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

Do you believe the deal will be approved?


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News should come this week. But this thread has 8 weeks to a year worth of traction left on the tires. No matter what happens this week, MS will not withdraw offer before they are close to a fee escalation date, and at least one jurisdiction will still be fighting if the news is favorable to MS. So buckle up and hang onto your butts. 🪗
Yeah, weeks ago I was thinking that Microsoft would kill the deal if the CMA required structural remedies. Now I'm not so sure. They'll probably fight tooth and nail to get more "reasonable" remedies.

But regardless of them fighting for less strict remedies, if structural remedies is what the CMA puts forward, I'll be assuming the deal is dead (even if Microsoft keeps fighting til April).

If CMA passes without remedies or shocks us all with only needing behavioral remedies, then I'll assume they'll get it pass the EC too and it's passed.
 
You know, we wouldn't have all these arguments if Bobby Kotick was a decent human being. If he was a good leader, ATVI wouldn't be up for sale.
 
Yeah, weeks ago I was thinking that Microsoft would kill the deal if the CMA required structural remedies. Now I'm not so sure. They'll probably fight tooth and nail to get more "reasonable" remedies.

But regardless of them fighting for less strict remedies, if structural remedies is what the CMA puts forward, I'll be assuming the deal is dead (even if Microsoft keeps fighting til April).

If CMA passes without remedies or shocks us all with only needing behavioral remedies, then I'll assume they'll get it pass the EC too and it's passed.
Im reserving judgment on what MS would or would not agree to until we see the options. I'm guessing some structural remedies would be ok. My thought process is based on belief that control of COD platforms by some point in a future console cycle is the most important part of the deal For MS. Anything short of that and I could see MS being willing to negotiate.
 
Now please apply this logic to Street fighter V and FF7R
It's selective arguing. If you're mad about Street Fighter V and FF7R not coming to Xbox, you should be mad about, and not make excuses for Starfield, Hi-Fi Rush not being announced for Playstation.

Likewise, if you're okay with FF7R and SFV's exclusivity being bought, you shouldn't have an issue with Starfield or HiFi Rush's exclusivity being bought.

Both sides justify why it's okay for it to happen one way but not the other.

"Sony's moneyhats aren't permanent so it's not as bad!" VS "Hey, we don't even know if Starfield would have come to Playstation!" They're both poor arguments and chock full of bias.

If Microsoft didn't buy Bethesda but moneyhatted Starfield the same way FF7R is being moneyhatted, it wouldn't be more palatable to the people losing access to Starfield.

If you're cheerleading Starfield's exclusivity, you gotta be consistent and take FF7R's exclusivity on the chin and accept it's the price of business.

Let's get some consistency going and drop the bias ahaha.
 
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That's not how this shit works.

Publishers notify platform holders years in advance. Unless of course... You think Bethesda would only have notified Sony when the game went gold?
No, that's exactly how this shit works.

What Bethesda may or may not have told Sony means fuck all.

• Bethesda never told you those games were coming to Playstation.

• Sony never announced that those games were coming to Playstation.

• Neither company announced that a deal had been agreed upon. Requiring any of those games to be released on Playstation.

*** At no point have you or anyone else, been able to purchase, rent, borrow, or even watch someone else play any of these games on a Playstation.

Microsoft and Bethesda haven't taken jack shit from either you, or any other PS only player. This victim playing does nothing other than show how entitled you really are. It's way past time some of you pull that silver spoon out your ass. It's not doing any of you any favors no matter how long you sit on it.
 

Lulu working out her next move in light of this information:

Confused Thinking GIF
 
$3B fee for MS to walk away from the deal
Ahhhhh, well then yeah lol.

Edit: I thought there may have been extrapolating from this quarter's profits. But yeah, the break up fee would essentially double their cash flow for the year.
 
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It's selective arguing. If you're mad about Street Fighter V and FF7R not coming to Xbox, you should be mad about, and not make excuses for Starfield, Hi-Fi Rush not being announced for Playstation.

Likewise, if you're okay with FF7R and SFV's exclusivity being bought, you shouldn't have an issue with Starfield or HiFi Rush's exclusivity being bought.

