Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovation and choice in cloud gaming

Heisenberg007 said:
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3 million documents. So if they read each of them for just a 30 seconds, that's 4600 hrs which 191 days 24/7. So actually 8 hrs per day which means almost 600 days. For one person. Naturally they have assistants, probably loads of them who are all speed readers and understand easily the most complex business things.

Kinda doubt that a bit.
 
What can I say that hasn't already been said?

Hmmm. I guess I have a question if nothing else because I haven't been following this closely.

Does this mean that it's a done deal? I know Microsoft will have to appeal, but to who? Is there like a court or something? How does this work?

Also I thought even if CMA approved, the FTC still has a court case pending right? So either way, wasn't this a done deal?

Last question. Do the approvals have to be unaminous? So all countries/commissions have to agree?
 
If they can't buy Activision, it won't surprise me if they try to buy Take-Two Interactive for $25B and EA for $40B. MS has shown that they will spend atleast $70B to gain market share. Those 2 publishers will give them GTA and Sports. This ain't over.
 
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
Well, they bought Psygnosis back in 1993 before the PS console brand even existed, but somehow a purchase 30 years ago is exactly the same as MS buying ABK after being a platform holder for 20+ years.

Also Bungie are technically a publisher, but IIRC that was very recent after ending the publishing contract with ABK for Destiny 2. And they only publish one game, anyway.
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Was seeing if he was aware enough to mention Psygnosis. But as far as I'm aware, even though they were a big force back in the day, they weren't even close to Activision's size today percentage wise.
 
truth411 said:
If they can't buy Activision, it won't surprise me if they try to buy Take-Two Interactive for $25B and EA for $40B. MS has shown that they will spend atleast $70B to gain market share. Those 2 publishers will give them GTA and Sports. This ain't over.
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those will be blocked as well
 
truth411 said:
If they can't buy Activision, it won't surprise me if they try to buy Take-Two Interactive for $25B and EA for $40B. MS has shown that they will spend atleast $70B to gain market share. Those 2 publishers will give the GTA and Sports. This ain't over.
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They don't need to buy anyone. If they can't make it work with the stable of teams and IP they have now, then more teams and IP won't help them. Microsoft leadership needs to see this as a wake up call and evaluate whether the right people are in charge across Xbox. Look at what they did to Halo, how can anyone be confident about COD or anything else under the same leadership. I say this as a person who was on board Xbox almost from day one and bailed this gen because of how lame it's gotten. They need to fix this and can't just bury it under piles of more cash, Nintendo, Sony, and even Valve are lapping them and the gap is growing not shrinking.
 
Man, I had no idea that the Country Music Awards had so much sway on business deals going through

country music bang a drum GIF by Chris LeDoux
 
XXL said:
I'm thinking there is going to be a big shake up at Xbox.

With this and the rate they are getting outsold by, things have to change. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Also, the full weight of the world is now resting on Starfields shoulders.
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I don't. I get the impression it's a bit of a clique there. If there was going to be a full on radical change it should of been during last generation.

As for Starfield, let's be honest some of the review scores are already written by more Xbox focused people. It should not have to rely on that game but here we are.

It also raises the question what would they have planned in terms of big releases for 2023 if RedFall and Starfield had not been delayed a whole year?
 
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Unknown? said:
Was seeing if he was aware enough to mention Psygnosis. But as far as I'm aware, even though they were a big force back in the day, they weren't even close to Activision's size today percentage wise.
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Not even close, and their games remained on other consoles/PC back then. That was just fanatic fodder born in the PRscape.
 
truth411 said:
If they can't buy Activision, it won't surprise me if they try to buy Take-Two Interactive for $25B and EA for $40B. MS has shown that they will spend atleast $70B to gain market share. Those 2 publishers will give them GTA and Sports. This ain't over.
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Should have bought more senators.
 
truth411 said:
If they can't buy Activision, it won't surprise me if they try to buy Take-Two Interactive for $25B and EA for $40B. MS has shown that they will spend atleast $70B to gain market share. Those 2 publishers will give them GTA and Sports. This ain't over.
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There are other darker moves e.g. MS take a 45% ABK share or similar and a handshake with ABK execs/some shareholders to vote with majority whatever they want as outcomes. Sony wouldn't exactly be in a good mindshare with current ABK execs and shareholders.
 
