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 .
Status
Not open for further replies.
Consequences.



https://gamejobs.co/Manager-Corpora...egration-and-Acceleration-at-Sony-Playstation

"The Manager, Corporate Strategy & Development-Integration and Acceleration is a new role. We are looking for an experienced merger integration professional who excels in partnering cross-functionally and influencing in a multi-faceted, fast-paced environment."

"Members of the team will develop the business case (including synergies) and drive internal alignment on strategic fit and the post-deal integration and acceleration."

Responsibilities:
  • Define the integration strategy to achieve business objectives towards deal value realization
  • Develop holistic integration plans including Day 1 scope, approach, and readiness; and drive the day-to-day execution of the integration process
  • Lead the end-to-end merger integration process
 
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begun the clone war has GIF by Star Wars
 
The EU dividing the gaming market up by Genres and showing MS as dominant in AAA shooter and AAA RPGs is hilarious by the way.
 
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Heisenberg007 said:
Consequences.



https://gamejobs.co/Manager-Corpora...egration-and-Acceleration-at-Sony-Playstation

"The Manager, Corporate Strategy & Development-Integration and Acceleration is a new role. We are looking for an experienced merger integration professional who excels in partnering cross-functionally and influencing in a multi-faceted, fast-paced environment."

"Members of the team will develop the business case (including synergies) and drive internal alignment on strategic fit and the post-deal integration and acceleration."

Responsibilities:
  • Define the integration strategy to achieve business objectives towards deal value realization
  • Develop holistic integration plans including Day 1 scope, approach, and readiness; and drive the day-to-day execution of the integration process
  • Lead the end-to-end merger integration process
Click to expand...


Can't wait for the new coalition of content creators, media shills, and "gaming fans" narrative of consolidation is bad.
 
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yurinka said:
Yes, Sony -and basically any other company who makes an acquisition- pays for talent retention. Yes, the workers had a big chunk of the stocks, so even without the retention bonuses many of them made a lot of money selling the company.

I assume proportional to the amount they were in the company and their rank within the company they had more or less stocks, so to they earned more or less money. This is how normally works in companies that give stocks to the employees.

The special thing here is that Sony publicly mentioned the amount of money spent on it, something that normally is kept secret, even inside the acquired company. And in that case, it was a huge chunk of money. Because they had to pay retention bonuses to a lot of people, and a high one because were stockholders, meaning that pretty likely they took part in the negotiation and had a good power position to negotiate for a good chunk of money for themselves. And well, Sony was ok with paying it.

Normally in an acquisition these retention bonuses are only paid to some executives plus to some key talent in the company like the leads and directors. And since workers normally aren't stockholders of their own company they aren't part of the negotiation. Only the top execs negotiate, so they ask money for themselves, not for the random employees. And the acquirer normally ask to retain the people they identify as key individuals (normally execs, directors, leads and some senior people).

Jimbo paid a lot of money to buy the 100% of Bungie, but now he has full control over the company and secured that the Bungie workers won't run away with the money, they'll stay there at least for some years, whatever they signed for each employee. I worked in a studio that got acquired twice, as I remember in one acquisition they asked to remain for 2 years and in the other one 3 years. The bonus to stay wasn't so high for a middle manager (around a month of salary), the penalty for leaving before the milestone was pretty big (around a year of salary). For the higher ups I assume they got way more money.
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Stock vesting for the majority of staff is pretty inconsequential. Typically it works like if you stay around for x amount of time you become entitled to x amount of shares, BUT unless you stay around for a further, longer, period you can't do anything with them. And of course if you leave for any reason (including being made redundant) before the second longer period is up, the company simply takes back the shares at a nominal value.
 
HoofHearted said:
They've been painting themselves into a corner ever since they dropped consoles from the equation…

Add to this - with every other country approving this deal in some form or fashion, they obviously needed to further re-evaluate their position…

This isn't about doing Microsoft's "bidding" - if this is truly about the gamers and cloud - there still is ample opportunity for CMA to work to a solution that advances the deal while also implementing appropriate regulations to address noted concerns.…

Though IMHO, I've yet to see any of the regulatory groups from any of the countries involved throughout this prolonged process actually promote valid recommendations that would truly change the market positively for the better in support of a true and open competitive market, regardless of which platform or plastic box currently leads the market today…
Click to expand...

