Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?


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The problem is the cash money.
Let's put Activision aside.

MS is willing to spend 68b on the purchase. That is insane amount of money.

Realistically, that money can be used to invest on xbox and gamepass day1.
If MS allocates 6b every year for gamepass. They can manage to get 30 AAA games day1 at $200m per AAA.

Imagine xbox with 30 AAA day1 on gamepass. That would be a huge benefit for the platform.

It would take them 11 years to spend close to that amount.

PS position market won't stop MS investment.
The fallacy that you can make a baby with 9 women in 1 month. Microsoft has the cash, but there are not infinite talented studios that they can magically throw $6 billion and get 30 AAA games. The reality is AB King has established teams + IP and that might be worth $68 billion compared to spending that same amount over 10 years to get a series of Halo: Infinites.

Remember that with all these studios and The Initiative we have yet to see a single new AAA IP game from Microsoft.
 
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That fact you can say this without any issues, is worrying me alot.

I can't believe you are perfectly fine with that. Is the grudge against PS that bad?

I used to feel sorry for xbox fans before. But now, I really don't know how to feel about them.
I hope some xbox fans can see the problem with these type of logic.

If we are just looking at consumers. Then COD players on PlayStation matter as well. Nothing wrong with the CMA/EU looking at that. If concessions have to be made to protect those consumers then Microsoft will have to make them. Simple as that.
 
It's what regulators want. Not what MS tells the media.

If MS works with them, the deal would be done fast.

EU said this alot. Same with CMA.

This cat and mouse is annoying.

MS has to offer lifetime guarantee that COD will be multi-plat, it has to be IN WRITING or the deal is OFF. So I don't see the point of spending $68 billion to allow COD on Playstation.
 
If we are just looking at consumers. Then COD players on PlayStation matter as well. Nothing wrong with the CMA/EU looking at that. If concessions have to be made to protect those consumers then Microsoft will have to make them. Simple as that.

Again, then why is Microsoft spending $68 billion, to acquire Warcraft, Doom and mobile games? All of which are multi platform too, so what would become exclusive?
 
Competition is investment. Spending way too much money on the industry above its weight isn't a competition.

?? The price paid is the one agreed with Act-Blz who offered to be bought. If MS was in a position to do it, I don't know where the problem is in pay what they ask you.
Nothing stops MS from making a long term contract with square Enix. Considering they are ready to spend 68b on Activision.
There is nothing stops MS from doing same deals as EA play.
??
The fact that Square rejects the same agreement with Xbox or asks much much more for the agreement? That type of investment is no longer interesting for Xbox. It is much more interesting for MS to secure long-term content and avoid the situation that was found in the last years of X360. The purchase of Act-Blz was interesting for that very reason.
I hope people realize that spending that much money does nothing, but destroy the industry.

We had a time when bethesda purchase,was a considered a big purchase. Now that purchase is like a baby now.
The industry is going to remain exactly the same... unhealthy. Closed to new competitors as is the case right now because there is a market leader that prevents entry into the console market in any other way than by making large investments and buying studios and/or publishers. It will go the same way, which is none other than consolidation. If it wasn't MS, another company would have done it.
 
That fact you can say this without any issues, is worrying me alot.

I can't believe you are perfectly fine with that. Is the grudge against PS that bad?

I used to feel sorry for xbox fans before. But now, I really don't know how to feel about them.
I hope some xbox fans can see the problem with these type of logic.

I see you don't refute anything I said, you just insult me and Xbox fans. Most of what you say without any issues worries me because most of it is nonsense.

I think a lot of us do not see the logic in you, Sony and their fanboys, and the regulators are far more concerned with Sony's bottom line and maintaining their market position than promoting competition and protecting ALL consumers, not just Sony users.
 
That would still be a 2 to 1 market leader expanding it's marketshare.

Replacing MS and Sony is the wrong way of looking at it. It doesn't matter who the parent company is. I know it might come across as console warring, but Playstation and Xbox are the consumer facing products here. Replacing the name of the banks behind the scenes that funds each product just doesn't work.

They don't even make money on the consoles so if you want to look that for the market leader it might seem reasonable but that's not what's important, their financials are, risk of input foreclosure is. There is also the fact that multigame subscriptions are often separate from consoles and they have 60% of the market there.
 
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How would you guys feel as Xbox owner, if ms didnt own xbox, and Apple owned Sony and they bought Bethesda and Activision for $75b?
Would that have been a fair market?

