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Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovation and choice in cloud gaming

maybe MS can try to buy EA or Take2

See this is what pisses me off with the likes of him. They have a substantial amount of studios there, they could invest and improve those teams and improve the Xbox division itself by going for first rate talent . Yet somehow they are back to square one .
 

solidus12

Member
How it started:
w7mnZ00.png


How it’s going:
qo6vs0C.jpg


Karma’s a bitch
 
See this is what pisses me off with the likes of him. They have a substantial amount of studios there, they could invest and improve those teams and improve the Xbox division itself by going for first rate talent . Yet somehow they are back to square one .
Didn't MS just fire some of their working force from Bethesda or other studios recently? Or am i confusing with something else?

How it started:
w7mnZ00.png


How it’s going:
qo6vs0C.jpg


Karma’s a bitch
In his defense...everything he said on that tweet ended up happening today. Just not from the same side.
 
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LordOfChaos

Member
It's already down over 9% and about half a percentage away from becoming short sale restricted for the day. Not much more downside is realistic for today unless some big players want to suddenly unload here (which is unlikely, they will probably wait for the opportunity on the next technical bounce).

Oh I was talking about Microsoft

The rest of their business is firing on all cylinders, I thought the Activision news might tamp the high opening on an earnings beat, but it doesn't seem to really matter, Xbox remains a lagging business
 

LordCBH

Member
See this is what pisses me off with the likes of him. They have a substantial amount of studios there, they could invest and improve those teams and improve the Xbox division itself by going for first rate talent . Yet somehow they are back to square one .

That would require Xbox having competent management. When your only management style is “buy buy buy buy buy” you eventually return to the problem of “oh fuck I can’t actually manage any of this.”
 

GHG

Member
right and they have trillions to do it. get to work microsoft. create another call of duty and GTA.

The problem is that they don't have anyone in charge with the experience and expertise necessary to build teams capable of making games on that scale.

But yeh, that's where their money should be going in the first instance - recruiting an industry leading leadership team and then going from there.

Oh I was talking about Microsoft

The rest of their business is firing on all cylinders, I thought the Activision news might tamp the high opening on an earnings beat, but it doesn't seem to really matter, Xbox remains a lagging business

Oh no, for Microsoft this has very little impact with a slight skew towards the positive side:

A whole lot of cashflow is likely to remain on their balance sheet during what is and will remain a tough period economically, plus they announced positive earnings last night.
 
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That would require Xbox having competent management. When your only management style is “buy buy buy buy buy” you eventually return to the problem of “oh fuck I can’t actually manage any of this.”

It clearly doesn’t work. What a dreadful waste of time and money Mixer was, particularly that Ninja deal.

It annoys me they would rather scrap something than look to invest in the right people to build something properly. I’d be gutted if Xbox as a console went away, they should be making it a better experience.
 

xBlueStonex

Member
According to the latest comment from Activision, they are working on an appeal. The saga isn't over yet...

And who gives a flying f*ck about cloud gaming?
 

XesqueVara

Member
Probably not. But after yesterday's financial results and now having to pay Activision around $3B to not buy COD, you never know. Those sales could certainly help getting the books in order.
Naaah, if they were worried about that money they wouldn't drag this futher.
I think this pretty much ends Phil's tenure at Microsoft. Somone's gonna have to fall on their sword over this, and I think it will be the head of xbox.

Lets hope the next guy incharge has a different vision.
Doubt, The failure of this deal affect more ABK than MS, The former needs the deal more than MS tbh.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
Pretty much what Shinobi said


You would think people that close to Xbox would understand Microsoft's business model by now.

They could "try" and do it that way, but the "trying" is the part that carries risk and is incongruent to their business model, and they are about control, sure things and financial or IP/Asset gains - no matter what.

Building like a real competitor gives them no guarantees, and is a model that fails the minute they stop "trying", which is why they can't even really go 3rd party to exploit the PlayStation userbase. They want to be Valve(Google/Apple) in gaming, no work on game development, just APIs/next-gen stores and a cut of everyone else's sales.