Do you think the legislation in the UK - enshrined in law by the two parliament houses - that the CMA and CAT are duty bound to comply with cares at all about other regulator findings around the world?

Do you think when the CAT judge was tearing a strip off of the CMA (in the last CMC) over it looking like they'd made his and their authority subservient to the US ninth circuit and FTC he cared if the UK were the only regulator?

All gamers discussing in good faith know this is a anti-competitive move, as did the FTC and the CMA.

The CMA currently have access to all the evidence they need to have a console SLC - the booty email and Starfield lost earnings from PS5 - and a esports SLC - due to CoD's 110m active players a month -, so regardless of whether Microsoft can offer enough to make defending the Cloud SLC a close call it is easy to say there is evidence of a serious lessening of competition from any form of this merger that give Microsoft control of CoD, So the reason the CMA have become an unprofessional joke - in the event of this deal going through IMHO - is that this process only starts out building a case against the merger, and then gets worn down.

Despite the revelation of the Booty email/Starfield losses from PS5 coming out months after the console SLC was removed from the CMA draft report, the finding of the "murder weapon" is considered a non-event, yet 10 years deals that give Microsoft full influence, and proposals to structurally divest 10year software licenses is apparently "special reasons/materially significant changes", and the only difference, is that one piece of information kills the deal dead against a $2.7t company, and the other nothing remedies inch them closer to subvert the anti-competitive block.
 
Heisenberg007 said:
Yeah, this is the first time 2 of the biggest independent publishers were bought for nearly $80 billion by a console manufacturer.
Click to expand...

It won't be happening on this scale for Sony anyway, but that's besides the point. They've been doing a pretty good job of acquisitions of various scales over the years anyway.

Hiring a new manager is hardly the consequence of any recent action. I'd say it's .. par for course ..
 
adamsapple said:
It won't be happening on this scale for Sony anyway, but that's besides the point. They've been doing a pretty good job of acquisitions of various scales over the years anyway.

Hiring a new manager is hardly the consequence of any recent action. I'd say it's .. par for course ..
Click to expand...
It certainly won't be on this scale for Sony, I agree.

We can all agree that their acquisitions have been very different in the past. None of their acquisitions minimized Xbox's game library. I reckon the new "inorganic" acquisitions will be different and will negatively affect Xbox's game library.

And I'd say that this expedition towards "inorganic" A&Ms is definitely because of Zenimax and ABK. Sony doesn't have the money to indulge in this unless they absolutely have to.
 
Clear said:
Stock vesting for the majority of staff is pretty inconsequential. Typically it works like if you stay around for x amount of time you become entitled to x amount of shares, BUT unless you stay around for a further, longer, period you can't do anything with them. And of course if you leave for any reason (including being made redundant) before the second longer period is up, the company simply takes back the shares at a nominal value.
Click to expand...
It depends of the company, or the moment of the company. I was in one where I got stock options: they gave me a certain amount of stock options, meaning that if I stayed there for a couple years I'd be able to buy stocks at a super cheap price, supposedly way under the estimated market value.

In other case, they simply game me stocks of the company as bonus that I could sell that same day. And the company offered to buy them for a price above the market value.

adamsapple said:
It won't be happening on this scale for Sony anyway, but that's besides the point.
Click to expand...
Heisenberg007 said:
It certainly won't be on this scale for Sony, I agree.
Click to expand...
Well, there aren't publishers of the scale of ABK so Sony can't make acquisitions of that size.

The most similar thing would be Take 2+EA, but highly I doubt they'd want to sell, that regulators would allow it because they already are too dominant in console and that feels the need to do so when it's the opposite: Sony said they won't make acquisitions in the short term.

I assume Sony thinks they don't need to rush or make big acquisition because they are in a very powerful market position in gaming, specially in consoles and game subs, and they are/have been investing to grow in many areas so as a result of these investments they'll continue growing.

