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

Dane

Member
It’s not a loop hole. Exclusive content from third parties is standard practice across entertainment industries.

You talk as if Sony paid for COD exclusivity. Guess what, GTA was exclusive, then it became massive and no longer made sense for the third party that owns the IP to be exclusive.

Just whiny senseless arguments this whole third party exclusivity thing. Everyone does it. Only one started buying the biggest publishers and IP in the world.

The only thing you’re upset is that the market doesn’t feel the way you do about Xbox. That’s basically it.
So its okay to Microsoft to make COD exclusive rather than multiplatform?
 

NickFire

Member
But I though this was to reach billions of gamers on smart devices that need cloud to play Game Pass?

So now it's only 5,000?

Mr Rogers Clown GIF


Constant streams of bullshit.
The last 24 hours alone should be more than enough for all of the regulators to block this deal. The nice holistic guy image is melting faster than the guy who opened the Ark in the first Indiana Jones movie. Seriously, how many degrees of rotation does it take to go from making gaming accessible to millions or billions of people, down to 5000. 180 degrees? 360? 720? Even the Exorcist girl in full possession mode would be impressed.
 

Luigi Mario

Member
I find it interesting that since the announcement yesterday, there already seems to be a “new” talking point taking form on Twitter, YouTube and forums. Which is that the ABK acquisition was never all so beneficial for the core Xbox audience and that Microsoft should have gone for smaller studio acquisitions like Asobo and Certain Affinity or struck a deal with Square Enix to get Crystal Dynamics and Eidos + their IP’s instead of wasting over a year on this.
I think someone with a Fallout avatar (maybe CatLady CatLady ) on here already suggested something like this multiple times.
 
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I would be fine with that if that included money hats to those publishers. Or else you leave a loop hole for the dominant market leader to content starve competition out of the market.
The problem I have with this is that it's apples to oranges. PlayStation may be the market leader over Xbox by a significant margin, but Microsoft could buy and sell Sony many times over.

If PlayStation falters, Sony will be fighting for its existence. Microsoft could absorb writing off the entire Xbox division today and while their ledger would bleed red ink temporarily they'd be fine overall.

Xbox has $70 billion burning a hole in its pocket. If they decide to spend some of it moneyhatting some games, so be it. Or maybe they could do what Sony has been doing lateky and providing financial and manpower support to get a game designed to be console exclusive. I don't have any problem with Xbox pursuing such strategies, that's fair.
 
I said "I'm outta here LOL" because I knew it'd be a shitshow of Sony fans gloating and beating their chests.

And well done taking my comments out of context. I don't give a shit how this goes. CMA refusing MS/ABK didn't make me break down in tears or jump for joy. I only want to see MS be succesful overrruling this because it'd upset the Sony fans who think they have won this stupid fucking console war. Maybe I just like routing for the underdog.

This forum world is obviously heavily biased toward Sony so I could waste my time arguing but I know I'm not going to get anywhere with you lot. Nobody is allowed to say anything bad against Sony. I'll probably get a perm ban for my posts but I don't give a fuck.
I got you man, fixed it for you. Stay strong :messenger_winking:
 

zomboden

Banned


Literally what I said yesterday. Hardware is getting more powerful very quickly and imagine if each time a new gen came out they had to replace all the server racks...
 

Topher

Identifies as young
They're offering it multiplatform as a condition to its approval, but why it is bad being multiplatform instead of exclusive?

Console exclusivity isn't a condition for approval. That was thrown out. Being multiplatform isn't "bad". Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
 

Sleepwalker

Member
Another gem:


https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/06/10/ ... microsoft/

Phil Spencer said:
As a company, Microsoft's all-in on gaming. We believe we can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining that future of interactive entertainment, quite frankly, at scale. There are really three, I think, areas or key areas where we believe we have incredible competitive advantage. First is our leadership in cloud computing; second, the resources we have to build out the subscription value with Xbox Game Pass; and third is our overall focus on empowering creators. I'm really excited about the opportunity in gaming.


So the first key area is now no longer key and inconsequential. Sure then.
 
How Disney is handling Marvel is your fear for Xbox?

So do you think Game Pass is gonna go woke? there will be one body that will decide how each studio develops like a conveyor belt, and all Xbox games will feature gay protagonists? Is that your fear?
I don’t really care for nor fear gay protagonist/woke or whatever. But, yes, absolutely Microsoft wants to turn it into a manufacturing “conveyor belt” systemic/standardized process. That’s how’d they maximize efficiencies, essentially “commoditize” the product, maximize profit. And as a byproduct, the monolith will exert cultural influence, whatever those views/stances are because they’ll be so big/in control. They could happen to be stances I completely align with. I still wouldn’t want the monolith exerting it tho, I want diversity in game development
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member


Literally what I said yesterday. Hardware is getting more powerful very quickly and imagine if each time a new gen came out they had to replace all the server racks...