GIF by Achievement Hunter


If MS didn't own Xbox it would not be the same Xbox, if Apple owned Sony, PlayStation as we know it would not exist.

It's a completely different scenario nothing unlike we have right now, so no one can say how anyone would react.
 
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The fallacy that you can make a baby with 9 women in 1 month. Microsoft has the cash, but there are not infinite talented studios that they can magically throw $6 billion and get 30 AAA games. The reality is AB King has established teams + IP and that might be worth $68 billion compared to spending that same amount over 10 years to get a series of Halo: Infinites.

Remember that with all these studios and The Initiative we have yet to see a single new AAA IP game from Microsoft.
How do you think Sony got their own new IPs?
You work with 3rd parties, give them the funding, and you might get couple of hits.
It's very cheap and not expensive.

Plus you can also pay for publishers to make exclusive games for your system.

It takes time, but it guarantees you alot of content.

Activision is already making games for xbox. It won't give them anything new. That is the difference here.
 
GIF by Achievement Hunter


If MS didn't own Xbox it would not be the same Xbox, if Apple owned Sony, PlayStation as we know it would not exist.

It's a completely different scenario nothing unlike we have right now, so no one can say how anyone would react.
Just swap the current position.
 
I see you don't refute anything I said, you just insult me and Xbox fans. Most of what you say without any issues worries me because most of it is nonsense.

I think a lot of us do not see the logic in you, Sony and their fanboys, and the regulators are far more concerned with Sony's bottom line and maintaining their market position than promoting competition and protecting ALL consumers, not just Sony users.
Protecting consumers doesn't mean excluding certain consumers.

When you buy a big publisher, you are essentially cutting an entire fans from the other system.

Its not just about PS pocket. It's about consumers, who used to get multiplatform games on their devices, won't be able to get those games again.
First it was bethesda. And now, it's Activision.

The excuse that you can reach other consumers won't work well, when you are ready to throw these consumers away.
How can you be so sure Nintendo fans would get those games?

That is the issue with that statement.
 
The problem is the cash money.
Let's put Activision aside.

MS is willing to spend 68b on the purchase. That is insane amount of money.

Realistically, that money can be used to invest on xbox and gamepass day1.
If MS allocates 6b every year for gamepass. They can manage to get 30 AAA games day1 at $200m per AAA.

Imagine xbox with 30 AAA day1 on gamepass. That would be a huge benefit for the platform.

It would take them 11 years to spend close to that amount.

PS position market won't stop MS investment.

Why do you think you should be able to dictate how much Microsoft should be allowed to spend and how they should be allowed to spend it?
 
MS has to offer lifetime guarantee that COD will be multi-plat, it has to be IN WRITING or the deal is OFF. So I don't see the point of spending $68 billion to allow COD on Playstation.
That is how COD makes money.
The losers here would be MS, who would spend that much money, and not able to make more money from PS users.

They would gain more from gamepass + PS users, compared to xbox + PC.

Xbox isn't available everywhere. Plus they get access to their system, and Ps system. That is alot of userbase, which they can make money from.

A life time deal depends on how they agree to. It doesn't have to be non negotiable lifetime.
 
Well in that case if Microsoft had market dominance for two decades and they were complaining about Sony acquiring studios, it would be just as bad.
Can I ask you an honest question?

What new game would this deal give to MS, aside of already existing games?

How would xbox consoles benefit from this deal? Would that give them more new games?
Is this the proper investment xbox needs, in order to provide more content to their system?
 
Why do you think you should be able to dictate how much Microsoft should be allowed to spend and how they should be allowed to spend it?
It's not my business.
I just don't like a company like MS with their huge wallet spending that much money like it's nothing.

Regulators are there to prevent abuses like that. You can buy anything, when you have that much cash.

This deal is not the problem. But what is after this deal. MS isnt going to stop after purchasing Activision. They would go and spend as much they can, while testing regulators patience.

I hate that future.
 
Protecting consumers doesn't mean excluding certain consumers.

When you buy a big publisher, you are essentially cutting an entire fans from the other system.

Its not just about PS pocket. It's about consumers, who used to get multiplatform games on their devices, won't be able to get those games again.
First it was bethesda. And now, it's Activision.

The excuse that you can reach other consumers won't work well, when you are ready to throw these consumers away.
How can you be so sure Nintendo fans would get those games?

That is the issue with that statement.
Since you don't care about the consumers that could benefit from this acquisition and are only concerned about PS users possibly that could possibly be excluded from CoD, how do you feel about Sony buying Bungie, formerly a large 3rd party developer with a huge player base on several different platforms? That will certainly exclude many players that are not on PlayStation.
 
