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Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)
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HoofHearted
Member
Yep.. Looks like there’s no ”check and balance” concept in the UK…
Dick Jones
Banned
You mean like allowing the aggrieved party to appeal to see if the CMA carried out their work under the rules of Administrative Law? The thing that is currently happening right now. Lord save us.
The deal is dead unless MS & ABK can prove the CMA acted unreasonably when it reached its decision. This is an add on to ensure that the parties don't try to circumvent the decision already made.
MDSLKTR
Member
Dick Jones
Banned
I'm trying to figure out which of your comments is less in touch with reality. If Xbox were to stream their takeover bid of Nintendo and put it on Gamepass, I'd definitely subscribe for that hour of laughter.
gothmog
Gold Member
I hear when you threaten a country the people will fight hard to make sure you get heard.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Ignorance is at an all time high, innit.
93xfan
Banned
Any regulating body that allows emotions to influence their decisions is illegitimate in my book, regardless of whether they are doing something good or bad.
Sleepwalker
Member
Guys, hear me out, what if Microsoft changes its name and tries again?
Nobody expects the Megasoft merger
Nobody expects the Megasoft merger
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Edit: I'm a derp sometimes.
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ulantan
Member
I would say the same about trillion dollar mega corps when threatening nations.
93xfan
Banned
When did I state that? Re-read what I responded to and put in bold.Explain how they allowed emotions.
feynoob
Banned
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/9143...we-have-to-protect-nascent-markets/index.html
In a recent interview with CNBC, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan talks briefly about the agency's decision to sue to block the Microsoft-Activision merger, asserting that U.S. antitrust regulators have a responsibility to prevent big tech firms from stifling competition and innovation.
Popular Now: Xbox Series S can run out of memory and has entered the 8GB VRAM debate
"This is a matter that's under active proceedings so there's a limited amount I can say about it, but the FTC separately sued to block this deal back in early December. The Complaint lays out various concerns the Commission has, which include concerns in the console market, and the cloud and subscription markets that are still expanding and developing.
"[The Commission's Complaint] is really looking at several markets, including those that are still fast-growing and still developing.
"I think we've seen time and time again how these nascent markets can be ones where enforcers have a special mandate to make sure we protect competition, protect innovation, and again, not allow incumbents to thwart competition and innovation."
The FTC has faced strong pushback for its decision to stand in the way of the Microsoft-Activision combination, with the FTC's lawsuit bringing the merger to an adjudicative process within its own administrative court. The FTC's Complaint Counsel has been thorough and diligent in its discovery phase, gathering millions of documents from Microsoft and Activision, as well as various third-party games industry companies like Sony Interactive Entertainment, Valve, Take-Two Interactive, and Nintendo, who was just ordered to provide key details on the 10-year Call of Duty deal that it signed with Microsoft.
The Commission has also created what it calls a High-Performance Console Relevant Market, a new designation that removes Nintendo from the Big 3 and focuses instead on the potential anti-competitive effects that could arise on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles as a result of the merger.
This narrowed market definition has led to confusion amongst United States Congress, and has given Microsoft a means of inadequately portraying console gaming market dynamics as it pertains in Europe in an effort to persuade European Commission regulators to approve the merger.
In a recent interview with CNBC, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan talks briefly about the agency's decision to sue to block the Microsoft-Activision merger, asserting that U.S. antitrust regulators have a responsibility to prevent big tech firms from stifling competition and innovation.
Popular Now: Xbox Series S can run out of memory and has entered the 8GB VRAM debate
"This is a matter that's under active proceedings so there's a limited amount I can say about it, but the FTC separately sued to block this deal back in early December. The Complaint lays out various concerns the Commission has, which include concerns in the console market, and the cloud and subscription markets that are still expanding and developing.
"[The Commission's Complaint] is really looking at several markets, including those that are still fast-growing and still developing.
"I think we've seen time and time again how these nascent markets can be ones where enforcers have a special mandate to make sure we protect competition, protect innovation, and again, not allow incumbents to thwart competition and innovation."
The FTC has faced strong pushback for its decision to stand in the way of the Microsoft-Activision combination, with the FTC's lawsuit bringing the merger to an adjudicative process within its own administrative court. The FTC's Complaint Counsel has been thorough and diligent in its discovery phase, gathering millions of documents from Microsoft and Activision, as well as various third-party games industry companies like Sony Interactive Entertainment, Valve, Take-Two Interactive, and Nintendo, who was just ordered to provide key details on the 10-year Call of Duty deal that it signed with Microsoft.
