

With all the lobbying talk about Microsoft paying for Senators to throw shade at PlayStation in Japan for inquires, that contract clause should really be triggering a big investigation why AMD can compete with GPU performance on Linux with opengl and vulkan APIs where it is all open, but are seemingly hamstrung below their technical specs on Windows against Nvidia when all GPU apis pass through an opaque closed source Hardware Abstraction Layer.
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I wouldn't say it's a "forever deal" because even Microsoft wouldn't be able match a 30% buy of Nvidia stock which be about $202 billion given their current $676 billion market cap.

This was so long ago that I'm not sure who it benefited more at the time. Nvidia's market cap in 2000 was just around $300 million so they could have wanted to be acquired by Microsoft had the Xbox been a big hit. This seemed to be a stipulation that if someone tried to purchase a 30% or more share of stock (like an activist investor) Microsoft would be given the opportunity to buy more.
 
Does this mean MS will have activision/blizzard ready for this event? or are they partnering with someone else?


Maybe language barrier from my side.
 
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feynoob said:
Does this mean MS will have activision/blizzard ready for this event? or are they partnering with someone else?


Maybe language barrier from my side.
Click to expand...


Considering we don't even know what's going to happen for sure with the deal, I would be shocked if they had ABK on for something they have to plan in advance. Not to mention even if they did, it would be the next Call of Duty and GamePass announcements from them. The double feature is right there in the tweet. It's Xbox Games Showcase + Starfield Direct. So a general showcase of Xbox games and then a showcase specifically for Starfield.
 
Varteras said:
Considering we don't even know what's going to happen for sure with the deal, I would be shocked if they had ABK on for something they have to plan in advance. Not to mention even if they did, it would be the next Call of Duty and GamePass announcements from them. The double feature is right there in the tweet. It's Xbox Games Showcase + Starfield Direct. So a general showcase of Xbox games and then a showcase specifically for Starfield.
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I think the deal will be done by the end of May. Once the CMA decides at the end of April if not sooner the EU and FTC will all follow suit.
 
C2brixx said:
If you read Nvidia's 10K filling the past 20+ years there has always been this interesting note:

"In 2000, we entered into an agreement with Microsoft to develop and sell graphics chips and license certain technology to Microsoft and its licensees for use in the Xbox. Under the agreement, if someone makes an offer to purchase at least 30% of the outstanding shares of our common stock, Microsoft may have first and last rights of refusal to purchase the stock. These provisions could delay or prevent a change in control of NVIDIA"

Basically Nvidia can't be sold without first being offered to Microsoft. So I doubt Microsoft would dump them for Intel.
Click to expand...
This can't be true, companies don't enter more than 10+yr agreements with regulators let alone of their own accord. Or so I've been told.
 
I predicted we would get to 800 pages by the time this thing was done. Good job fellow GAFers exceeding my expectations.

well done congrats GIF
 
I didn't read all the 800 pages here, but a question comes to my mind:

What publishers and devs are left on the market that would require the permission of CMA and Co. for an aquisition?

Destiny or Bethesda were fine, but what about Ubisoft or SEGA?
 
mrmustard said:
I didn't read all the 800 pages here, but a question comes to my mind:

What publishers and devs are left on the market that would require the permission of CMA and Co. for an aquisition?

Destiny or Bethesda were fine, but what about Ubisoft or SEGA?
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Ubisoft for sure would, Sega maybe. Strong individual IPs seem to be more important than collective catalog in these cases given how CoD was looked at, and Assassin's Creed is much bigger than any title Sega publishes.
 
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mrmustard said:
I didn't read all the 800 pages here, but a question comes to my mind:

What publishers and devs are left on the market that would require the permission of CMA and Co. for an aquisition?

Destiny or Bethesda were fine, but what about Ubisoft or SEGA?
Click to expand...

Ubisoft is a mess and doesn't have anything remotely like Call of Duty. So regulators probably wouldn't care. But Ubisoft has been looking for a partnership. Not ownership. The Guillermot family has made it clear they want to retain the company's autonomy.

Sega might not even be allowed to be owned by a foreign entity. Japan got really strict about that during the pandemic. Passed laws that if a company had anything to do with 12 particular sectors, the most a foreign entity could own is 33%. Sega has ventures outside of gaming that I think qualify them that protection. But even just like Ubisoft, they still have to want to be bought in the first place.
 
feynoob said:
Does this mean MS will have activision/blizzard ready for this event? or are they partnering with someone else?


Maybe language barrier from my side.
Click to expand...

Nah. I really doubt it will be "done" by 11th june.

Even if EU and CMA will approve this merger, FTC is still in the way. And even if Microsoft would want to force the hand of FTC by trying to close the merger without their approval (and by that forcing them to sue in front of federal judge), they would need to make adjustments into merger agreement and it will take some time.

And at the end of the day, Microsoft don't need to forcefully speed up the process. Even if they close the merger, COD 2023 will not be day one in Game Pass (and I doubt MW2 can be included in GP before october) thanks to marketing deal between ActiBlizz and Sony. Only reason to pick up pace would be to get Diablo IV into GP as soon as possible.
 
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Varteras said:
Ubisoft is a mess and doesn't have anything remotely like Call of Duty. So regulators probably wouldn't care. But Ubisoft has been looking for a partnership. Not ownership. The Guillermot family has made it clear they want to retain the company's autonomy.

Sega might not even be allowed to be owned by a foreign entity. Japan got really strict about that during the pandemic. Passed laws that if a company had anything to do with 12 particular sectors, the most a foreign entity could own is 33%. Sega has ventures outside of gaming that I think qualify them that protection. But even just like Ubisoft, they still have to want to be bought in the first place.
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Assassin's Creed is the 11th best selling game franchise all time, and Valhalla has made more than 1 billion dollars. It's not CoD level but it's still a massive IP, and every acquisition after ABK will receive even more scrutiny(assuming it goes through).
 
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