Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?


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You say that but these opinions are based on a historical trend, so far everything MS touches has gone to shit such as Rare.
Historical part such as 3rd party studio exclusive games(Scalebound)?
Most of their 1st party studios have delivered their games.

Rebooting and work issues is something that you can't avoid when you have 2 opposite groups in 1 project (perfect dark). Halo failure stems from not keeping up with time, and focusing on F2P side without having enough content to sustain f2p players.

The most glaring issue of MS/Xbox was their studio count. You don't get enough content with that pathetic line that they had, before they went buying spree.

Rare has sea of thieves. Playground with horizon, Forza with motorsports, undead labs with state of decay, coalition with gears and 343i with halo. The rest studio are PC oriented.

Their biggest mistake was closing lionhead studio early.
 
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I love how people are jumping to conclusions that MS will make these studios shit.
You guys never fail to entertain me.
It's like these studios stopped doing all their work and started becoming shit all of sudden.
My biggest concern with consolidation isn't that the studios will turn to shit but many IPs will be lost. There are only so many studios to go around and I expect several IPs to get lost/abandon as studios are moved to projects... ..see Rare and Sea of Thieves. I guess the argument can be made that many of those IPs will be abandoned anyway but I believe consolidation will lead to more of it as studios are moved to where MS, in this case, wants them.
 
I love how people are jumping to conclusions that MS will make these studios shit.
You guys never fail to entertain me.
It's like these studios stopped doing all their work and started becoming shit all of sudden.
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My biggest concern with consolidation isn't that the studios will turn to shit but many IPs will be lost. There are only so many studios to go around and I expect several IPs to get lost/abandon as studios are moved to projects... ..see Rare and Sea of Thieves. I guess the argument can be made that many of those IPs will be abandoned anyway but I believe consolidation will lead to more of it as studios are moved to where MS, in this case, wants them.
We already lost so many good IPs without consolidation.
Look at MS/Sony/Nintendo graves.

Nintendo for some reason hates f-zero and earthbound.
 
You say that but these opinions are based on a historical trend, so far everything MS touches has gone to shit such as Rare.
in Xbox's (Microsoft's) defence, they are looking at Apple, Google and Steam, and concluding that none of those companies need to do anything specifically in gaming really well for their 30%, which for me is exactly why I'm against this acquisition. In the high end console space we need companies that are exceptional at game development and cultivating exceptional talent when acquiring, rather than a company focused on a next-gen store to sell whatever 3rd parties say is the level of excellence.

I wouldn't say Xbox/Microsoft turns everything to sh:#, just that the following critical/commercial success of acquired IPs - after acquisition - don't seem to go up or stay the same for too long, other than maybe Minecraft IMO.
Average critical success for the other companies like Steam, Apple, Google would be a vast improvement, so Microsoft do deserve credit for trying much harder and achieving far more on that front IMHO, but it is still far less than the failed Sega used to deliver, and far less than a Konami used to put out yearly, and still way below EA, ABK and T2's efforts IMO.
 
Buy, buy, buy…that's all the cunts at MS do. They cannot, and do not, develop anything. Just, buy, buy, buy. Then ruin, ruin and ruin.

I don't give 2 shits about CoD, Diablo, or anything MS is buying. That does not change the fact that, MS is a do nothing bitch; they absorb, ruin, and that's it.

If/when this deal goes through, it's bad for gamers. That's a fact. Period.

Quick suggestion: start to play the games and not the brand. You'll soon discover amazing IPs, present or past, which, clearly, you don't know.
At the end of the day tho, it's not my problem. I don't even want to do the stupid lists of games because it's all about tastes at the end of the day. When gamers are so blinded of hate, they can't even do some research (they developed for PC games even before PS was a thing, but whatever), some discovery and actually, have real fun.
It's sad because it's so good to exchange point of views or different tastes but, when only blind and misguided absolutism exists, there's no soution.
I'm also sorry for this OT. But I will no bother anymore after seeing some of the tendencies.
 
My biggest concern with consolidation isn't that the studios will turn to shit but many IPs will be lost. There are only so many studios to go around and I expect several IPs to get lost/abandon as studios are moved to projects... ..see Rare and Sea of Thieves. I guess the argument can be made that many of those IPs will be abandoned anyway but I believe consolidation will lead to more of it as studios are moved to where MS, in this case, wants them.

I don't personally really care about Rare's current or past IPs, but my understanding is that they chose to work on Sea of Thieves (or new IP in general rather). Microsoft/Xbox didn't force them to build SoT or prevent them from working with old IPs.

Why do another new IP and not go to something you've got in the bank? A new Banjo Kazooie, for example?