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Nico_D said:
3 million documents. So if they read each of them for just a 30 seconds, that's 4600 hrs which 191 days 24/7. So actually 8 hrs per day which means almost 600 days. For one person. Naturally they have assistants, probably loads of them who are all speed readers and understand easily the most complex business things.

Kinda doubt that a bit.
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They have software that they run the documents through in order to summarise key points and highlight key areas for further reading.
 
Pelta88 said:


giphy.gif
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You love to see it, holy fuck I'm so happy this failed lmao

MS would have ruined COD by having it on every platform known to man regardless of power.

Have teams split up to work on the cloud version, switch version, and a version that runs on your TV.

Fuck that shit. Just watering down a product.

They are clueless.
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z said:
There are other darker moves e.g. MS take a 45% ABK share or similar and a handshake with ABK execs/some shareholders to vote with majority whatever they want as outcomes. Sony wouldn't exactly be in a good mindshare with current ABK execs and shareholders.
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Well, as has been shown here, many other game companies were against this including Nintendo. So would MS use that power to block those companies too?
 
Good. Keep your money MS and make something good with it. That was a lot of money.

If you're that desperate to splash send some my way. I'll make good use of it.
 
The way some of these corporate execs are acting like babies, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft just decides to pull out of the UK gaming market completely, then do the deal anyway.
 
diffusionx said:
They don't need to buy anyone. If they can't make it work with the stable of teams and IP they have now, then more teams and IP won't help them. Microsoft leadership needs to see this as a wake up call and evaluate whether the right people are in charge across Xbox. Look at what they did to Halo, how can anyone be confident about COD or anything else under the same leadership. I say this as a person who was on board Xbox almost from day one and bailed this gen because of how lame it's gotten. They need to fix this and can't just bury it under piles of more cash, Nintendo, Sony, and even Valve are lapping them and the gap is growing not shrinking.
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I will never understand this obsession some Xbox fanboys have for wanting Microsoft to buy up the industry instead of just making good/great games 🤷🏼‍♂️

jshackles said:
The way some of these corporate execs are acting like babies, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft just decides to pull out of the UK gaming market completely, then do the deal anyway.
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wouldn't they have to exit the UK completely? not just gaming?
 
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Update from Idas at the other place.


The deal is again in a very, very bad position.

Now the decision from the EC is critical again. If the EC blocks it, it's done. If they approve it, there is still a tiny bit of hope. An approval from China would help too (but who knows what to expect now) :S

At the same time, the FTC is obviously going to the admin court in August because there is no way to negotiate an agreement now.

On the other hand, if MS goes to the CAT to appeal the decision from the CMA, the appeal fails (totally possible) and they are still committed to this acquisition, maybe they'll have to start thinking about ringfencing its Xbox UK operations. I didn't see it as a feasible solution for the case (it has been used used in mergers in the banking sector), but it could be a last resort to avoid the UK blocking the acquisition. I still think that it's unlikely to work due to the global nature of the business, but maybe they'll have to assess the possibility now.

Finally, the outside date of the merger agreement has to be renegotiated now because the FTC and CMA appeals will require at least an extra year. So, if MS doesn't pull out in the next few weeks, I guess that they'll extend it until mid - late 2024.

I think that appealing to the CAT makes sense in this case due to the rationale of the prohibition, but will MS have enough patience for all the trouble that lies ahead?

We'll see!
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I think it's more likely there's major internal political fallout at Microsoft that prevents further large acquisitions. The people that could ask Satya Nadella to try again are probably going to fall out of favor after losing $3 billion. And would you really want to be the person to ask for another chance to risk another few billion?
 