MS has to offer lifetime guarantee that COD will be multi-plat, it has to be IN WRITING or the deal is OFF. So I don't see the point of spending $68 billion to allow COD on Playstation.
Playstation accounts for over 1 billion a year in sales for Acti so MS isn't spending $68 billion for lose revenue

They get all that revenue plus add that Xbox logo to every COD ad everywhere plus add some cool ass operator for Xbox only and for the hardcore COD fans that stuff matters
 
Since you don't care about the consumers that could benefit from this acquisition and are only concerned about PS users possibly that could possibly be excluded from CoD, how do you feel about Sony buying Bungie, formerly a large 3rd party developer with a huge player base on several different platforms? That will certainly exclude many players that are not on PlayStation.

Didn't Sony make some concessions to gain Bungie?
 
A clown take that ignores the reality of the differentiation between Nintendo and Xbox/PS
A clown take is to keep artificially inflating Xbox's position in the market to make them some sort of monopolistic threat that regulators need to protect consumers from. Like it or not Nintendo and Sony are bigger players in console gaming and this acquisition doesn't hurt either of their positions. MS is third in console gaming.
 
Exactly.

And after years of hearing "it's all about the games". MS decides to invest in order to produce more games.

And now suddenly there's Sony and a segment of their fanbase that's decided "Wait. Not that many games. That's too many".

So now our conversation has come full circle. Surely you can now see why much of the contention is completely unwarranted.
This is so mischaracterized, its far from the reality of the situation. There are two sides of this deal that has a negative impact to gaming competition. First is the fact that Microsoft already has a monopoly on a global scale with their Azure Servers/cloud technology. Allowing Microsoft to lock down big 3rd party games like COD on Gamepass severely impacts the growth of other gaming services. Not to mention taking a loss to undercut the market by offering games date and date makes this look even worse. Warzone is popular, profitable and F2P, which would allow any potential new game company in the console space to offer a popular IP to build their casual fanbase, like Google, Apple or Amazon. Microsoft taking COD away from othe platforms because of fear their offering might be better in the future is defintely anti-competitive. Imagine Sony and Xbox were switched. Its the equivalent of Sony trying to make COD exclusive to the ps3 early in the console cycle when the exclusives werent there yet.



The second isssue is that buying publisher vs buying a dev. Dev studios are bought all the time, but this is the first time a publisher of this scale has been bought by a platform with least amount of revenue generated from actually.......selling games. So for the parent company to pass down more money than any other gaming company can spend IS the issue when Xbox is 3rd in market position. If they spent 100 billion more, that would be close to eclipsing the total revenue generate for gaming in 2021. How the hell is that being competitive and not a negative for the future growth of gaming?
 
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A clown take is to keep artificially inflating Xbox's position in the market to make them some sort of monopolistic threat that regulators need to protect consumers from. Like it or not Nintendo and Sony are bigger players in console gaming and this acquisition doesn't hurt either of their positions. MS is third in console gaming.

There's no need to inflate them when they are objectively Sony's biggest competitor, not Nintendo. Harping on about being in third place isn't going to change that.

Let's play spot the difference

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Since you don't care about the consumers that could benefit from this acquisition and are only concerned about PS users possibly that could possibly be excluded from CoD, how do you feel about Sony buying Bungie, formerly a large 3rd party developer with a huge player base on several different platforms? That will certainly exclude many players that are not on PlayStation.
Bungie only serves 1 game. Which is destiny 2.
Activision serves cod, which is a yearly game, not to mention other activision games.

Bungie like mini bethesda, which is fair game for both side.

Consumers would be impacted more from Activision, compared to these 2 combined.
 
The fallacy that you can make a baby with 9 women in 1 month. Microsoft has the cash, but there are not infinite talented studios that they can magically throw $6 billion and get 30 AAA games. The reality is AB King has established teams + IP and that might be worth $68 billion compared to spending that same amount over 10 years to get a series of Halo: Infinites.

Remember that with all these studios and The Initiative we have yet to see a single new AAA IP game from Microsoft.
I don't think new studios or ip were even mentioned but for every 343 there is a Playground games or Coalition. The idea that they couldn't establish any new IPs or studios with investment is not reality. He was mentioning possibly paying for third party day ones anyway.
 
Bungie only serves 1 game. Which is destiny 2.
Activision serves cod, which is a yearly game, not to mention other activision games.

Bungie like mini bethesda, which is fair game for both side.

