DeepEnigma
Gold Member
This is all some can muster....
Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)
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OuterLimits
Member
FTC Is often a clown show. They constantly get smacked around in courtrooms.
Topher
Identifies as young
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
OpenAI at work, I see.
LordCBH
Member
Do they still get paid if they don’t use the Bing AI?
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Catching up on the archive and Phil should send a nice bottle of wine to that Google guy for helping so much.
RedC
Gold Member
Phil sent him a 10-year contract to stream Activision Blizzard games.
FTC didn't do that great yesterday nor today, seems like the Judge got frustrated aswell with FTC today. "audible "ooof" in the courtroom after Judge Corley cut off the FTC's questions. "I don’t need that, I’m going to cut off your questioning,"
The google witness screwed FTC argument aswell, sheesh. I liked how Judge Corley asked FTC "This better be a good question"
The google witness screwed FTC argument aswell, sheesh. I liked how Judge Corley asked FTC "This better be a good question"
OuterLimits
Member
Someone should remind that small island in the Atlantic that the Sun set on their Empire many decades ago.
Slicker than your average
Banned
I'm not sure why people think if it gets approved on USA that it can just ignore the CMA even if its an American company.
UK is what the biggest market in Europe for MS and a major market for MS globally . Their business as a whole is more important than their Xbox division.
Has Phil convince Satya that gamepass will have 60 million subs annually and they can just keep cranking up the price within a few years?
UK is what the biggest market in Europe for MS and a major market for MS globally . Their business as a whole is more important than their Xbox division.
Has Phil convince Satya that gamepass will have 60 million subs annually and they can just keep cranking up the price within a few years?
Nothing1234
Banned
Microsoft can always leave the country.
tryDEATH
Member
The example is not weak, because the whole point of it was that Xbox didn't just renegotiate with Disney to only remove the PS platform, but restructure the agreement due to a different strategy giving MS the necessary out and not being caught red handed eliminating the PS platform from having the game. They are giving themselves breathing room through their supposed business strategy and case-by-case decision making, which doesn't give the FTC lawyer an ability to nail Phil directly to a specific narrative that they are trying to build.Dude, that is a weak example. Indiana Jones getting a Game Pass deal does not suddenly justify cancellation of the PlayStation version of the game, and you know it. Persona 3 Reload has a Game Pass deal Day 1...it's not being dropped from PlayStation now is it? And as a counter-argument (even though in this following example, the power is out of Sony's hands per-se), MLB The Show going to Game Pass Day 1 hasn't prevented Sony from releasing that on PlayStation platform, and their own developer makes that game. Also, in what world would a new AAA Indiana Jones game not make sense to bring to the best-selling current-gen console, especially when the IP has a new movie coming out in a few days to (maybe) revitalize interest (or kill interest, going by current reviews)?
So any contract renegotiations MS might've felt needed to be done for Indiana Jones due to Game Pass, did not require cancellation of the PS5 version. That was a choice on Microsoft's end, and contract renegotiations would be the excuse to hide behind. And it would have been great if the FTC's lawyers kept some of the deeper things like this in mind and brought them up (perhaps they still will), but we are enthusiasts in this hobby, so we probably think about this stuff at a deeper level than lawyers who do not necessarily follow the industry or engage in the hobby regularly.
But this hearing's eaten up some of my eggroll cooking time, and I'm getting hungry
Not sure if I brought up the oath, but did see a few others point out the oath turning into a promise, and saying he couldn't bind MS the corporation to his oath in court in that regard. So I think they kinda got him there.
Otherwise though, yeah the male FTC lawyer who was questioning him, they should find a better way to string their points together, and hold their presence in questioning. Needing the witness to rejig you on what question you're asking is never a good thing.
That said, I think they can recover on Tuesday. And, I'm really interested to see what the closing arguments are and how they tie everything together.
Personally this is done and dusted Xbox is going to win this case. The Xbox crew was were the FTC was going to make their case and catch them in any significant way, which they simply haven't. Unless there are some gigantic bombs directly between Satya and Kotick they will end up with soft ball questions that will have 0 to no impact on this preceding.
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Can you tell me what realistic strategy would result in sales on another leading platform to not be beneficial?
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GHG
Gold Member
And yet you all still speak our language. Funny that.
I recommend Russian as an alternative, I hear it's in vogue.
Sleepwalker
Member
So Ive been playing final fantasy today and missed all the developments, any juicy bits today?
It really depends on the evidence that FTC has and a lot was redacted.
FTC can't base their case on things they don't have evidence hoping the witness will just let the cat out of the bag. I mean they can hope they get those bonus points by luck but they can't bet the farm on that.
It also depends on how the answers they're collecting will be connected in the end in a final argumentation.
The judge isn't naive either she knows what selective amnesia by witnesses means.
Imo FTC did a good job at proving anticompetitive behaviour with previous acquisitions and they exposed that even with Minecraft they really wanted to make everything exclusive and foreclose competitors.
Where they took the hit today was on the specific COD foreclosure theory which is linked specifically to this acquisition.
If Phil's words in court legally bind the company and the decisions taken by higher level executives within Microsoft, then FTC has lost one of their arguments relatively to COD on consoles and they'll need to switch to other arguments like cloud and gaming subscription markets.
