Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
How was it unexpected?
Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)
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POKEYCLYDE
Member
They did. I think they questioned Microsoft's willingness to follow through on their Nintendo commitments, but they view Gamepass as an RCB.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
once they dropped the console concerned (which took months of back and forth in the media spotlight)
the cloud concern felt and afterthought a slamdunk.
Pelta88
Member
Mr.Phoenix
Member
All I can say is, never again should anyone say arrogant and sony in the same sentence after what MS has done here and what all their cronies who have now come out of the woodwork are saying.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
In their provisional findings, they said they were looking at structural remedies or blocking this deal on both accounts.
They SPECIFICALLY said that narrowing it from console gaming had no impact on cloud gaming, but people never really read what the CMA has written from the beginning rather they read what they wanted to hear.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
a masterful play by Jim Ryan.
I have no idea but that information would be in the documents that the FTC themselves were requesting not long ago.
All I know is that all of the 10yr agreements they had they seemed to go out of their way to mention "after close" in the press release and mention nothing about when these agreements would mean anything to consumers (eg announcing xbox cloud games would be on boosteriod come Q1 2024 or something like that). With that I'd imagine they only want to offer this with the condition that it closes. With a possible lengthy appeals process the CMA don't lose anything if it's not a requirement, MS would only prove the FTC right and we get to see if MS actually had any plans for it even if it didn't close.
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Brad Smith is just doing his job. He was doing the same deals and being the public face to regulators when MS were dealing with antitrust cases from the 90s. Buying Activison wouldn't have been his idea so him being the fall guy for this would be a stretch. Blaming him for entertaining the idea that it's possible after it was presented to him, maybe.
Iced Arcade
Member
I mean it was kinda expected the whole time until the last couple weeks when they switched up arguments.
Mr.Phoenix
Member
Someone has to be held accountable though. This snafu will cost MS $3B.... three fucking Billion dollars. That's enough to buy like 10 small studios.
And that's just talking about short-term damages, long term MS now has a talent and loyalty problem, they were counting chickens before they hatched and axed jobs that would now need to be refilled to some degree.
At this point, the only silver lining here is if MS signs some sort of COD duty next year. Get marketing rights for the game and it to be on game pass. Beaue one thing for certain is that sony will not be paying whatever they paid for COD again.
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bender
What time is it?
Iced Arcade
Member
That penalty fee is the cost of Bungie lol
ulantan
Member
You need to save that energy for Google the Xbox narrative will shift to Google is the enemy soon
ReBurn
Gold Member
This is the real driver. These companies are obligated to fight for this deal. That's why there's billions in penalties if Microsoft walks away. The chances of a successful appeal are pretty low but it's something they are obligated to each other to do.
What's going to be interesting to me is what they do after the appeal if the rest of the world allows it to move forward. I don't think it will happen, but what would an alternate universe look like if they closed the deal anyway and just left the video game market in the UK? The UK market is smaller than the holy grail of Japan where Xbox has virtually no presence anyway, and Xbox has less than 20% of the UK "high performance" console market based on the memes. The main loss at that point would be COD revenue. But UK gamers, being consumers of prime physical media, would probably just import the game from somewhere else in Europe anyway. If it were to happen would gamers blame Microsoft or the CMA?
MS has a far bigger percentage of the UK market than 20%. Maybe you are mixing it up with their console install base in the EEA.
ReBurn
Gold Member
You're right. I was confusing that. But other statistics I googled show it at 30% or so this generation. Either way, I don't think it would happen in this timeline. I mostly wonder what ABK is really worth to them. Is it worth more than selling consoles in the UK? I doubt it.
Hestar69
Banned
Whys google bad? but it is funny how this deal fell through in a market where sony dominates.. Just pure bull shit and corruption
Edmund
is waiting for Starfield 7
DON'T CRY WE STILL HAVE GAMEPASS!!!
That was the best laugh I ever had in a long time.
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Iced Arcade
Member
I think the CMA got information on massive price increases for gamepass when they included Activision titles. so it probably was partly looking out for consumers' interests.
drganon
Member
Captain Toad
Banned
Those Japanese companies will just laugh them out of the room when they try, same as Nintendo did.
And Sony didn't block this deal. In the end, this result has very little to do with Sony as it came down to cloud gaming.
GHound
Member
While they're at it they should buy all the other companies, Sony and Nintendo included, and throw them all in the same closet Banjo and Conker have been shoved into.
If you're talking about console install base again, in the UK it's 56/44.
Xbox has 44%. Keep in mind that this is console install base though and leaving the UK video games market would also mean lost sales on PC as well as PS for MS games and subscriptions.
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Unknown Soldier
Member
This certainly aged poorly.
ulantan
Member
Stadia killed the deal not sony Xbox marketing was too focused on sony they forgot about cloud.
ulantan
Member
Oh thank god the new marching orders have arrived.
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Hestar69
Banned
They should bring back banjo and conker and fable in remasters but who knows why they don't. If im xbox I do work with nintendo by putting some games on there system maybe even game pass.