The Commission has also created what it calls a High-Performance Console Relevant Market, a new designation that removes Nintendo from the Big 3 and focuses instead on the potential anti-competitive effects that could arise on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles as a result of the merger.
This narrowed market definition has led to confusion amongst United States Congress, and has given Microsoft a means of inadequately portraying console gaming market dynamics as it pertains in Europe in an effort to persuade European Commission regulators to approve the merger.
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feynoob
Banned
Guys, hear me out, what if Microsoft changes its name and tries again?
Nobody expects the Megasoft merger
Or known as The Empire: This is a humorous nickname that some people use to refer to Microsoft due to its dominant position in the technology industry.
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
My bad, I see what you meant now. A declarative statement. I missed the bolded part.
ShadowkillXNA
Member
If they want to convince the cma that they're a tiny company that can't compete without the acquisition, Nanosoft would be a better choice.Guys, hear me out, what if Microsoft changes its name and tries again?
Nobody expects the Megasoft merger
IFireflyl
Gold Member
I think it's because people are ignorant.
MasterCornholio
Member
MasterCornholio
Member
At this point the entire UK population would have to be exterminated for that to happen. Cloud gaming is accessible to so many people in so many different ways that its impossible to get rid of.
I can use any mobile device to access cloud gaming through the Internet from anywhere within the UK. Getting rid of that market isn't possible at this stage.
P.S Not saying you support genocide BTW. I just don't see how you can eliminate an entire market just to dodge the CMA.
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demigod
Member
Alright who’s alt is this.
demigod
Member
Haha I remember calling it winblows cause the damn shit keeps crashing blue screen of death.
Or known as The Empire: This is a humorous nickname that some people use to refer to Microsoft due to its dominant position in the technology industry.
FullMetalx117
Member
Hmm…as mentioned earlier in the thread, Microsoft can easily pay activision $2 billion per year and get COD on Gamepass for 35 years for the same amount of money.
Alternatively, they can buy the COD IP outright, the studios individually like treyarch, sledgehammer, infinity ward. Maybe that gets done for $20 billion. Lots of maneuvers if they still want to do this…unless they really did just want the games off other platforms.
Alternatively, they can buy the COD IP outright, the studios individually like treyarch, sledgehammer, infinity ward. Maybe that gets done for $20 billion. Lots of maneuvers if they still want to do this…unless they really did just want the games off other platforms.
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bitbydeath
Member
Divesting Azure would be pretty insane.
demigod
Member
Ms wants to own the ip, the first would be a terrible idea and they would be losing money.
For the second, I highly doubt ABK would want to sell their cash cow. Either sell the whole company and get out of the business or don’t.
jm89
Member
Why would Activision sell their biggest money maker?
You serously think when this deal falls through, that activision is gonna be thinking of Microsoft? Nope they will be thinking of themselves. They struck gold with cod, other companies have been trying for years to come up with a competitor and have struggled. They aren't giving that away.
DJ12
Member
I prefer it to some judge who's probably never heard of gaming or the cloud being able to overturn a regulators decision, especially in a country where its proven money can and is used to influence judgements.
Banjo64
cumsessed
It’s great isn’t it? No opportunity for huge companies to make ginormous contributions to political parties just to get their own way at the expense of the population. No judges that don’t know what they are talking about, but favour certain conglomerates. What a fantastic system.
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
IllegalLemon
Member
I wholeheartedly agree with what statement!!!
KungFucius
King Snowflake
If the CMA turns out to be the only one saying "no" then how did they get there without something emotional? They based it on cloud gaming alone which is an emerging market that has produced no legitimate successes and a slew of failures. The analysis may be influenced by facts, but something beyond that had to go into this. It is likely a small influence, but defining risks is at best slightly subjective.
There is no analog to this hypothetical future of streaming games. The CMA is thinking that it should be like consoles and that huge games should be available on multiple platforms because people will most likely only use one platform. I think that is stupid. The services allow you to sub by month and switch. If MS had an advantage because of COD, Sony would have advantages around big releases of their games. COD likely wouldn't kill a service that doesn't have it because the barrier to switch, or acquire the other service should be minimal in the future. Maybe it would be the price of a controller/dongle combo plus the sub, but in the far future it would likely be an app plus a controller that meets minimum requirements. I can see the argument that in this case, MS does not have any incentive to share the property with other platforms, because those who want to play will sub to play.