Both sides justify why it's okay for it to happen one way but not the other.

"Sony's moneyhats aren't permanent so it's not as bad!" VS "Hey, we don't even know if Starfield would have come to Playstation!" They're both poor arguments and chock full of bias.

If Microsoft didn't buy Bethesda but moneyhatted Starfield the same way FF7R is being moneyhatted, it wouldn't be more palatable to the people losing access to Starfield.

If you're cheerleading Starfield's exclusivity, you gotta be consistent and take FF7R's exclusivity on the chin and accept it's the price of business.

Let's get some consistency going and drop the bias ahaha.
Exactly.... A million times over.

Just being consistent shouldn't be a difficult task, but it seems incredibly difficult for some people to do.

You could really boil all this down to an even more simple point.

If you were alright with 3rd party exclusive deals in the past, then you should be alright with Starfield being exclusive now.

From the consumers standpoint, the result is the same. The game only releases on one console. Anyone attempting to attach significance to other factors such as Capcoms financial woes when Sony signed for SFV, or If Bethesda ever intended to release Starfield on PS5, or the fact that past games of the series had released on that console previously, etc... is making strawman arguments. None of that matters one bit.

Outside of signed deals, or 1st party games. Platform owners as well as their fans are entitled to absolutely fuck all. Full stop. No and's, if's, or but's about it.
 
Name the announced PlayStation games MS canceled.

MS has offered Sony, Nintendo, and Steam assurances that CoD would remain or be added to their platforms. It does not sound like you know much about this deal at all.

Already asked you several times to provide evidence of these MS exclusives claimed by you to be in production.

Chop chop - people might think you're being disingenuous…
 
Its nice that this deal is taking our attention. But dont forget that Man City is being hit by a financial dopping investigation.
This is a huge news in the premier league.
 
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It is relative depending on the terms, and there is no lying involved so stop going to that excuse.

ThAts HoW eNgLisH wOrKs

Again, learn what a comma is. You can watch the full WSJ video on YouTube, since you want to harp on how English works, he didn't say it in a way that had any hidden or double meaning. He was asked if it's a money maker and he said it's profitable for them. Profit is not relative. GamePass either makes them money or it doesn't. But good luck spinning.
 
I have to wonder, after looking at some of these recent posts here about the Starfield & Elder Scrolls future games' exclusivity status and whether or not there were PS5 versions in development prior to the buyout announcement in September 2020, or perhaps even up to the March 2021 end closing date of Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax ... do some people here think that Todd Howard wouldn't eventually be put in a court setting for sworn testimony on this issue if the FTC keeps fighting against the deal and files an injunction and takes Microsoft to U.S. federal court? Like, what do people here think Todd Howard would say in response to a judge or a lawyer else asking him in a courtroom if they had Starfield well into development with PS5 dev kits and on Bethesda's initial plans for the next Elder Scrolls game in about 2-5 years from now, prior to Microsoft buying out Zenimax?
 
We know that Hi-Fi rush was in development since 2017, and never had a target console until the acquisition of Microsoft. Nothing was promised for anyone it's all assumptions.

What is the more likely assumption?

1. Company that makes multiplat games makes yet another multiplat game.

2. Company that makes multiplat games randomly decides to make an exclusive game for the lowest installed base console - something they could get funding for like all those other third party exclusives, but chose not to - and then is coincidentally acquired, years later, by the company that made that console as well as its successor.

(2) is unlikely in the extreme anyway. But then to suggest that this happened to multiple titles simultaneously as proposed by DarkMage619 DarkMage619 is …

Well let's be generous and say you'd have to be naive to the point of clinical diagnosis to genuinely believe that. But if either of you guys are diagnosed with mental disorders please accept my apologies.

If you're not suffering a medical condition, produce your evidence for these outlandish claims of unannounced exclusives spanning years of development.

Forgive me if I don't wait - I know you have no evidence and it's just mindless tripe.
 