MS themselves have been overstating the "Power of the Cloud," even used it as ammo to reach BILLIONS OF GAMERS for this merger

Nobody forgets that shit. Execs and shills stay trying to memory hole what was only a few months ago.
 
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Jerm411

Member
MS themselves have been overstating the "Power of the Cloud," even used it as ammo to reach BILLIONS OF GAMERS for this merger

Nobody forgets that shit. People and shills stay trying to memory hole what was only a few months ago.
But but…when everyone plays, we all win….or what ever he said lol.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
Another gem:


https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/06/10/ ... microsoft/

Phil Spencer said:
As a company, Microsoft's all-in on gaming. We believe we can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining that future of interactive entertainment, quite frankly, at scale. There are really three, I think, areas or key areas where we believe we have incredible competitive advantage. First is our leadership in cloud computing; second, the resources we have to build out the subscription value with Xbox Game Pass; and third is our overall focus on empowering creators. I'm really excited about the opportunity in gaming.


So the first key area is now no longer key and inconsequential. Sure then.

Some sort of collective memory loss going around.
 

Vroadstar

Member
I said "I'm outta here LOL" because I knew it'd be a shitshow of Sony fans gloating and beating their chests.

And well done taking my comments out of context. I don't give a shit how this goes. CMA refusing MS/ABK didn't make me break down in tears or jump for joy. I only want to see MS be succesful overrruling this because it'd upset the Sony fans who think they have won this stupid fucking console war. Maybe I just like routing for the underdog.

This forum is obviously heavily biased toward Sony so I could waste my time arguing but I know I'm not going to get anywhere with you lot. Nobody is allowed to say anything bad against Sony. I'll probably get a perm ban for my posts but I don't give a fuck.
So he ended up getting banned. Oh well, he asked for it

joker he's GIF by Pixel Bandits
 

Dr_Ifto

Member
I find it interesting that since the announcement yesterday, there already seems to be a “new” talking point taking form on Twitter, YouTube and forums. Which is that the ABK acquisition was never all so beneficial for the core Xbox audience and that Microsoft should have gone for smaller studio acquisitions like Asobo and Certain Affinity or struck a deal with Square Enix to get Crystal Dynamics and Eidos + their IP’s instead of wasting over a year on this.
I think someone with a Fallout avatar on here already suggested something like this multiple times.
This should have been their approach and would have cleared nicely. It would also be kind of like how Sony did, with the Asobo purchase since they have been working with MS with their games.
 

Bragr

Banned
I don’t really care for nor fear gay protagonist/woke or whatever. But, yes, absolutely Microsoft wants to turn it into a manufacturing “conveyor belt” systemic/standardized process. That’s how’d they maximize efficiencies, essentially “commoditize” the product, maximize profit. And as a byproduct, the monolith will exert cultural influence, whatever those views/stances are because they’ll be so big/in control. They could happen to be stances I completely align with. I still wouldn’t want the monolith exerting it tho, I want diversity in game development
There is nothing to indicate anything like this. Studios developing in their own way is good for development and good for Xbox. This is not how the game industry works.
 

Dane

Member
Console exclusivity isn't a condition for approval. That was thrown out. Being multiplatform isn't "bad". Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
The point is that CMA is promoting the opposite arguments of what Microsoft was offering that would be conditional to pass over competition concerns and decided to pull out an irrational one over cloud while explicitly ignoring the agreements they made to smaller streaming companies to the entire catalog, that enough would propell any company from zero.
 

John Wick

Member
So we should cripple Microsoft's ability to expand their games portfolio while we give Sony time to sit there and build up their cloud gaming infrastructure so Sony can have the best games, the best cloud, and the best console. While Microsoft just closes the Xbox division. Yeah, makes sense.