So it's really about the legal weight of certain commitments. The judge seemed bored at the FTC lawyer trying to find one loophole after the other, which either means she knows there is no loophole and the lawyer was trying too hard or that she's aware of the ambiguities of certain commitments already.
I guess we'll see if the FTC changes their arguments next week or not.
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OuterLimits
Member
tryDEATH
Member
I mean a company could name plenty of reasons. They can blame it on finances and say that putting the game on GP is eating into its profits/strategy and that they're willing to eat the loss in return to push GamePass, but can't "afford" or aren't willing to spend the necessary money on the development for the PS.
Once you renegotiate such a deal especially when GP is involved it can easily throw a wrench into the classical sense of what prior strategy would be considers as obvious now being alternative as it is a disruptive technology/service to what we are used to traditionally.
Don't cry mate, after they tell MS to fuck off, you will still be able to buy COD on XBox for many years to come! You won't lose anything... Hell, I bet Bobby will even give them a 15% cut come the next generation!
Kenshin775
Member
They don't have to. Activision would leave.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
solidus12
Member
Green rats
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I don't see how. If gamepass is eating into their profits then surely cutting off profitable sales on another platform and lowering economies of scale would only exacerbate the issue. Especially how Gamepass works in creating buzz for a game to sell on other platforms, I really don't see the rationale. The 'aren't willing' is what's obvious but you're only making matters worse by removing platforms if 'gamepass is eating your profit'.
What happened to gamepass isn’t disruptive it's additive?
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Sleepwalker
Member
Sounds about right for the last year or whenever they first announced this acquisitiontl-dr
Chiggs
Gold Member
It's hard to bring your best when you know you're defending a big lie.
That said, going after Lina Khan would be a decent strategy. She does strike me as an ideological idiot, and her track record is absolutely pathetic. Just makes it funnier if she picks up a W over big, bad Microsoft.
RedC
Gold Member
VAVA Mk2
Member
Those look like black and green hand held gaming systems
Varteras
Member
The FTC was never likely to score a victory based solely on console concerns. If the CMA didn't agree, a US judge isn't likely to. I don't think that's the point of their case so far. They've been trying to build a picture of Microsoft as a company that has foreclosed right after acquisition despite prior assertions, has had a desire to do so even with big moneymakers like Minecraft, that their position in the market relative to direct competitors is stronger than they've tried to impress (when they parsed Nintendo out of the console concern), and that CoD (thus ABK) are incredibly important to the market.
Day 2, though, did nothing more to convince me that Lina Khan isn't hoping to use this case to push reforms. Some points were made, but a lot of meandering. I know court cases can go that way, but I don't feel the FTC had nearly as many good moments for them today as they did yesterday.
I'm still waiting for the bombshell question of Microsoft's intent if the injunction isn't granted. With the CAT appeal being beyond the deadline, and so far no renegotiation, that is such an easy trap card to play. The best Microsoft can hope for out of this case is that the injunction isn't granted and they can use that to convince ABK to renegotiate an extension while Microsoft tries to overturn the CMA. Because any course of action that tries to close the deal before then is incredibly risky and potentially devastating to the company.
RedC
Gold Member
It was the best AI could draw for me.
VAVA Mk2
Member
Oh haha good call nice
tryDEATH
Member
It's the same way Netflix was willing to take a losses to grow its offerings same with MS, they're much more willing to take a hit on something now that will positively impact THEIR service, then invest additional money. GP is disruptive in the way that the financial structure and benefits are still unknown. You can't point to a game and definitively say how much money it made allowing for more ambiguity and more so down to the publisher to announce if it as a success or failure based on their own specified criteria of what success is to them. Traditonaly you had sales numbers now you don't with services like GP MS gets to determine what success is and muddies the water when it comes to a case such as this.
This is a point I've also raised a few times before this trial started.
There will be a trap to force them to expose what they intend to do if the PI is not granted but the acquisition is still blocked in the UK. It's obvious they'll get there.
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Rossco EZ
Member
you 100% on ms payroll
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Kilau
Member
I’m switching to team merger to make things more interesting around here.
When MS closes this deal next week how soon will COD be free on Xbox?
jm89
Member
No payroll needed. Ambassador Aaron Greenberg blow up dolls are tax free.
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GHG
Gold Member
Oh, well in that case, my condolences.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
GHG
Gold Member
LordCBH
Member
Booty has authorized me to finance your support. I’ll need your information to setup a direct deposit. Or would you prefer payment in the form of multiple $10 ZunePass gift cards?
Expect to be exclusive is exactly why it's being blocked and challenged by the FTC so what's your point?
Isn't this what people are questioning though? Everyone is aware that they want to make things exclusive to benefit their service which is why they renegotiated the contract in the first place to cut out competitors. The fact that they see removal of PS as beneficial to their subscription service/platform and theirs alone, and not to their bottom line, is what the FTC are trying to prove.
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Kilau
Member
I want the socks.
Yo tell Booty to sign me the fuck up! I have a 2 year old account, just over 50 posts and no avatar. (for cash only, none of that socks bullshit though)
EDIT: ^ motherfucker undercutting me ^
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LordCBH
Member
You drive a hard bargain. I can do one green sock and a $10 zunepass card.
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