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FTC Seeks to Block Microsoft Corp’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard

Elios83

Member
Screenshot_20221208-120723.png

Maybe they're in time to delay Starfield and release it on PS5 as well to prove their goodwill in court :messenger_tears_of_joy: :messenger_winking_tongue:
 
Pay very close to the politics of this going forward. The FTC has just entered into a big fight with Microsoft and one of the United States' most powerful Labor Unions with a very pro union President and Administration.

If the FTC hoped Microsoft would blink.. that has not happened. This isn't Nvidia they're dealing with. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

The FTC's job is to protect consumers, not competitors. The FTC better pray they at least get a judge that will have a temperament for this silly case, or else it could be over for the FTC a lot quicker than people think.






Oh boy, they are crying already.....

Let's wait for Windows Central "objective" article.... And the tweets by Tom Warren will be epic....
 
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Ezekiel_

Banned

WTF is this shit? :messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy:

Microsoft: "While we believed in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court."

I can’t believe MS are sanctioning statements like this :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Peace = let us do what we want unaposed?

Yeah, that’s what John Lennon’s message was.


Their PR these last few days was completely out of wack.

It looked more like veiled threats to the FTC than a real attempt to persuade regulators.
 
Waiting for the plethora of downplaying posts.

This does not look good for the deal. It will be later than expected if at all.
Until a few days ago when people were swayed by the onslaught of PR stories from MS, this is what everyone expected to happen, and had been discussed for weeks beforehand.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Pay very close to the politics of this going forward. The FTC has just entered into a big fight with Microsoft and one of the United States' most powerful Labor Unions with a very pro union President and Administration.

If the FTC hoped Microsoft would blink.. that has not happened. This isn't Nvidia they're dealing with. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

The FTC's job is to protect consumers, not competitors. The FTC better pray they at least get a judge that will have a temperament for this silly case, or else it could be over for the FTC a lot quicker than people think.






You a few months ago:
"Sony fell into Microsoft's trap."
"This is gangster shit right here."

Let's be honest, you guys were confident that this thing would be a walk in the park and now it's up in the air.
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
So, is gamepass going up in price or not?

Hahaha, this just gets better and better. Looking forward to more twists and turns and the Netflix budget film adaptation.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Depends if the CMA and EU joins in as well. That would certainly complicate things further.

It's just a waiting game at this point.
Honestly, I thought CMA and EU would try to block it, and FTC would just let it pass.

But now that FTC has filed a suit, I am pretty sure CMA and EU will happily join the party and do the same. They were way more vocal against the acquisition than FTC was -- especially, the CMA.
 

TheHTIC

Neo Member
How can MS possibly win this now?

Easily, happened with Time Warner and ATT. It happened with Sprint and TMobile too if I'm not mistaken. They sued and won the appeals. I think with Sprint and TMobile, they found some kinda loophole after the initial purchase failed where instead of Sprint buying TMobile, Tmobile bought Sprint. I don't know exact details but basically it went through the 2nd time they tried.

Edit: I won't say easily, but it's definitely possible.
 
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Are you aware that this is exactly what Sony did with the PS1 ?

I don't think Sony bought a huge publisher back then. But I could be wrong since I'm not familiar with that history. At the time all I cared about was my PS1 games. Plus my N64 was awesome as well. So many good memories.

Happy Season 1 GIF by NETFLIX
 

Yoboman

Member
Pay very close to the politics of this going forward. The FTC has just entered into a big fight with Microsoft and one of the United States' most powerful Labor Unions with a very pro union President and Administration.

If the FTC hoped Microsoft would blink.. that has not happened. This isn't Nvidia they're dealing with. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

The FTC's job is to protect consumers, not competitors. The FTC better pray they at least get a judge that will have a temperament for this silly case, or else it could be over for the FTC a lot quicker than people think.





This does protect consumers. As a consumer I feel protected thank you FTC
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Oh, well if that is the case then I guess this will be fast tracked. I'm just used to anything involving courts taking a billion years for anything to happen.
I'm not sure, to be honest, I was asking. If my understanding is correct, though, I think this deal is pretty much f'ed.

MS might have to battle out in courts against the FTC, CMA, and EU in just over 6 months? I don't think it can be fast-tracked this much. I could be wrong here though.
 

Ezekiel_

Banned
My question to everyone is this...

Microsoft have the deepest pockets on earth. Yet, throughout their gaming history their approach has been to swallow IP and publishers to get ahead. Why are they so averse to creating their own games and IP?
It's in the nature of big tech, or any big enough corporation, to buy out smaller competitors.

Competing on equal terms is hard and risky, so why do it when you can just throw money around?
 
Looks like MS isn't going to take this sitting down:





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Of course not. This isn't Nvidia they're playing with lmao.

Case will be some time around May or June if we're lucky. The case may run for around perhaps 5-6 weeks, 8 weeks at best. And then at the end the Judge will rule in Microsoft's favor and it will be a big fail for the FTC. My assumption is the FTC won't even dare try to appeal after they lose. They know how weak this case is. They've chosen not a case they can win, so they decided to make a show trial out of this in the hopes of forcing the hand of the EU and the UK.
 

Fess

Member
I think they should make every exclusive and marketing deal possible just like Sony does. Acquisitions will certainly not happen.
They won’t do any new exclusivity for awhile, it would directly hurt their case when their defence is that they want more people to play the games.
 
Yep, unless one backs down the deal is not going through in 2023 now, regardless of the outcome of the case.

Incorrect. The deal closes 2023, just a month or two into Microsoft's Q1 2024. Q2 2024 the latest. So just in time for Sony's existing COD deal to expire.
 

ChiefDada

Gold Member
This comes as no surprise to anyone who actually listened to Khan's WSJ chat.

I thought this deal was practically sealed since Phil Spencer went out public with that 10-year deal of CoD on Nintendo platforms. Weird.

It was a stunt and nothing more.

They are making grandiose proclamations about an intellectual property that they don't own. The theatrical motives become even more apparent when considering the increased vitriol playing out in public arena over the past week. These announcements are just a continuation of that. There is zero substance behind it. Unfortunately, select few here (they know who they are) won't put aside their platform affiliation to submit towards logical reasoning.
 

MarkMe2525

Gold Member
Here we go boys. Another 11k comment thread.

Edit: I should probably contribute so I'll give my unwanted take. I think MS has a strong case that the purchase is not anti-consumer. So in the end, believe it will go through.... in 2025
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I don't think Sony bought a huge publisher back then. But I could be wrong since I'm not familiar with that history. At the time all I cared about was my PS1 games. Plus my N64 was awesome as well. So many good memories.

Happy Season 1 GIF by NETFLIX
They didn't. People are acting like Psygnosis was this massive publisher, they weren't. And they still published Psygnosis games on other platforms before dissolving them into Sony SCEE after building them up bigger than they ever were. They did not go 3 (arguably) failing gens in a row before wanting to buy the largest 3rd party publishers in the world with all of those IPs and dev studios.

They offered a cheap CD based system, cheap $40-$50 games, and removed third parties from the draconian deals they were locked into with Nintendo. They weren't perfect over the years, but most of their deals were on an equal playing field that others, especially the same MS has been free to do and done so themselves.

Most gamers never even heard of Psygnosis, that's how massive and popular they were for industry defining decades ;)
 
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