I assume that once Sony resumes their acquisitions instead of going to acquire some big console publisher they will follow with their current strategy:

  • To continue growing existing teams hiring more people to ensure all their teams work in 3 or 4 games at the same time
  • Acquiring some support or porting team -as could be Valkyrie or Iron Galaxy- to help their main teams without depending too much on external outsourcing
  • Acquiring some VR or 2nd party team (maybe someone like From Soft, First Contact, Arrowhead, Deviation, Ballistic Moon...)
  • Some new studio from talented very successful devs who worked for them before if their upcoming games are successful (Deviation, JP Games, Bokeh, BlueTwelve, Ballistic Moon, some top Square Enix studio that Square could branch out...)
  • One very big mobile plus PC GaaS/F2P gaming team who could help them bring to mobile their IPs and who already is super sucessful in Asia (MiHoyo, Cyber Agent, Netmarble, Bandai Namco, NC Soft...)
  • Some smaller team who could give them great small buotique/prestige mobile -plus maybe also console- content (Devolver, Annapurna, Ustwo, Team Alto/Snowman...)
  • Maybe some company related to eSports similar to the acquisitions they did recently with EVO or eSports related apps/webs
One of the main priorities of SIE where they want to expand and where they have potential to grow a lot but still didn't do any big move is chasing mobile and the (mobile+PC) Asian market.

So if Sony ever makes a very expensive acquisition of above $10B I think would be in that area more than chasing a big console publisher who already works with them with exclusives as Square or Capcom. First because they are weaker and have more growth opportunities in this market, second because in console they already are too strong and regulators pretty likely could allow them grow big via acquisitions on mobile but not in console.
 
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S tier debate between who I determine to be the most grounded of folks reporting on this deal. Colin and the Sacred Symbols guys x Defining Duke's Mr Matty and Lord Incognito.

 
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Poltz said:
The EU dividing the gaming market up by Genres and showing MS as dominant in AAA shooter and AAA RPGs is hilarious by the way.
Click to expand...

Not really hilarious when you take into consideration that such games sell like hot-cakes and are some of the movers and shakers of the industry. Same with big sports IPs.
 
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Three said:
The simple answer is that MS don't want studios, so this isn't really a shortcut for being able to get xbox output quicker than establishing a studio, as RedC suggests.
They want to rule over known IPs and get a shortcut to established audiences. That's what people can't justify as easily.

They let the talented Sumo Digital get acquired by Tencent for a fraction of the cost. They let the studio behind Killer Instinct get acquired by Amazon for a tuppence. Sony bought the supernaturally talented Insomniac for just 300M. If you needed studios that's what you would have gone for but those studios didn't own any well established IP so they didn't. That should show it's not really about needing studios for content. It's about acquiring established audiences and forcing them onto your platform.
Click to expand...

It's not like inExile, Ninja Theory, or Obsidian have big IPs either and nevertheless MS aquired them. I agree with you to some extent but that's not really the whole picture.
 
Jigsaah said:
S tier debate between who I determine to be the most grounded of folks reporting on this deal. Colin and the Sacred Symbols guys x Defining Duke's Mr Matty and Lord Incognito.

Click to expand...

I'll definitely have to give that a watch sometime this week, maybe while doing some cooking or cleaning at home in the evening, Friday when I'm working from home otherwise
Gorgon said:
It's not like inExile, Ninja Theory, or Obsidian have big IPs either and nevertheless MS aquired them. I agree with you to some extent but that's not really the whole picture.
Click to expand...
I think their pre-2020 acquisitions & their Bethesda/ABK acquisitions are from different strategies to be honest

they didn't buy those studios for IPs but to build up their first-party, it was in 2019/2020 that they changed the approach and started looking to buy for IP (so around the time of that "thought experiment" email from Matt Booty)
 
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graywolf323 said:
edit: sorry for the double post
Click to expand...


you-done-you-know-it.gif





-




EC have finally published their full result sheet, it's a 256 page document. I'm just gonna defer to Idas's summary of some key points cause I'm not reading all that.