Thirty7ven said:
Says who? Microsoft? Nobody trusting such a shit company unless they put it in legally binding contracts.

If they are serious about games everywhere then drop your console, drop your service and become a third party who provides the infrastructure to others.

MS's words don't match their actions.
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And what do you think they were doing, they were putting contracts and even offered to hire companies to help overseeing
 
truth411 said:
If they can't buy Activision, it won't surprise me if they try to buy Take-Two Interactive for $25B and EA for $40B. MS has shown that they will spend atleast $70B to gain market share. Those 2 publishers will give them GTA and Sports. This ain't over.
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Nah, if they lose Activision their management won't want to drag out other large publisher deal that could also get blocked. It costs a lot of money and time trying to get this through regulators

They will simply move on, maybe squire something much smaller
 
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zomboden said:
This is disingenuous. Cloud gaming is an accessory to Xbox Game Pass. You can play PS4/PS3 games in the cloud right now with the PS+ catalogue too. You can't buy games and then play them without a console on either platform.

Sony is the console market leader by a country mile it's not even close and most people don't care about cloud gaming
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Today yeah, the future who knows. At one point most people didn't care about buying digital games on console. The CMAs objections seem to be specifically related to cloud.

And to be clear, I hope cloud gaming fails and want nothing to do with it. But this decision is weirdly all around cloud, which Sony is absolutely behind Microsoft in.
 
Tbh I was hoping to see this ending today. I just hope MS doesn't go after other publisher with good IP's after this
 
Jigsaah said:
Why is Microsoft's stock going up right now?
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A whole lot of cashflow is likely to remain on their balance sheet during what is and will remain a tough period economically, plus they announced positive earnings last night.
 
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zomboden said:


Literally my take from earlier too. Not sure if this tweet has been posted yet. Mat is with NPD/Circana or w/e theyre calling themselves now. Man knows sales.

I think it's ridiculous to assume cloud will take off, and then pre-emptively punish Xbox for having advantage by being owned by Microsoft.
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You don't wait for something to happen to then try to prevent it... you try to see the implications of a move before what could happen, happens.
 
Nico_D said:
3 million documents. So if they read each of them for just a 30 seconds, that's 4600 hrs which 191 days 24/7. So actually 8 hrs per day which means almost 600 days. For one person. Naturally they have assistants, probably loads of them who are all speed readers and understand easily the most complex business things.

Kinda doubt that a bit.
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You, ummm, do know that the arbitrators are more than just one person?

And of course there are assistants.

Plus, a large chunk of that is probably irrelevant fluff.

'Hi'
'Hi, it's Bobby'
'How's it going?'
'Fine. You? How was the trip to the log cabin?'

Etc., etc.
 
Microsoft just had earnings results yesterday, the stock is moving on the overall company results, of which gaming is relatively small ball for them.
 
Jigsaah said:
What can I say that hasn't already been said?

Hmmm. I guess I have a question if nothing else because I haven't been following this closely.

Does this mean that it's a done deal? I know Microsoft will have to appeal, but to who? Is there like a court or something? How does this work?

Also I thought even if CMA approved, the FTC still has a court case pending right? So either way, wasn't this a done deal?

Last question. Do the approvals have to be unaminous? So all countries/commissions have to agree?
Click to expand...

They can appeal, but they will lose. CMA appeals go to CAT to determine if the CMA "acted irrationally, illegally or with procedural impropriety". If CAT doesn't find that this occurred, the appeal is squashed. If CAT does take issue with one of these points, then the case goes back to the CMA and they re-investigate and re-submit findings.

Additionally, if one or more of four regulatory bodies (CMA, EU, FTC, or SAMR - which is China) block the acquisition, then the acquisition is dead. This is according to the SEC filing for the acquisition. It doesn't matter what the other regulatory bodies say.
 
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