They get Windows out there. Whether they gave you a free upgrade path from 7 also doesn't matter. Google offers Android for free too but your data is worth something, as is pushing a platform that uses MS Edge by default, MS store by default, etc. They are getting the platform out there and the more content that's windows only the more attractive it is.
Grasping at straws, people run windows regardless if Sony is publishing games on PC or not, then when they occasionally do publish MS gets no "benefit".
 
Street Fighter 5 and Final Fantasy 7 remake weren't announced for Xbox as well 😉😉
Agreed. However, FF7 actually had a projected Xbox release date.
All I'm saying is that sure, PS is the largest brand in gaming, however, that doesn't mean jack shit unless the game is formally announced for that platform. I don't automatically assume the next GTA will be multiplat, I'll wait and see.

With you guys logic you assume every game is going to PS, and Xbox will never have timed exclusivity on anything. I don't count my chicken until they hatch.
 
I think I'll take the words of the develope regarding HiFi rush.



Yes - the devs confirmed this was a PC title with no console versions until they got acquired, in the very video you posted. They didn't say no console target was going to happen, they were going to get the game done and choose consoles later.

I understand you think this is a slam dunk. However, producing a PC version, seeing how successful it is and then porting proven PC hits to more platforms is a pattern common to many titles - particularly unusual, quirky and risky titles from smaller studios.

It's the pattern with many "late to console" ports.

That is to say, if this game was going to come to any console, it was going to come to PlayStation except for 2 reasons

1. Exclusivity deal - associated with much fanfare and marketing.
2. Acquisition by a platform holder

Let me check my notes, oh yeah, an acquisition did occur! That port to xbox console probably explains the stealth release now I think about it.

<that's a bingo.gif>
 
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Mental gymnastics.
Absolutely agree. MS did not cancel any announced PlayStation games. Xbox gamers experienced the same thing expecting Street Fighter 5 and Final Fantasy 7 R. Sometimes games don't hit your preferred platform it's business.

Now please apply this logic to Street fighter V and FF7R
The logic that not every game hits every platform? I apply that logic every day. Makes it a lot harder to be disappointed. No platform is entitled to any game except maybe first party titles.

Already asked you several times to provide evidence of these MS exclusives claimed by you to be in production.

Chop chop - people might think you're being disingenuous…
Not how this works. You support the idea that MS is cancelling PlayStation games. I disagreed and provided actually real PlayStation games that came out DESITE acquisitions. Now it's your turn. Provide the titles proving MS cancelled announced PlayStation games. Any announced title will do. It's only disingenuous if you make baseless claims. I've supported my position you have not supported anything. Chop chop indeed.

We know that Hi-Fi rush was in development since 2017, and never had a target console until the acquisition of Microsoft. Nothing was promised for anyone it's all assumptions.
Exactly. For all we know MS has provided funding to get these games released in the first place. Titles like Pentiment would not have came out if MS hadn't provided the resources to make it happen. Same is true for titles like Psychonauts 2 where MS' funding improved the game significantly. No one can provide anything but a base assertions that all games will hit PlayStation except for MS blocking them. Pretty funny when there is a laundry list of titles Sony has blocked on Xbox. It just sounds like entitlement to me.
 
Again, learn what a comma is. You can watch the full WSJ video on YouTube, since you want to harp on how English works, he didn't say it in a way that had any hidden or double meaning. He was asked if it's a money maker and he said it's profitable for them. Profit is not relative. GamePass either makes them money or it doesn't. But good luck spinning.
Sounds like that's good enough reasoning.

bane-tom-hardy.gif
 
Absolutely agree. MS did not cancel any announced PlayStation games. Xbox gamers experienced the same thing expecting Street Fighter 5 and Final Fantasy 7 R. Sometimes games don't hit your preferred platform it's business.
I'm a green rat or an Xbot, whatever they call us around here. It not going to PS5 doesn't hurt me personally, but I have a really hard time believing that without the acquisition of Bethesda that Hi Fi Rush but specifically Starfield wouldn't have come to PS5. Starfield was 100% a PS5 game until it wasn't.
 
Also the when of consuming content.