Craig Duncan:
If that was our logic we'd have been making Jetpac for the last 35 years. The great thing about making games is putting a set of passionate people together making something they truly love and believe in. That's the goal of making anything. That's why Sea of Thieves is the game it is. That's why Everwild will be the game it will be, because we have a team of people who are truly passionate about the thing they're creating. Then my job as the studio head is to create an environment where they can go do that, and they can do their best work, and we can create something amazing. It's not about me picking the game I want made, or I want people to go do. It's about the team building the thing that is in their burning desire and heart to go make the most amazing experience.
 
April is going to be little bit crazy.

Early April 2023: meetings and discussions with the CMA regarding the remedies working paper.

- Early April 2023: the EC will assess the market test conducted for the remedies proposed by MS.

- April 10th 2023: the Canada Competition Bureau will update the list of merger reviews completed during the previous month (probably nothing will come out of it, but my guess is that sooner rather than later there will be a decision).

- April 18th 2023: second extension of the original outside date. If MS quits by that date they have to pay a termination fee of $2,500,000,000; if they don't, the outside date gets extended until July 18th 2023.

- April 26th 2023: final report and remedies from the CMA.

- April 28th 2023: decision from New Zealand.

- April - May 2023: decision from the SAMR in China.

- May 22nd 2023: final decision from the EC.
 

Endeavor Announces UFC® and WWE® to Form a $21+ Billion Global Live Sports and Entertainment Company

off topic but the above mentioned deal at 21 billion seems like chump change compared to the MS/activision deal

video games are big
 
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R reksveks , per Idas this is the only new / relevant bit of info from that WSJ article with the absolutely terrible headline.


"Matt Perault, policy analyst for New Street Research, says those rulings will likely factor heavily into the FTC's decision on how to proceed with its own case. He also says the odds are in Microsoft's favor, writing in a note Friday, "we think a settlement is more likely than a block because Microsoft can offer concessions that address many of regulators' core concerns."

This is also speculation, not actual news, but eh.


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And these are the next expected event dates, as per Idas again.



NEXT KEY DATES:
- Early April 2023: meetings and discussions with the CMA regarding the remedies working paper.
- Early April 2023: the EC will assess the market test conducted for the remedies proposed by MS.
- April 10th 2023: the Canada Competition Bureau will update the list of merger reviews completed during the previous month (probably nothing will come out of it, but my guess is that sooner rather than later there will be a decision).
- April 18th 2023: second extension of the original outside date. If MS quits by that date they have to pay a termination fee of $2,500,000,000; if they don't, the outside date gets extended until July 18th 2023.
- April 26th 2023: final report and remedies from the CMA.
- April 28th 2023: decision from New Zealand.
- April - May 2023: decision from the SAMR in China.
- May 22nd 2023: final decision from the EC.
- July 18th 2023: The end of the second extension and final outside date in the merger agreement. If MS quits by that date they have to pay a termination fee of $3,000,000,000; if they don't, they'll have to renegotiate the outside date with ABK.
- August 2nd 2023: beginning of the FTC in-house trial.
- Early 2024: decision from the FTC administrative law judge.
- Anything beyond that: unknown
 
A faster path to Savvy's "ultimate objective" to help the country become a global entertainment hub by 2030 is to acquire studios or publishers, including internationally, Ward said. Electronic Arts would be "too big" for them — Savvy has about $13 billion to invest in acquiring a game publisher — although Ward would consider taking another public game publisher private.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...tm_medium=share&utm_campaign=mobile_web_share

Seems to be a weird case of Bloomberg re-reporting something from September.

Will ignore it really.
 
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Endeavor Announces UFC® and WWE® to Form a $21+ Billion Global Live Sports and Entertainment Company

off topic but the above mentioned deal at 21 billion seems like chump change compared to the MS/activision deal

video games are big

Yeah

UFC + WWE made $2.4bn in revenue for 2022

Activision Blizzard King made $7.5 bn in that same time frame.
 
How many games do you think sell 6 million copies on Steam?

Bear in mind this was a late port to Steam and had been available on PC Gamepass and Windows store since 2018.
Game could have sold more than 6m if it werent for that mandatory co-op.
 
My biggest concern with consolidation isn't that the studios will turn to shit but many IPs will be lost. There are only so many studios to go around and I expect several IPs to get lost/abandon as studios are moved to projects... ..see Rare and Sea of Thieves. I guess the argument can be made that many of those IPs will be abandoned anyway but I believe consolidation will lead to more of it as studios are moved to where MS, in this case, wants them.
That's one thing where I think it could help if they trusted each other with their IP's and shared/working on them.

I still want a Obsidian Fallout instead of waiting 10+ years for Fallout 5
 
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No more acquiring for fucks sake.

There's going to be many more acquisitions this generation in general. When people look back, more than anything, this generation will be known as the generation of acquisitions.
 
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