The EC published the decision text (256 pages)
Enjoy! :D
Just the index has a lot of potential :p xD
7.3.2. Horizontal non-coordinated effects in the market for development and publishing AAA Role Playing video games

7.3.3. Horizontal non-coordinated effects in the market for AAA Racing and Flying games

7.3.3.1. Microsoft's main games with racing and flying elements are Microsoft Flight Simulator and Forza, while Activision Blizzard's only title in this category is Crash Team Racing

7.3.4. Horizontal non-coordinated effects in the market for AAA Action and Adventure games

7.3.5. Horizontal non-coordinated effects in the market for AAA Shooter (including battle royale) games
Just 3 quick highlights (properly reading the whole thing will take a while):
Click to expand...
COD on Switch not before August 2024
Finally, the Commission notes that Microsoft and Nintendo signed the Letter of Intent on [...] 2022 (the "Nintendo LOI") based on which Microsoft has committed to develop and publish future console versions of the Call of Duty title for native execution on the Nintendo platform for at least 10 years from the later of 30 August 2024 and the date of completion of the Transaction.
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The next Switch is coming soon according to MS
Given the differences in hardware specifications between Nintendo's current console on the one hand and PlayStation and Xbox current consoles on the other hand, it is unclear whether the format and the quality in which Call of Duty would be made available on Nintendo, and whether it would be comparable to the Call of Duty games published on PlayStation and Xbox today. In fact, Nintendo submitted that "Nintendo expects that Call of Duty on its consoles will reflect the technical features of those consoles."
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In that respect, in its SO Response, the Notifying Party submitted that Nintendo is expected to launch soon a new higher specification console that would
become an even stronger competitive constraint on PlayStation and Xbox. However, the Commission's market investigation produced no evidence on whether and when Nintendo will launch a next generation console nor whether the specifications of this new hardware would be more or less comparable to the specifications of Sony's and Microsoft's current console generations. In that regard, Nintendo submitted that "The process of constant development work has been affirmed generally by Nintendo on several occasions publicly.
Click to expand...
MS/ABK won't have a monopoly of the shooter market
In the worldwide market for development and publishing of AAA shooter console video games, the combined entity's market share exceeds 20% by revenue in 2022 worldwide ([30-40]%). Therefore, the Commission has assessed whether the Transaction gives rise to competition concerns with regard to horizontal non- coordinated effects in the worldwide market for the distribution of AAA shooter console video games.

The Transaction gives rise to a horizontal overlap in this market segment also on the EEA level. In this respect, however, the Parties' activities do not give rise to an affected market because the combined entity's EEA-wide market share remains below 20% by revenue in 2022 ([10-20]%). Therefore, by reason of the Parties' limited market share and the unlikelihood of a significant impediment to competition arising in the narrower plausible EEA-wide market, the Commission finds it unlikely that the Transaction is liable to impede effective competition in the EEA-wide market development and publishing of console shooter video games.

Furthermore, the Transaction also gives rise to horizontal overlaps in the market for the development and publishing of PC shooter video games. In this respect, however, the Parties' activities do not give rise to affected markets under any plausible geographic market definition. The combined entity's market shares are limited andremain below 20% by revenue in 2022 both worldwide ([5-10]%) and in the EEA ([5-10]%).
Click to expand...
 
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Jigsaah said:
S tier debate between who I determine to be the most grounded of folks reporting on this deal. Colin and the Sacred Symbols guys x Defining Duke's Mr Matty and Lord Incognito.

Click to expand...


Cog has a terrible poker face, every time he hears something not so positive but true about Xbox you can tell it stings.

He's a die hard.
 
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Thirty7ven said:
Cog has a terrible poker face, every time he hears something not so positive but true about Xbox you can tell it stings.

He's a die hard.
Click to expand...

I lost a bit of respect for him when he had a pretty shit take on the Redfall situation. More or less telling Xbox fans they can't have it both ways when it comes to how Xbox should handle it. That they can't demand the game be polished AND yet be mad over a possible second delay. Yes, motherfucker. They can and should. Because they've been waiting for great, big titles long enough. Don't guilt the fanbase to absolve Xbox of its failures. It's not their fault and they have every right to demand higher quality within decent timeframes.
 
Heisenberg007 said:
It certainly won't be on this scale for Sony, I agree.

We can all agree that their acquisitions have been very different in the past. None of their acquisitions minimized Xbox's game library. I reckon the new "inorganic" acquisitions will be different and will negatively affect Xbox's game library.