Let's make an example to illustrate: Ordinarily, the holiday season would see releases from various big publishers, you would see Activision releasing COD, Microsoft releasing their new Halo games, Bethesda releasing DOOM or Fallout etc.

Now if both Bethesda and Activision are under MS, then all their IP is now impacting a single ROI, rather than multiple competing ones, meaning that MS will most definitely have to reduce the amount of games they release every month, both to ensure "cadence" for Gamepass/XBox as a whole, and to limit self-cannibalization of the consumer dollars that change hands in said season. This essentially means they can't release a Doom and a COD together in the same launch window, because there is intersection in their appeal, and one will invariably cannibalize the other leading to limited full-price sales (i.e. a customer will likely buy one immediately, and wait for the other to drop price), this is a direct example of how these big corpo mergers directly affect the consumer's choice, and it's relatively platform-agnostic (as in it doesn't really matter if both franchises are released on PS5 or Switch, the commercial decision will likely remain the same).

Big mergers are a major waste of resources that could go to appeasing the consumer (just think how many brand-new high-quality AAA franchises could be funded with 70b, all additive to the gaming space and pushing the craft forward), they also reduce the choice of consumers across multiple axes as well.

Yes the timing is another problem for MS although I think they'd be happy to have that problem rather than what they have now which is a lack of first party content.

But yeah - your last para are my thoughts too. Why is MS looking for a silver bullet acquisition rather than investing this money in new content and tech.

It really is disappointing. All this energy and funding wasted on trying to cannibalise the gaming market instead of enhance it.
 
Yes the timing is another problem for MS although I think they'd be happy to have that problem rather than what they have now which is a lack of first party content.

But yeah - your last para are my thoughts too. Why is MS looking for a silver bullet acquisition rather than investing this money in new content and tech.

It really is disappointing. All this energy and funding wasted on trying to cannibalise the gaming market instead of enhance it.
Huh?

They acquired both Ninja Theory and Obsidian, and because of their new resources are working on multiple projects with budgets far larger than anything they've ever dealt with in the past, and they started The Initiative which is a from the ground up new studio that will be making AAA games, expanded the size of PlayGround Games so they would make Fable in addition to supporting and making new Forza Horizon games, etc.

The idea that MS isn't investing money into growth outside of pure buyouts is a bit silly.
 
Absolutely agree. MS did not cancel any announced PlayStation games. Xbox gamers experienced the same thing expecting Street Fighter 5 and Final Fantasy 7 R. Sometimes games don't hit your preferred platform it's business.
It was confirmed that they had no plans to make Starfield Exclusive to Xbox until after they were acquired by Xbox.


You guys really believe they were going to make games like Starfield exclusive before they were acquired by MS.
 
It was confirmed that they had no plans to make Starfield Exclusive to Xbox until after they were acquired by Xbox.


You guys really believe they were going to make games like Starfield exclusive before they were acquired by MS.
Yeah I don't get that narrative. The idea that Bethesda would not release what could be their magnum opus on PS5, by choice, is baffling.
 
It was confirmed that they had no plans to make Starfield Exclusive to Xbox until after they were acquired by Xbox.


You guys really believe they were going to make games like Starfield exclusive before they were acquired by MS.
By whom? You realize Sony is not the only company that can buy a third party exclusive right? You guys think Contraband was stolen from PlayStation I assume.
Yeah I don't get that narrative. The idea that Bethesda would not release what could be their magnum opus on PS5, by choice, is baffling.
No one thought Street Fighter 5 would not hit Xbox yet here we are. It happens sometimes.
 
Not how this works. You support the idea that MS is cancelling PlayStation games. I disagreed and provided actually real PlayStation games that came out DESITE acquisitions. Now it's your turn. Provide the titles proving MS cancelled announced PlayStation games. Any announced title will do. It's only disingenuous if you make baseless claims. I've supported my position you have not supported anything. Chop chop indeed.

Exactly how this works. You claim these were MS exclusives.

Proof provided by you? None.
 
Huh?

They acquired both Ninja Theory and Obsidian, and because of their new resources are working on multiple projects with budgets far larger than anything they've ever dealt with in the past, and they started The Initiative which is a from the ground up new studio that will be making AAA games, expanded the size of PlayGround Games so they would make Fable in addition to supporting and making new Forza Horizon games, etc.

