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

Del_X

Member
Microsoft started this at the peak of the market back in late 2021. Doubt Activision-Blizzard is worth $70BN now.

Curious to see what they do with that money now.
 
Yes Microsoft should just lose billions to protect a market that might not ever take off. I can imagine the cma siding with block buster against netflix its not fair netflix is investing in building a new streaming market and must be stopped so they don't become a monopoly. But the current leader is free to do what it wants.
That’s a completely flawed argument and comparison and I’m quite sure you know it is.
 

hinch7

Member
Man UK blocking Nvidia from Arm was good and now MS from Activision. Feelsgoodman.
94f.png


Lets see how this drama unfolds..
 
Bad news after Bad news for Xbox, but knowing them Even if they don't Buy activision they Will likely pay them for having everything exclusive in Revenge to Sony.

By the time MS can bid for COD marketing rights (or timed exclusivity for smaller games being realistic) is 2024 isn't it? By then the PS5 will have an even greater install base split than the PS4 had vs the XB1 at this rate, as Series is totally floundering in hardware sales since end of last year.

So getting these marketing deals for Xbox is going to cost even more unrealistic sums of money.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
From the Polygon article today:

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson issued an even punchier, almost threatening response. “The CMA’s report contradicts the ambitions of the U.K. to become an attractive country to build technology businesses,” it said. “We will work aggressively with Microsoft to reverse this on appeal. The report’s conclusions are a disservice to U.K. citizens, who face increasingly dire economic prospects. We will reassess our growth plans for the U.K. Global innovators large and small will take note that - despite all its rhetoric - the U.K. is clearly closed for business.”

Wow!
 

X-Wing

Member
From the Polygon article today:

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson issued an even punchier, almost threatening response. “The CMA’s report contradicts the ambitions of the U.K. to become an attractive country to build technology businesses,” it said. “We will work aggressively with Microsoft to reverse this on appeal. The report’s conclusions are a disservice to U.K. citizens, who face increasingly dire economic prospects. We will reassess our growth plans for the U.K. Global innovators large and small will take note that - despite all its rhetoric - the U.K. is clearly closed for business.”

Wow!
The arrogance level is incredible. The block is even more deserved.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Ah damn it, the same day as futures were up 10% after the earnings beat lol...Could have let me have my monies first!
 
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PaintTinJr

Member
Good on MS to appeal this. I think they would end up winning the appeal.

Just focus on getting approved by the EU commission. FTC won’t do anything except make some noise.
The bar for appealing is very high - because the CAT implicitly trusts the CMA more than the appealing companies - so they might not even have their appeal heard. In the UK we don't encourage wasting civil servants' time in pointless appeals worn down by mega corporation paid solicitors, so the appeal has to have merit - if you go check the info. It is 50/50 if they even get an appeal. I guess they won't and this will be over quite soon after they submit the appeal.
 
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Fabieter

Member
Microsoft started this at the peak of the market back in late 2021. Doubt Activision-Blizzard is worth $70BN now.

Curious to see what they do with that money now.

Actually 70b was a steal because avb lost alot of value because of ongoing legal problems. Afik it was close to 100b peak with the premium it would have been worth like 130b to buy.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
Paying ATVI $2 billion per year probably gets COD on Gamepass. Paying $3 billion per year probably gets entire library.

If Microsoft really wants to “help” gamers with games on Gamepass, they can use that $70 billion and have COD on Gamepass for 35 years. Bet you they won’t do that tho

Now we will see how intent MS is in increasing competition, providing value and choice for gamers or if it was the expected bullshit of just wanting to run over the industry.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
From the Polygon article today:

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson issued an even punchier, almost threatening response. “The CMA’s report contradicts the ambitions of the U.K. to become an attractive country to build technology businesses,” it said. “We will work aggressively with Microsoft to reverse this on appeal. The report’s conclusions are a disservice to U.K. citizens, who face increasingly dire economic prospects. We will reassess our growth plans for the U.K. Global innovators large and small will take note that - despite all its rhetoric - the U.K. is clearly closed for business.”

Wow!

What spectacular fucking horseshit.

If anything, the UK has today proved that it's a good place to do business, because it won't allow anti-consumer practises and mergers to go ahead. It should give smaller and mid-sized companies the confidence to trade, without constantly thinking the massive multinationals can just ride roughshod over them.

The EU are going to come to exactly the same decision.
 
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This begs the question, which publisher will they go after now?

Surely it’s EA or Take 2.
Or they could just take the money and invest in their studios and create new IPs. Then no one has to approve something and they won't have to promise Nintendo and Sony anything. Instead of waiting 10 years to fully get ABK, build something themselves, which should not take that long. Either way it is throwing money at a problem, trying to catch up with Sony and also figthing for a market that has yet to show that it actually will become the future. The early fantasies evaporated by now and only winners are probably the Onlive and Gaikai founders finding quite early a buyer in Sony, but no one else made bank with it.
 

SoraNoKuni

Member
The statement from CMA is loud and clear, capitalist overlords at m$ are in shambles, and that was without even stating Sony, purely talking about cloud, and they're correct, Ms is already a Monopoly in that segment, imagine the grim future for all of us and their competitors if this went through.