And I'd say that this expedition towards "inorganic" A&Ms is definitely because of Zenimax and ABK. Sony doesn't have the money to indulge in this unless they absolutely have to.
Click to expand...
I agree - this is a protective move by Sony, they could sit idly by and watch 3rd-party publishers vanish or they could pro-actively buy up publishers to secure content that they may lose.

the MS acquisition spree was always going to have consequences - I would guess Sony buy a publisher and a bunch of games that XBox players used to have will suddenly become exclusive. It sucks, it is absolutely awful from any sane perspective, but it's what happens when these mega-corps are not reined-in by regulation.

Don't know who Sony will bid for, but it will result in less consumer choice - just as the Zenimax & ABK acquisitions have. I feel sorry for anyone that actually likes gaming instead the large group of people who seem to enjoy list-wars/console wars.
 
Jigsaah said:
S tier debate between who I determine to be the most grounded of folks reporting on this deal. Colin and the Sacred Symbols guys x Defining Duke's Mr Matty and Lord Incognito.

Click to expand...


Matty lol

This where these Xbox dudes lose me. Says he has fallen out of PlayStation games because third person yada yada then plays Jedi Survivor and loses his shit.
 
foamdino said:
I agree - this is a protective move by Sony, they could sit idly by and watch 3rd-party publishers vanish or they could pro-actively buy up publishers to secure content that they may lose.

the MS acquisition spree was always going to have consequences - I would guess Sony buy a publisher and a bunch of games that XBox players used to have will suddenly become exclusive. It sucks, it is absolutely awful from any sane perspective, but it's what happens when these mega-corps are not reined-in by regulation.

Don't know who Sony will bid for, but it will result in less consumer choice - just as the Zenimax & ABK acquisitions have. I feel sorry for anyone that actually likes gaming instead the large group of people who seem to enjoy list-wars/console wars.
Click to expand...
I am thinking they might go for 4-8 billion dollar japanese companies. Capcom, Square Enix, From Software (Kadokawa), Bandai-Namco. and make that stuff exclusive.
 
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James Sawyer Ford said:
Also claims FF16 did nothing for him and had too much cutscenes yet goes crazy over Persona titles on Xbox
Click to expand...
I'm not defending the guy but you can honestly dislike Sony 3rd person games and love Jedi Survivor ( I haven't played it yet, but I liked the first one more than most of Sony games. I truly believe only GoW is better) for reasons that don't really have anything to do with perspective you are playing from. Also, usually I don't really like when game has too many cutscenes that go on forever and yet I have loved games that do exactly the same thing, because I was invested in the story or characters enough not to press skip all the time. There is really nothing wrong or weird about it.
 
Badlucktroll said:
I am thinking they might go for 4-8 billion dollar japanese companies. Capcom, Square Enix, From Software (Kadokawa), Bandai-Namco. and make that stuff exclusive.
Click to expand...
It's the most obvious choice, one of these pubs they have worked well with already, but if they bought From for example, it would be a real shame for Xbox gamers as they would lose access to some quality games (I don't personally enjoy them but loads of people do).

Consolidation sucks no matter who does it. I am going to blame MS for triggering this activity, now we all lose out
 
foamdino said:
I agree - this is a protective move by Sony, they could sit idly by and watch 3rd-party publishers vanish or they could pro-actively buy up publishers to secure content that they may lose.

the MS acquisition spree was always going to have consequences - I would guess Sony buy a publisher and a bunch of games that XBox players used to have will suddenly become exclusive. It sucks, it is absolutely awful from any sane perspective, but it's what happens when these mega-corps are not reined-in by regulation.

Don't know who Sony will bid for, but it will result in less consumer choice - just as the Zenimax & ABK acquisitions have. I feel sorry for anyone that actually likes gaming instead the large group of people who seem to enjoy list-wars/console wars.
Click to expand...
Sony should stick to smaller publishers. SE is the best fit for them. But they been in a partnership with them for sooo long and they still haven't tied the knot? Maybe its not possible.
 
Roberts said:
I'm not defending the guy but you can honestly dislike Sony 3rd person games and love Jedi Survivor
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I always get annoyed when people try to argue why you should like something you dont. It just seems so insecure.

I liked GoW 2018 a ton, found Ragnarok boring. Liked Spider Man, found Miles Morales boring. Wasnt very into Horizon 1, TLoU1 at all but enjoyed Uncharted 4. Do people ever argue that you have to like Halo Infinite if you like any FPS games? Ive never seen that. Just odd.
 
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