The idea that MS isn't investing money into growth outside of pure buyouts is a bit silly.

Awesome, lets see some products from those studios then and in the meantime leave the gaming market alone.
 
By whom? You realize Sony is not the only company that can buy a third party exclusive right? You guys think Contraband was stolen from PlayStation I assume.




You literally can't spin this. lol

We have conformation that it was planned, but there's no confirmation that there was a third-party deal being talked about with Microsoft.
 
Its nice that this deal is taking our attention. But dont forget that Man City is being hit by a financial dopping investigation.
This is a huge news in the premier league.
We need a Man City/Premier League watch thread, gonna be spicy af.
Yes the timing is another problem for MS although I think they'd be happy to have that problem rather than what they have now which is a lack of first party content.

But yeah - your last para are my thoughts too. Why is MS looking for a silver bullet acquisition rather than investing this money in new content and tech.

It really is disappointing. All this energy and funding wasted on trying to cannibalise the gaming market instead of enhance it.
The timing thing is something that gamers should be against imo, but most don't see it (if I didn't work in commercial demand planning I wouldn't see it either tbh), I don't want my choice to be limited because Greenberg wants to meet his quota for the quarter and get a bonus.

Competition is great for consumers and it's got more meanings than "which box wins".

And yes, completely agree on the investment part. There's a reply before me that cites The Initiative, which kinda summarized the problem: Microsoft needs to put its house in order and get its pipeline clicking before gobbling up more, failure to do so will only infect the acquired studios over time.
 
It was confirmed that they had no plans to make Starfield Exclusive to Xbox until after they were acquired by Xbox.


You guys really believe they were going to make games like Starfield exclusive before they were acquired by MS.
No I believe that there was no alignment of which hardware the game was going to and what the terms will be. That's what I'm saying.

You can not cancel something that was not confirmed. Clearly, people are letting their assumptions become their reality when that's not how things work. It's the same reason I don't just assume the next COD, SF, Tekken, (insert your choice) game will be on Xbox because nothing has been announced yet.
 
Exactly.... A million times over.

Just being consistent shouldn't be a difficult task, but it seems incredibly difficult for some people to do.

You could really boil all this down to an even more simple point.

If you were alright with 3rd party exclusive deals in the past, then you should be alright with Starfield being exclusive now.

From the consumers standpoint, the result is the same. The game only releases on one console. Anyone attempting to attach significance to other factors such as Capcoms financial woes when Sony signed for SFV, or If Bethesda ever intended to release Starfield on PS5, or the fact that past games of the series had released on that console previously, etc... is making strawman arguments. None of that matters one bit.

Outside of signed deals, or 1st party games. Platform owners as well as their fans are entitled to absolutely fuck all. Full stop. No and's, if's, or but's about it.


Yep, Microsoft more than earned the right $7.5 billion times over to have Starfield, Elder Scrolls VI and any other Bethesda made title they deem warrants the treatment as an Xbox and PC exclusive.
 
No I believe that there was no alignment of which hardware the game was going to and what the terms will be. That's what I'm saying.

You can not cancel something that was not confirmed. Clearly, people are letting their assumptions become their reality when that's not how things work. It's the same reason I don't just assume the next COD, SF, Tekken, (insert your choice) game will be on Xbox because nothing has been announced yet.
It's been stated in the video that there were no plans to make it exclusive until they were acquired.

Saying this or that could've happened doesn't hold weight because as far as we know, it was going to be released on PS until MS acquired them.
 
It was confirmed that they had no plans to make Starfield Exclusive to Xbox until after they were acquired by Xbox.


You guys really believe they were going to make games like Starfield exclusive before they were acquired by MS.

I think a majority of people understand that without the acquisition, Starfield not only would have come to PS5 but most likely would have been a 12 month or more exclusive. But idk why you'd be surprised people think otherwise, we still to this day on this forum have people who say Street Fighter V like totally wouldn't have even been made if Sony didn't step in and save it.
 
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