Consumers would be impacted more from Activision, compared to these 2 combined.
Destiny is an ongoing game that many people have been playing for years. It's Ok to take Destiny away from gamers on other platforms, but NOT ok if Sony users don't get CoD in perpetuity with parity.
 
The problem is the cash money.
Let's put Activision aside.

MS is willing to spend 68b on the purchase. That is insane amount of money.

Realistically, that money can be used to invest on xbox and gamepass day1.
If MS allocates 6b every year for gamepass. They can manage to get 30 AAA games day1 at $200m per AAA.

Imagine xbox with 30 AAA day1 on gamepass. That would be a huge benefit for the platform.

It would take them 11 years to spend close to that amount.

PS position market won't stop MS investment.

The individual deals for games wouldn't be nearly as good of an investment. Over the 10 or 11 year period needed to equalize the investments in your example ABK will have brought in 40 or $50b or more in profits, plus the subscription revenue generated by GP. Not to mention the content would basically be royalty free for GP, a much better deal. Having a strong first-party making quality content in-house is the way to go (regardless of what is and isn't exclusive).
 
That was Phil reaching out to Jim for a handshake agreement, it wasn't a legally binding document. They literally can't make any legally binding declarations about an entity they don't own.

The only time they can make legal declarations before the deal closes is if it's required of them as part of the concessions agreements.
That's simply not true. they (MS and ABK jointly) can and could have put in proposals that are legally binding at multiple stages of the acquisition. They choose not to to see if they win. They may or may not in the end.
 
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Destiny is an ongoing game that many people have been playing for years. It's Ok to take Destiny away from gamers on other platforms, but NOT ok if Sony users don't get CoD in perpetuity with parity.
Same as Eso. Both games won't be taken from those 2 systems.
 
Is MS saying CoD will be taken away?

That's news to me as well.

No but some regulators want to know if they will keep that promise. Hence the discussion of concessions.

Meanwhile Sony already owns Bungie and Destiny is still available. Plus future titles as well will be available.
 
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The individual deals for games wouldn't be nearly as good of an investment. Over the 10 or 11 year period needed to equalize the investments in your example ABK will have brought in 40 or $50b or more in profits, plus the subscription revenue generated by GP. Not to mention the content would basically be royalty free for GP, a much better deal. Having a strong first-party making quality content in-house is the way to go (regardless of what is and isn't exclusive).
Your math would need PS userbase.
My math would generate more userbase for xbox, considering the type of content and growth of gamepass.

If you are including PS userbase, then we are agreeing with regulators here. Which is the main vocal point of this deal.
 
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Everyone's going on about cod but what about the other games? Sony have lost a bunch of ip because of Microsofts acquisitions. Cod is just the biggest one that would have a big effect, but losing Bethesda games is a big loss too. I'm pretty sure fallout 4 sold over 10m copies on PS4 alone. Microsoft acquisitions are centered around gaining games by removing them off the competition.
 
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No but some regulators want to know if they will keep that promise. Hence the discussion of concessions.

Meanwhile Sony already owns Bungie and Destiny is still available. Plus future titles as well will be available.

I don't see Bungie making a lot of legally binding statements guaranteeing their future releases on Xbox (I'm not talking about a paragraph on their website that they can delete at any time). Even that link that @ Topher Topher posted points out the vague way they dance around future releases and how they are only declarative about Destiny 2, a title that already exists. That is like declaring that CoD MW2 will always remain on PS. Why wouldn't it, it's already out.
 
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I don't see Bungie making a lot of legally binding statements guaranteeing their future releases on Xbox. Even that link that @ Topher Topher posted points out the vague way they dance around future releases and how they are only declarative about Destiny 2, a title that already exists. That is like declaring that CoD MW2 will always remain on PS. Why wouldn't it, it's already out.
Because bungie doesn't have the same impact as COD.

The issue with CoD is that, it's yearly release. Now add warzone, and you are pretty much stacked with these 2.

You also have to account the sales of COd. It's top 1-2 for both systems every year.
 
There is no "we". Who you believe is up to you. I believe both Sony and Phil Spencer in either case. If they break their word there will be hell to be pay in PR pounds of flesh.

I agree and you have been for the most part one other most reasonable participants in this ongoing circle jerk. It just so happens you gave me the exact post I wanted to respond to directed at the people crying and continually calling Phil a liar, because Phil hasn't given Jimbo a written contract on something he doesn't even own yet.

Sorry if it seems like I was picking on you although as a furry hooker, you really do deserve it.
 
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