Punish Microsoft for already having cloud infrastructure while giving Sony a chance to get it so Microsoft can never compete/use their advantage. I see now.
This is such a dishonest take it's unbelievable. MS are a trillion dollar company. They've been in the console business 20 years. More than enough time along with their vast wealth to build their own studios and IP.
No one is stopping them buying studios(which they have been). Also Sony would take years to close the cloud infrastructure gap and is probably out of the question.
Clearly you can't see reason. MS would dominate and monopolise cloud gaming by having the platform, infrastructure, games and the service.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
The point is that CMA is promoting the opposite arguments of what Microsoft was offering that would be conditional to pass over competition concerns and decided to pull out an irrational one over cloud while explicitly ignoring the agreements they made to smaller streaming companies to the entire catalog, that enough would propell any company from zero.
Cracking Up Lol GIF by HULU


No, the CMA saw through their virtue signaling bullshit and are well aware of EEE.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
The point is that CMA is promoting the opposite arguments of what Microsoft was offering that would be conditional to pass over competition concerns and decided to pull out an irrational one over cloud while explicitly ignoring the agreements they made to smaller streaming companies to the entire catalog, that enough would propell any company from zero.

The CMA said they did not believe those remedies to be sufficient. It is what it is.
 
It's so good to finally see Microsofts bullshit catch up to them and yet, they're still trying to worm their way out! I hope the EU follow suit and shut their asses up. Threatening and attacking an entire country? Fucking really Microsoft?

Cloud doesn't matter now even though Microsoft have been telling us for years they want to reach billions of gamers on every device through the cloud and Sony and Nintendo ain't even their competition! I have never seen such levels of hypocrisy in my life. This is the REAL Microsoft people. Now we know why xbox is in the state it is. Look at the behaviour of Upper management. Now it makes sense why it's been so bad for so long.
 
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So let's say that MS gives up on this whole shitshow and maybe down the line sells Xbox. Sony is the only major console seller out there. They can do what they want. You think $70 games are bad? What if they start charging $80-90 for games, raise the price of PS+, and the prices of their consoles?

Most people on here are more then eager to get a kick into MS but the fact is they are the only major competition to Sony. Nintendo are doing their own thing. Unless Apple comes in guns blazing then nobody is going to compete with Sony. Even Microsoft who has more than enough fuck you money than Sony is struggling. Who else is going to put up a fight against Sony?

Beat your chests all you like but if MS fucks off then it's only going to affect all gamers. Suck up to Sony all you like for now but you better all hope and pray that MS is strong and giving Sony a run for their money.
So, by your logic, Nintendo already has a monopoly. Because they're doing their "own thing" which, apparently, is a different thing than Xbox and PlayStation.

Before Xbox came around and started mimicking Sony all consoles used to be quite different from each other. Were those all different monopolies?
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Seems to me that they're desperate... almost like a loss leading sub service levels of desperate once big hitters land and day 1 can't be walked back. Cannibalization and all that dried gravy.

I wonder what’s the plan now that becoming Netflix by way of absorbing publishers is no longer in the cards.

If there is no path forward for profitability the might have to can it. Terrifying thought.
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
It's so good to finally see Microsofts bullshit catch up to them and yet, they're still trying to worm their way out! I hope the EU follow suit and shut their asses up. Threatening and attacking an entire country? Fucking really Microsoft? Cloud doesn't matter now even though Microsoft have been telling us for years they want to reach billions of gamers on evety device through the cloud and Sony and Nintendo ain't even their competition! I have never seen such levels of hypocrisy in my life. This is the REAL Microsoft people. Now we know why xbox is in the state it is. Look at the behaviour of Upper management.
Yep. The mask has slipped.
 

Bragr

Banned
Another gem:


https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/06/10/ ... microsoft/

Phil Spencer said:
As a company, Microsoft's all-in on gaming. We believe we can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining that future of interactive entertainment, quite frankly, at scale. There are really three, I think, areas or key areas where we believe we have incredible competitive advantage. First is our leadership in cloud computing; second, the resources we have to build out the subscription value with Xbox Game Pass; and third is our overall focus on empowering creators. I'm really excited about the opportunity in gaming.


So the first key area is now no longer key and inconsequential. Sure then.
Absolutely no one, on here, within the industry, within the cloud holders, has ever feared Xbox taking over the cloud. They are leading with xCloud but are nowhere near any sort of monopoly, even if they got this merger through there is no issue for other publishers to build a robust cloud infrastructure.

But now, every armchair analyst is gonna pretend this is a thing.

It's especially funny that some people are arguing that the cloud is a huge problem that must be stopped, even if they haven't thought about a cloud in about 3 years. They are even looking for Phil Spencer's quotes about the cloud.

You guys are unreal lol.
 

DrFigs

Member
the new conspiracy , no way some actually believe this


I'm not saying it did or did not happen. But if did happen, why would it be a bad thing? If these companies are going to have a branch in multiple countries, isn't it natural for the regulatory bodies to cooperate. Just financially it makes sense and saves a ton of money on lawyers and research, etc.
 
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