Somewhere in this deep, long thread, I made a post stating that a deal of this magnitude will always become political. Politics will always come into play, with deals like this, and there'll always be more at play, than what meets the eyes, or what the public is privy to seeing.
And this hearing, along with the FTC's case against MS, is absolute proof of this. I also stated that many of these arm-chair experts on Gaf (and in the general/enthusiast gaming community) don't have a proper or thorough understanding of this, and can only make their decisions and predictions based on their bias/favourites, and cherry-picking information to support those biases (myself included). So many were certain that the EU would rule against MS; they got that wtong. They were then certain the CMA would disapprove of the deal, and while they got that right, they got it right for the wrong reasons (It was the cloud considerations that stopped CMA from okay-ing the deal - which no one saw coming). They were certain the MS lawyer fell right into the CMA's lawyer's play-dumb tactic (it wasn't a tactic, he really was a half-wit), and they'd win that pre-trial; got that wrong too. They were certain the FTC would win, because big-bad-monopoly MS-bad-for-consumers; ...got that wrong too. They were certain the FTC's appeal would go through, and MS would lose another hearing case; the appeal was considered ludicrous, their arguments weak, and it got denied, with absolution. And now, this...
At the time when I made some of those statements, I was heckled and mocked.
Now, here we are...