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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GHG said:
If you look at it purely from a mathematical perspective (as it stands today) it's all very symbiotic. Unfortunately they both need each other.

If Microsoft were to remove COD from PlayStation then they would be fucking themselves out of a lot of money that will be required to sustain the publisher/studios they have just purchased (along with potentially partially funding any future COD releases on gamepass). On the other hand if Sony refuse COD on Playstation moving forwards then it could have significant ramifications from a user retention and revenue perspective.

Now it can be argued that Microsoft would be able to ride the wave financially in the event that COD didn't continue to release on Playstation, but even still that would require a writedown of recently acquired assets and it would put the future scope of the franchise under jeopardy (budgets for future COD titles would shrink).

As with anything, the situation will evolve over time and I think that the situation will eventually be hevaily skewed in Microsoft's favour, at which point they can rug-pull COD from other platforms without notice. So essentially all of this plays perfectly into Microsoft's hands, which is why I've said what I said above. Given the situation as it is today, if I'm Sony I would have made them really sweat.

Knock Out Work GIF
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I expected CoD to remain on Playstation, what I didn't expect was Sony to sign a deal or for Microsoft to offer one still.

None of the major regulators still had console concerns aside from the FTC and after they lost the PI case and failed to get an appeal, there was really no reason for Microsoft to offer a deal to Sony.

It's timing is weird. I wonder who approached who and why. I need to see the contract and what it entails. I remember a lot of pages back there was an email or something that had Phil's original offer and Jim's counter offer (that wanted Bethesda games to not be exclusive).

Like, after the FTC was beaten and all other regulators didn't care about any console SLC, Sony wouldn't have any leverage. I'm just baffled.
 
ArtHands said:
That's a big tight slap across the cheeks of those who insist for the past year that the deal should be dropped, because Microsoft will make CoD exclusive to Xbox
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You tried.

POKEYCLYDE said:
I expected CoD to remain on Playstation, what I didn't expect was Sony to sign a deal or for Microsoft to offer one still.

None of the major regulators still had console concerns aside from the FTC and after they lost the PI case and failed to get an appeal, there was really no reason for Microsoft to offer a deal to Sony.

It's timing is weird. I wonder who approached who and why. I need to see the contract and what it entails. I remember a lot of pages back there was an email or something that had Phil's original offer and Jim's counter offer (that wanted Bethesda games to not be exclusive).

Like, after the FTC was beaten and all other regulators didn't care about any console SLC, Sony wouldn't have any leverage. I'm just baffled.
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It's been announced on a Sunday.

That tells me it was a requirement somewhere for them to try and close the deal next week. Whether that's with the CMA or EU (or both) I guess we will find out in due course.
 
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POKEYCLYDE said:
None of the major regulators still had console concerns aside from the FTC and after they lost the PI case and failed to get an appeal,
Click to expand...

And that's exactly why the deal got signed. Wouldn't have been a case at all if Sony had already agreed to something before the various investigations and court hearings now would there?
 
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GHG said:
You tried.



It's been announced on a Sunday.

That tells me it was a requirement somewhere for them to try and close the deal next week. Whether that's with the CMA or EU (or both) I guess we will find out in due course.
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Maybe Phil signed off on making the games timed exclusive.
 
ActusReusJB said:
I wonder if Jim Ryan now regrets not striking that new CoD deal when Bobby came for one right after acquisition announcement. Would be interesting to see the differences between them. He could have signed something preventing CoD on Game Pass when this whole started…but it would have weakened his case against the merger. Hindsight is 20/20 but with the way things planned out this was probably the largest error that occurred on Jim Ryan's watch. He must have felt very strongly that the deal would be blocked, or that the concessions would be greater than where things ended up.
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He over played his hand and it's now going to end up costing him quite a bit even though his instinct told him that exclusivity wasn't MS's play and he could have played ball with them instead he ended up being the biggest pain in MS ass so now its time to pay for it.
 
Looking at that Brad Smith tweet people are already port begging Starfield and stuff lmao...

