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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Neofire said:
To be clear, ABK is the largest 3rd party video game developer developer in the US if not the world.

There is no standing for the US courts to block any merger/acquisition made by other companies after letting this pass.
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This is what I was saying earlier in this thread. Everything is up for grabs, and MS has the most money to loss lead every single competitor out of business.
 
ThisIsMyDog said:
If Microsoft continues to buy all the big studios at this rate then in a few years there will be 15 big games a year in Game Pass + a significant portion for Xbox and PC only. And then Sony can try as much as it wants, Microsoft's offerings will exceed critical mass and Playstation will have a hard time surviving.
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Only if MS is ready to burn endless money in a unsustainable business model until they dominate the industry, and this may well be their plans.. and if its well....dont know if sony can stop that... but they can play to their strenghs just like nintendo does
 
Salty Popsicle said:
LMAO. So when Sony outright purchases exclusivity for a major installment in a long running franchise (Street Fighter V), it's presented as Sony being charitable and a savior for Capcom. When Microsoft purchased exclusivity for Rise of the Tomb Raider and helped fund its development, Microsoft is portrayed as an evil conglomerate taking away from the people. Just so strange to see people and their rose-tinted glasses.
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You should check Capcom's statement about that. They outright said that they didn't have enough money to make the next Street Fighter. So Sony funded them. And the game sold 7+ million copies.

SquareEnix wasn't struggling making Tomb Raider. The game was already made. Xbox paid $100 million to delay the PS release by a year.

If you think both these scenarios are the same, I don't know what to say to you except suggest taking your rose-tinted glasses off.
 
RickMasters said:
Ravensoft being reuinted with their old IP that I believe is currently owned by bathesda. that will be nice! can they pull away from being a COD support team, to work on that though? would be cool.....
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If ms has another support studio for cod. Alot of the 69b comes from the value of cod they wont shuttle the production of cod down.
 
Jimmy_liv said:
Why would you even want to.

I used to rent videos from Blockbuster all the time. Never upset me then and won't upset me now.

Once I'm finished with a title it's of little use to me.
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I don't, but some people on this forum seem to not have the mental capacity to understand that just because GamePass is available, it doesn't mean the option to purchase a game has been taken away from me.
 
saintjules said:
Let's see that quote again please.
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It was more like hints, but what he said led me to believe that he thought the whole deal was coming to a head. Here's the main gist of the convo....

HeisenbergFX4 said:
Feels like this acquisition is happening
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Topher said:
Correct. CMA keeps getting lost in all this.
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splattered said:
Or maybe they aren't? Heisenberg is usually very careful about his wording.. he didn't say MS is getting past the FTC he said the acquisition is happening so maybe Microsoft sees a path around/remedies for the CMA etc? Or maybe he simply meant the FTC for now :p
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HeisenbergFX4 said:
Steve Bannon Bingo GIF
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Topher said:
Well in that case you made it sound like the whole acquisition was a done deal. CMA be damned.

Will Smith Reaction GIF
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Heisenberg007 said:
I don't think Sony will have the luxury to wait and just do their own thing after this. They could do it (and did it) after Zenimax.

But now they will feel the need to come out of their comfort zone and make things happen, including acquiring other companies and making their games exclusive to PS5 (unfortunately).
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This is what these Xbox/Microsoft people don't understand. It's only going to increase the prices of Game Pass and PlayStation Plus a lot if they buy other gaming studios and make more games exclusive to their consoles. If you think paying 17 dollars a month on Game Pass is expensive, wait till they raise it to like 30 dollars a month in like 3 years.
 
HelpYouFall said:
That is not how good business operates at all. Some of you really need to cool it down with all the vitriol. You people are so caught up in fanboy/tribalism that you actually believe high up people make decisions like some scorned girlfriends instead of datacrunchers smh
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The hypocrisy of you in the face of what MS did with the Bethesda acquisition for you to spew this lol. It's like you are peeing on someone's head and telling them it's raining.

Ms did exactly what I stated in my initial post and individuals think they aren't going to do the same with ABK are delusional.
 
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Ogbert said:
Is it true that the CMA has released a statement saying they are open to revisions in the deal?