They wanted ABK to build their store and cloud sub presence to that level to get there, but the CMA have sensibly denied them (IMO), and now the question is what do they do now without "trying"?
 

Nydius

Member
According to the latest comment from Activision, they are working on an appeal. The saga isn't over yet...

And who gives a flying f*ck about cloud gaming?
Keep taking big old deep breaths of that Copium.

Winning a CMA appeal is extremely difficult, even Jez admits that. One out of the four required regulatory bodies have blocked it. It’s likely another is about to do the same (FTC). The more Activision’s value drops, the more overpriced the acquisition becomes, the more pressure MS will face from stockholders to abandon it.

The deal is dead.
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
Basically, yeah. People suggesting MSFT just back out of U.K. don't understand that the deal is dead regardless. They filed with the SEC, and those four regulators have to approve the acquisition. If not, their own SEC filing says the deal is dead. There isn't wiggle room for Microsoft to back out of one of the markets even if they wanted to (which they don't, because that would be stupid).
So from Brad Sams...apparently the deal isn't done, but it's in a bad spot. He states that Microsoft won't be able to get the deal to go through by June 30th, which means they will have to pay ABK $3 billion unless they renegotiate the deal.

My thing is this? After being blocked by the CMA, ABK is gonna be hurting at least in their stock, so essentially they have to decide whether to bet on the same horse again.

My question, does MSFT have an opportunity to address the regulatory concerns the CMA has in order to get the deal to go through?
 
So…

Today Todd Howard runs furiously into the Studio, face sweating like a pig.

All the devs heads slowly rise above their monitor screens and chatter collapses into a deadly silence filling the entire open plan space.

Todd wipes his brow with a mouse mat from the desk beside him in frustration, looking notably disturbed and disgruntled.

The studio staff remain in a deadly quiet so thick you almost taste it in the air.

Todd clears his throat…

“Right fuckers… it’s dead… Bob go pull those PS5 dev kits out of storage. We’ve got 6 months of violent deathmarch to get a PS5 build up & running again and back up to XSX parity…”

A single lonely tear rolls down the cheek of the QA intern as the scene fades to black…

Fin.
 
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LordCBH

Member
It clearly doesn’t work. What a dreadful waste of time and money Mixer was, particularly that Ninja deal.

It annoys me they would rather scrap something than look to invest in the right people to build something properly. I’d be gutted if Xbox as a console went away, they should be making it a better experience.

The sad thing is they have EVERYTHING they need to compete. They just need to put someone in charge that can actually do something with it.
 
The more I think about this the more hilarious it all becomes. There was this constant attempt to make Playstation look like the boogey man that didn't want gamers to get the "best deal in gaming", and the CMA goes blocking the deal, not because they think the deal endangers PlayStation, but because they understand that Microsoft's larger marketshare on Cloud gaming together with their monopoly on the PC operating system represents a risk to any other player wanting to enter that market.
So the solution is to punish who is trying to establish a new market and benefit who has done nothing relevant for it and is late to the party? Why would you think that this decision will lead to a more balanced cloud market and not Sony taking over when it is convenient for them?
 
Then it wasn't a fair proceeding and Microsoft was holding back information because they have the same clauses against Sony when they moneyhat and have done so just as much as Sony.
Agreed. That's why it's strange they would block this deal in particular (one of many that have been happening for years), but put up no opposition to Sony purchasing companies as this is happening lol. I'm not really looking for anyone here to make it make sense. I just thought in the spirit of competition, they would let companies compete.
 

X-Wing

Member
So the solution is to punish who is trying to establish a new market and benefit who has done nothing relevant for it and is late to the party? Why would you think that this decision will lead to a more balanced cloud market and not Sony taking over when it is convenient for them?
Microsoft is not being punished, again, they are the third biggest company in the world, they own several monopolies where their position as market leader can not be disputed.
How can Sony take over cloud gaming when they do not have any cloud infrastructure?
 

Esca

Member
Good. Would have been bad for the industry as a whole. Ms has plenty of ips and studios already that they need to focus on making exceptional. They are being extremely lazy and just want to buy their spot to first instead of actually completing. Standard ms practice sadly.
 
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