I really would like to see the details of the contract at some point.
 
poppabk said:
Flight Sim going from strength to strength, continuous support with free upgrades for years. Just check out the Maverick update - multiple new planes, altitude time trials, a whole recreation of the scramjet mission, training missions - cost $0. Ace Combat 7 Maverick update - 5 new planes and some call signs - cost $20.
AoE still going strong with AoE4 release, even though the market for RTS isn't as strong as it once was.
Yes I have seen what they have done with some of my favorite IP's and I am pretty excited for the future.
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Flight Simulator is great, never played AoE. So that's, what, 2-3 IPs over 2 decades? K..
 
ToadMan said:
And that's exactly why the deal got signed. Wouldn't have been a case at all if Sony had already agreed to something before the various investigations and court hearings now would there?
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Yeah but after everything has been said and done, Sony loses it's leverage. Sony would not be getting a deal from a position of strength. Unless the CMA made that a stipulation for whatever they might be doing Monday....

We need to see the contents of the deal.
 
If the CMA are saying August but everyone is happy, are we signing off?

How does Sony circumvent the cloud/divestiture issue?

I'm sure it'll be worked out from here.

BTW Ass of Can Whooping Ass of Can Whooping I've had a vasectomy, so I can't get you pregnant.
 
I guess it makes sense for Sony to do this deal now. The only regulator referencing PlayStation as a reason for the deal not to be allowed was FTC and they lost. So Sony has no reason not to make a deal at this point. CMA isn't concerned with consoles at all.
 
Banjo64 said:
If the CMA are saying August but everyone is happy, are we signing off?

How does Sony circumvent the cloud/divestiture issue?

I'm sure it'll be worked out from here.

BTW Ass of Can Whooping Ass of Can Whooping I've had a vasectomy, so I can't get you pregnant.
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The keyword is all you need.
Their wording was nothing but PR. Especially that blockins stands word.

Ms Wont be doing these moves if CMA still had the same views.
 
I didn't expect Sony to sign, I don't understand the reasons for doing so now, the advantages of this agreement (which we don't know but we can imagine) are irrelevant to what the market will be like for the next 5/10 years. imho it would have been more useful not to do it and leave ms completely free to do what she wanted.

the only reason that comes to mind is that if they too want to acquire someone in the future, having such agreements with competitors will be decisive and they might as well sign. really, at the moment I don't see any logic in what has been done by sony for these months, they have only gained time and maybe not even that given that the 18th was the deadline set by ms
 
Gambit2483 said:
Flight Simulator is great, never played AoE. So that's, what, 2-3 IPs over 2 decades? K..
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In two genres that I love and that every other big publisher and platform holder won't touch with a ten foot pole. I'm not sure who owns Starcraft, the biggest IP in RTS, but they haven't touched it in almost a decade.
 
All done and dusted, I can't say I don't take some pleasure from the posters who claimed this deal had no chance or one poster claimed 5% 🤣 I'll spare that poster by not naming and shaming. The "why would Sony sign a deal" gang have also been made to look silly 🥸

This deal should never have been blocked in the first place and thankfully common sense has prevailed as it usually does, this thread did make me laugh 😂
 
tryDEATH said:
No one said pull out, but they can strong arm Sony into a worse profit split such as the 80/20 split that Xbox was under. MS whole strategy from now on is to leech as many CoD PS gamers as possible and to shrink their play base so that in 5 or so years the games the split ends up significantly in favor on the Xbox platform, so that it becomes more financially viable to drop PS.
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Sony knows that MS needs Playstation sales to keep COD profitable, specially after if is added to GP and full price sales on Xbox go down, they can use that as leverage to keep the traditional 70/30 split.
 
Topher said:
I guess it makes sense for Sony to do this deal now. The only regulator referencing PlayStation as a reason for the deal not to be allowed was FTC and they lost. So Sony has no reason not to make a deal at this point. CMA isn't concerned with consoles at all.
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Yeah, if there's no agreement tomorrow between the CMA and MS, then it's clear Sony signed this for precautionary reasons.
 
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