If so, this deal is done.
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Yes, they have paused litigation and have reopened negotiations with MS. They were likely waiting on the FTC case result to make a comment on it one way or the other.
 
aliadiere25 said:
This is what these Xbox/Microsoft people don't understand. It's only going to increase the prices of Game Pass and PlayStation Plus a lot if they buy other gaming studios and make more games exclusive to their consoles. If you think paying 17 dollars a month on Game Pass is expensive, wait till they raise it to like 30 dollars a month in like 3 years.
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It could happen this year, they could raise 30 dollars/month and GP brainlets still accept it because muh call of duty.
 
boblob said:
Playstation Studios have made 9 acquisitions since 2021.

MS raised the game to new heights, but the game has always been played.
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Those acquisitions outside of Bungie were for developers only, and outside of Nixxes, for devs that either worked exclusively on PlayStation anyway or focused vastly on PlayStation platforms.

Sony's acquisition strategy was never the same as Microsoft's, they never made acquisitions intending to take away 3P partners from Microsoft or remove content that was prolific on Xbox platforms. "Oh but they did that anyway with 3P exclusivity deals!" Yeah you mean the same ones Microsoft did in the past, still do today, and could have competed with Sony to get if they were actually wanting to compete?

And what big 3P exclusives have Sony even gotten so far this gen outside of Forspoken and Final Fantasy games? How does Sony having 3P exclusivity on two IP (one a brand new IP, the other simply for the mainline games) even equate to "buying up 3P exclusivity from all the big 3P" or whatever Imran Khan was yelling about back in 2020?
 
Sad because this seems to be over and happy because this seems to be over. 🙃

Little to comment on and except for the conditions that CMA and MS can agree to, which are supposed to be done in a matter of days..... and, perhaps, an MS-Sony agreement.

The process has been a roller coaster from start to finish. The ending hasn't disappointed either.

Now the interesting thing is to see how events unfold. The consolidation process was unstoppable with or without the acquisition of ABK. I have no doubt that we will have more acquisition threads and we will meet again.

P.S. Greetings to all
 
user friendly said:
Now MS can get back to making great games.
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And getting their pipeline in order! With this deal out the way, they should be putting their energy back into making sure all their upcoming games are top notch. we dont want to see anymore 'redfall' type of situations. they already had tasty roster of teams and now it just got more.....'more!'


this circus with the courts has gone on long enough now. ready for a whole other topic! preferably involving games!
 
Bernardougf said:
Only if MS is ready to burn endless money in a unsustainable business model until they dominate the industry, and this may well be their plans.. and if its well....dont know if sony can stop that... but they can play to their strenghs just like nintendo does
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This is their plan, revealed in the "thought experiment" emails. The thing is that, in looking for the next "Disney" as MS is trying to do to prevent having to make content, Nintendo is even kicking their ass while being a smaller company than ABK. Even this plan may backfire and Nintendo and Sony will still be on top, albeit with Sony considerably crippled by the removal of every Zenimax and ABK game.
 
Jigga117 said:
Sony can compete with their services I don't see the issue now or 15 years. One of the very things the judge pointed out. They choose not to and tried to use the FTC and CMA as a tool because they see Gamepass as a threat.
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As long as I don't have hard numbers I dont trust gamepass to not be a lossleader. Its meant to force competition in a field where they don't have the resources to actually compete.
 
Ansphn said:
Begins the gaming consolidation free for all. Sony needs to lock up Japan and parts of Europe.

Sony needs Square-Enix, Capcom, Kodakawa, and CD Project Red

Tencent, Saudi prices will now enter the frey..
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None of those game publishers compete with CoD. CoD players couldnt care less about FF16 or RE4. Just look at the sales. 3 million each. CoD sells 15 million in a weekend.

Cyberpunk + Witcher are WRPGs that have a completely different audience primarily on PC anyway. The only purchase sony can make is Rockstar/Take2 for GTA. Bungie, CD Project, Ubisoft, are all B players when it comes to CoD and GTA domination.

If sony is interested in saving their business, thats their only play. The other purchases are going to be a bandaid that will not stop the bleeding. If they dont go and buy Rockstar/Take2, they are probably looking to sell their PS division to tencent or apple/amazon. At the hearing, they effectively argued that they couldnt survive without the CoD userbase so maybe they have already thrown the towel behind the scenes. I guess we will find out if they make a play for Rockstar in the next few days.
 