Nydius
Member
Those drugs must be really good!
After all the money and drama and legal wrangling of this bungled acquisition, Microsoft won't be doing any buying for a while. Not only will their shareholders be against going through this roller coaster again, but they'll be under a microscope with regulators for a LONG time to come.
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Hestar69
Banned
stadia was DOA xbox cloud actually works and is useful for that to kill the dead is stupid. Hard not to focus on sony when Jim Crying won't stop crying about the deal.
Hestar69
Banned
they could easily buy any of those compnies. The problem with buying activisiton is Sony crying about COD. I hope xbox and activision enter into a 10 year exclusive deal and keep COD off playstation consoles.
Hestar69
Banned
How am I salty? I own all consoles this deal going through is bad for gamers and let's cocky sony have a stranglehold on the market.
ulantan
Member
My brother in christ sony got dismissed the reason it got blocked is literally because of Google and stadia. This has nothing to do with sony
Nydius
Member
The only people crying about the deal are you and your fellow braindead Xbox fanboys who had convinced yourself it was a done deal — and are now looking for any excuse to grasp.
Instead of crying about Sony, maybe you should turn your attention to the company that has fucked up every property and studio they've owned so badly over the last 20 years that they felt they had no choice but to buy their way to relevance.
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So they thought they would punish Playstation for Xbox's failures. Hurt companies hurt companies.
Varteras
Member
It's fucking unreal. As if the US itself wouldn't drag every Microsoft suit to Buckingham Palace and publicly skin them alive. A US company trying to royally fuck over the UK, their staunchest ally, over fucking video games? Microsoft would be made an example of for the ages. Books would be written about that shit. Of course I'm being hyperbolic but just how much is actually debatable.
Assuming that is true, leave it to Microsoft to go after the absolute biggest fish available that they should have known would cause the most pushback.
Not to be a stickler for details, but Sony actually closed 4 studio acquisitions in the time it took Microsoft to get blocked on this one. Bungie, Haven, Savage, and Firewalk.
ReBurn
Gold Member
What would it mean for lost sales on PC? They could probably still release PC games through Steam as Valve would be the distributor, not Microsoft. It would harm subscriptions for sure.
The total UK video game market is only $5.5 billion per year all in. Not insignificant, but also not huge given the overall size of gaming. Would the loss of what Xbox currently earns makes there be more than what they would make with ABK in the rest of the world? And how would they spin it with UK gamers who now have a useless Xbox console. No doubt they would make it known that they can't buy games any more because of the CMA.
It's all a pointless hypothetical exercise. I just wonder how far they would go to make this happen. Seems like at the end of the day just paying the breakup fee will be the way to go.
bentanchorbolt
Banned
Eh. Looking at the ban list and snarky reasons behind them it means very little to get banned from here. But yes it's pretty good of all of us nobody getting banned I suppose.
TheAmazingSpiderMan
Member
Weren't you certain this deal was going to go through??
SportsFan581
Member
The CMA never sounded particularly open to any reasonable remedies. What realistic option do you think MS had in regards to these cloud concerns? Divest CoD, or Windows, or Azure?
The whole thing is even crazier since ABK isn't even part of the cloud gaming market as it is, but some how they are a necessary linchpin for all future cloud gaming services (even though, in reality these service won't have much more chance at landing ABK in a cloud focused future anyway as they would likely just do their own thing).
MS likely needs to shift focus to the summer show and start trying to change the foreground conversation, even if they want to keep fighting this in the background.
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Katatonic
Member
Varteras
Member
I do believe S SneakersSO pointed out that a perpetual license arrangement could have been made but Microsoft insisted on 10-year maximum individual deals. Which did nothing for them in regards to potential new entrants and even on an adequate timeline for existing participants. Basically, had Microsoft gone out of their way to show that they were willing to let the cloud market grow without ever using ABK to have an advantage in it, they would have still been allowed to do with it as they pleased in other markets. Microsoft wasn't willing to go that route.
Hestar69
Banned
only dream of competition for sony and nintendo. Both get too lazy and half ass alot of stuff.
SportsFan581
Member
It doesn't sound like that was an option that was on the table either though because they wanted everything held open to rival multi-game subscription services as well.
Varteras
Member
It doesn't sound like that was an option that was on the table either though because they wanted everything held open to rival multi-game subscription services as well.
The CMA did not want Microsoft to be able to use ABK to gain a big advantage in the cloud market. Current rivals included. However, they would be allowed to decide what consoles they were individually sold on.
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Unless they get somebody else to publish their games how would the publisher (MS/ABK) operate having exited the UK? Steam is just the store.
I think we attempted these calculations somewhere in this massive thread. I'm not sure though.
You think Xbox owners would agree with that? Who could rightfully justify MS removing all xbox business in the UK over not being able to acquire a company.
How could MS justify the benefit of buying the company for gamepass vs removing all games that customers could have bought before?
I really don't think they will pull xbox to get the deal done. I think they will just prolong it because the legal fees are nothing to them vs the break up fee they would be liable for if they didn't. They might even get their shooting star so why not.
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