For consoles this is much different and they said they were OK with the merger in that space. For consoles, gamers need to decide what platform to shell out $500+ for and if they want a second one they need to shell out another $500. Having COD exclusive would seriously hamper the other parties, but it would also leave a ridiculous amount of money on the table.
So it looks like this all comes down to the low barrier to entry for cloud gamers for new services. CMA thinks it is better for COD to be able to be competed for. But if the barrier for entry is low, then it makes sense that one of the leading cloud gaming services would strike an exclusive deal with ABK to have COD on their service. So the decision they are making doesn't prevent anything, it just prolongs the inevitable. It leaves open the possibility of a company making that deal with ABK now and making COD only available on whatever streaming platform exclusively. So in some ways, MS making deals to put it on other platforms for 10 years actually makes the market more competitive by letting them all have a big draw on their platform.
What am I missing here? Is the inevitable future state one where one streamer has exclusive COD regardless, or is there a future state where the content is available on multiple services? Is game streaming more like live TV where all services pay to get all content, so everyone will get COD, or more like video streaming where content is typically exclusive to one platform and users can jump in and out of subscriptions to play what they want when?
feynoob
Banned
Eat him routers.
feynoob
Banned
The difference is that no cloud companies can monopolize COD. Even Sony is unable to do that with timed exclusives. The cost for that is unimaginable and can't be affordable easily.
bitbydeath
Member
They were the second.
Ogbert
Member
UK regulators are in a funny place, post-Brexit. On the one hand, the Government is desperate for business to flourish in the UK and for us to be seen as a welcoming jurisdiction. On the other, there is growing pressure to stand up, or at least be seen to stand up, to tech giants.
Amazon and Google have been allowed to get away with blue murder, so it’s quite possible that a stricter approach is being taken with MS, to atone for previous laxity. They’re trying to act tough with fines, but as others have pointed out, the horse has already bolted.
The only thing I would say is that people really do have the wrong end of the stick with how the regulatory process works. It’s nothing like as combative as people seem to think it is. A regulator will fully explain their decision and then you have a back and forth that chips away at the detail.
If this acquisition fails it is because MS have allowed it to fail.
Bernoulli
M2 slut
bitbydeath
Member
It already failed and Brad had a go at the UK government about it, MS allowed nothing.
Ogbert
Member
It’s because they’re not prepared to make the necessary commitments on cloud gaming."if microsoft loses it's because they wanted to lose"
I appreciate you’re a fully invested console warrior on this (not a criticism, it can be good fun), but I don’t know what else to tell you.
It sounds like MS already has an infrastructure in place that no one else can compete with. If and when cloud gaming does become the norm (10/15/20 years, who knows) then every other provider is going to have to pay them money to use their service. And it sounds like they’re not willing to make any concession on the fees that they charge. And the licensing agreements (which they’ve made a huge song and dance out of) are not priced suitably either.
Pollux
Member
To be fair, most people haven't heard of major corporate attorneys unless they deal with M&A.
feynoob
Banned
Finally. MS is playing their favorite game. Corrupting government bodies to get what they want.
Ogbert
Member
They hired Pannick two days ago, who’s the legal version of the Kardashians (although incredibly clever).
If nothing else, they’re going to go down in flames.
Lunnarre
Neo Member
That was ABK not MS.
Drell
Member
In my own experience, when the only argument is about "creating jobs" or "prevent to loose many jobs", it's always because a big corporation has no real argument left.
In any case, I hope the UK will stay true to their values and not become cowboyland 2.0 thanks to this kind of clowns.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
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TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
I think that in the interests of compassion and empathy, we need to stop spot-lighting this guy.
He clearly has a mental illness, and it's cruel to keep laughing at him like this when he's literally having a psychological break down in real-time on the internet.
Thirty7ven
Banned
MS doesn’t want to pay for COD on Gamepass or for any big timed exclusive or whatever because they want to buy revenue and that way they are just giving away revenue to AB.
People really need to get on with the program on what kind of company MS is.
People really need to get on with the program on what kind of company MS is.
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