Sanepar said:
Nope because is a rent, you own nothing! and if u play full price 3 games that are on the service day one. Since MOST of games are not. even with ABK deal.
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What's your point. You only owned the license to play it on a disc and the same for digital. Why is the goal post moving when they all work the same?
 
cma will compromise, it was logical, a single body could not completely block the deal. the ftc made an embarrassing figure, first it fell into microsoft's bait (closing the deal before august), then they presented themselves to the case with the worst possible arguments losing it and also causing the cma to collapse. all these regulators are literally incapable
 
The implication of this for anything in tech industry is pretty terrifying. I was initially, yeah well who the fuck cares, CoD last good game 10 years ago and then start to look into it and the potential which Tencent, Amazon and other companies now have is...well not great. As much as green fanboy I am, it was good that Nvidia got a boot. And that was half the money of this...

Since the IT sector is kind of new, the regulation isn't there (outside of the EU), so well, rough times ahead I guess. Maybe I am wrong since, I've been through a rough time lately.
 
Heisenberg007 said:
You should check Capcom's statement about that. They outright said that they didn't have enough money to make the next Street Fighter. So Sony funded them. And the game sold 7+ million copies.

SquareEnix wasn't struggling making Tomb Raider. The game was already made. Xbox paid $100 million to delay the PS release by a year.

If you think both these scenarios are the same, I don't know what to say to you except suggest taking your rose-tinted glasses off.
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Square Enix famously stated that the first Tomb Raider game in the reboot series underperformed sales-wise.
https://www.eurogamer.net/tomb-raider-has-sold-3-4-million-copies-failed-to-hit-expectations

It's not hard to comprehend that they may not felt incentivized to make a sequel if they didn't have an infusion of money from MS to make it happen. The sale of all their western studios and IP just a few years ago should tell you just how uninterested they were in Tomb Raider anyway.

https://www.polygon.com/23293797/why-did-square-enix-sell-crystal-dynamics-tomb-raider-eidos
 
MS and CMA agreed to negotiation so quickly it suggest to me that this was already setup and ready to go based on how the FTC decision went. There is no way as soon as this was announced the CMA got on the phone, got ahold of MS and got all this done so quickly. I bet this meeting was already setup before hand if MS wins against the FTC.
 
Personally I think it would just be easier for every console manufacturer to buy up any studios they want and get it over with then everyone knows where they stand. If you want to play x game you get x console.
 
Why the F am I always busy at work when things are actually happening? Looks like things are going to be moving forward if the CMA is ready to make a deal. This is going to be a fun ride.

Buckle Up Fox Tv GIF by Bob's Burgers
 
mayham2199 said:
MS and CMA agreed to negotiation so quickly it suggest to me that this was already setup and ready to go based on how the FTC decision went. There is no way as soon as this was announced the CMA got on the phone, got ahold of MS and got all this done so quickly. I bet this meeting was already setup before hand if MS wins against the FTC.
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Dirty money.
 
Varteras said:
Lina Khan got what she wanted. More ammo for her political push for reforms.
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I think she comes out of this looking like an absolute clown. I never really understood why they actually filed in light of CMA block at the time, and suspected she was trying to make a name for herself with a last second injunction they did not actually need (so she could claim credit for CMA work). And now she has nothing to point to that makes her look good. Rather, it looks a lot like she just killed any momentum that even the CMA had at one point.

With respect to reforms, let's be real. The people who determine reforms are legislators. 1/2 of them in US will support whoever has the most $. Another half will pretend they don't but then vote for them anyway. She didn't win a darn thing.
 
boblob said:
Playstation Studios have made 9 acquisitions since 2021.

MS raised the game to new heights, but the game has always been played.
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Im really not into list wars.

I don't mind them acquiring smaller studios to build a portfolio

Buying a 70billion dollar publisher of the massive huge IP of games like cod Diablo warcraft candy crush etc is retard stuff and I'm not going to congratulate Muricans being dumb enough to set this precedent.

This is 100% going to ruin gaming, 3rd party is going to boil down to terrible indie games and when you are MS and own everything because you have all the money, guess you don't have to put the effort in like you use to do you.

Expect gamepass to shoot up in price ,MS to buy most the publishers and gaming to be more disneyfied,it's going to happen, it's not even an argument of if.

Now it's about when and like I've said prior I'll enjoy the next 3-5 years while gaming is still decent and then happily tap out.

Maybe many years down the line gaming might morph into something completely different, but for gaming is we know it... its dead Jim, when the best alternative is a Chinese or Saudi company can instead buy the publishers so gamers don't get fucked then you know we are in a bad place 🤣
 
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