Nice.
 

ByWatterson

Member
From what I've read, people are vastly overestimating how plausible an appeal is.

Apparently the appeals authority (CAT) cannot review the merits of the case, only whether the conclusions comport with the law.

So if I'm reading this right, that this will create competition issues in cloud gaming is THE expression of the United Kingdom.
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
What spectacular fucking horseshit.

If anything, the UK has today proved that it's a good place to do business, because it won't allow anti-consumer practises and mergers to go ahead. It should give smaller and mid-sized companies the confidence to trade, without constantly thinking the massive multinationals can just ride roughshod over them.

The EU are going to come to exactly the same decision.
You mean like how those small cloud companies were going to get abk games and now they won't. Yes that is great for them 😆.
 

Interfectum

Member
The statement from CMA is loud and clear, capitalist overlords at m$ are in shambles, and that was without even stating Sony, purely talking about cloud, and they're correct, Ms is already a Monopoly in that segment, imagine the grim future for all of us and their competitors if this went through.

Nice.
Yup, it's great to see a government with teeth actually bitch slap these corporations. I love how Acti-Blizz threatening to take their ball and go home. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

MOTM

Banned
What spectacular fucking horseshit.

If anything, the UK has today proved that it's a good place to do business, because it won't allow anti-consumer practises and mergers to go ahead. It should give smaller and mid-sized companies the confidence to trade, without constantly thinking the massive multinationals can just ride roughshod over them.

The EU are going to come to exactly the same decision.
That's one way of seeing it :messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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Rubik8

Member
Paying ATVI $2 billion per year probably gets COD on Gamepass. Paying $3 billion per year probably gets entire library.

If Microsoft really wants to “help” gamers with games on Gamepass, they can use that $70 billion and have COD on Gamepass for 35 years. Bet you they won’t do that tho
When you think about it like this, it’s so crystal clear that their real intent was to hurt Sony, not help Xbox players. Which is why this deal stunk from day one.
 

Mr Moose

Member
From the Polygon article today:

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson issued an even punchier, almost threatening response. “The CMA’s report contradicts the ambitions of the U.K. to become an attractive country to build technology businesses,” it said. “We will work aggressively with Microsoft to reverse this on appeal. The report’s conclusions are a disservice to U.K. citizens, who face increasingly dire economic prospects. We will reassess our growth plans for the U.K. Global innovators large and small will take note that - despite all its rhetoric - the U.K. is clearly closed for business.”

Wow!
Lulu saying dumb shit because she wants that $.
 
From the Polygon article today:

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson issued an even punchier, almost threatening response. “The CMA’s report contradicts the ambitions of the U.K. to become an attractive country to build technology businesses,” it said. “We will work aggressively with Microsoft to reverse this on appeal. The report’s conclusions are a disservice to U.K. citizens, who face increasingly dire economic prospects. We will reassess our growth plans for the U.K. Global innovators large and small will take note that - despite all its rhetoric - the U.K. is clearly closed for business.”

Wow!
As a person in the UK, they're 100% right the UK faces dire economic prospects in general atm, because UK.

They're also dickholes who can fuck right off. The world doesn't revolve around Activision blessing them with potential jobs.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
What spectacular fucking horseshit.

If anything, the UK has today proved that it's a good place to do business, because it won't allow anti-consumer practises and mergers to go ahead. It should give smaller and mid-sized companies the confidence to trade, without constantly thinking the massive multinationals can just ride roughshod over them.

The EU are going to come to exactly the same decision.

UK preserves everything.

If-the-british-landed-on-the-moon-first-meme-10412
 

analog_future

Resident Crybaby
I have been ignoring the merger threads all this time as i consider it a waste of oxygen. I am just glad it is over.

The worst part is it's not over. If anything this drags the whole process out exponentially longer. We're going to still be hypothesizing about this into 2024 now.

Ugh.
 
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Zok310

Banned
“The deal would reinforce Microsoft’s advantage in the market by giving it control over important gaming content such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. The evidence available to the CMA indicates that, absent the merger, Activision would start providing games via cloud platforms in the foreseeable future.

The cloud allows UK gamers to avoid buying expensive gaming consoles and PCs and gives them much more flexibility and choice as to how they play. Allowing Microsoft to take such a strong position in the cloud gaming market just as it begins to grow rapidly would risk undermining the innovation that is crucial to the development of these opportunities.”


Sounds like MS knew Bobby was going to put his games on cloud services at some point and said nope thats our playground and we dont want to compete against abk in cloud so we will just buy yall for a ludicrous amount of cash.
MS was trying to buy out a future cloud competitor and the biggest one at that, then use its library to dictate to smaller cloud platforms. This would have absolutely killed cloud gaming imo.

Good fucking work cma.

MS after the console concerns were dropped thought the cma was feeling them and decided to offer the least they could offer for cloud remedies as a result, and the cma even called them out on that general demeanor also.
MS fangs came out once Sony was no longer an issue and the cma saw that ugly, hideous beast finally revealed, with blood dripping from its mouth and decided the best thing to do was to slew this beast and put its carcass out on display in the town center.
 
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