UK Blocks Microsoft / Blizzard Merger

[BeepBoo]

So you don't appear to understand the topic of this thread or the issues around this acquisition at all, then.

First off, cloud gaming isn't new, and I fail to see why microsoft tying up activisions IPs under their cloud service (or potential cloud service I guess? because xbox app on PC is just steam, and xbox game pass is just a subscription service) matters. The acquisition changes... what exactly? Nothing. It just gives microsoft more IPs.

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I mean this is technically true but this is the entire point of competition, MS+ABK = a better Sony and Nintnedo, issue with the CMA (and the FTC but they're irrelevant) is that it maintains a status quo

My point is that MS+ABK ISN'T a bigger better sony. Their console sales trail in 3rd by a HUGE margin. Their number of exclusive IPs is low compared to either as well.

If the argument that Xbox sells more consoles and has more exclusives is a bad thing, its basically arguing that competition in itself is bad and that the market leaders must be protected

No, the argument is that they DON'T do better and are actually smaller by a lot than fucking nintendo or sony, even when you include their PC market. Them getting actiblizz just gets them closer to parity with the big boys.

[Edge-]

First off, cloud gaming isn't new, and I fail to see why microsoft tying up activisions IPs under their cloud service (or potential cloud service I guess? because xbox app on PC is just steam, and xbox game pass is just a subscription service) matters. The acquisition changes... what exactly? Nothing. It just gives microsoft more IPs.

Less consumer choice at the end of the day with fewer third party publishers in existence and the fact that consolidation like this consistently works against consumer interests in the longrun.

Microsoft already snappped up like a dozen new IP's buying Bethesda for $7B, it's not like they're hurting for internal studios or first party IP's. They have an immense number already, they're not super productive with them.

[Curbstomp171]

First off, cloud gaming isn't new, and I fail to see why microsoft tying up activisions IPs under their cloud service (or potential cloud service I guess? because xbox app on PC is just steam, and xbox game pass is just a subscription service) matters. The acquisition changes... what exactly? Nothing. It just gives microsoft more IPs.

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My point is that MS+ABK ISN'T a bigger better sony. Their console sales trail in 3rd by a HUGE margin. Their number of exclusive IPs is low compared to either as well.



No, the argument is that they DON'T do better and are actually smaller by a lot than fucking nintendo or sony, even when you include their PC market. Them getting actiblizz just gets them closer to parity with the big boys.

MS + ABK would put MS neck and neck with Sony in terms of gaming revenue (not console sales) and right now Xbox already has higher revenue than Nintendo (again revenue not console sales)

[BeepBoo]

Less consumer choice at the end of the day with fewer third party publishers in existence and the fact that consolidation like this consistently works against consumer interests in the longrun.

if they want to argue that, then they need to set limits on a lot more stuff besides companies buying up others and getting to decide with fuzzy logic "yeah, we like this/no, we don't like this."

I'm talking number of employees, number of IPs; total upper limits on what's allowed.

Because IMO, until microsoft gaming is on-par with the other two giants, they should be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want.

It would be like some company trying to compete with disney by buying up tons of studios. Like.. I don't care if you cry about competition while you let some huge fuck like disney exist. You at least have to afford others the ability to get to that top power level *by any means they can* if you want me to think you're in ANY way consistent.

Let's take a different example. I don't care if someone buys a car and hand wrenches all their custom parts themselves or if they pay some shop to do it. All I care about is the performance of the two cars after the fact.

[Curbstomp171]

Anyway last thing I'm going to say here until the appeal

The fact is the CMA are sweating and are insecure as f*ck right now. After the EC approved yesterday, the CMA came out and made a multi-tweet twitter thread about how the EC is wrong even though the CMA are the ones that fudged the numbers multiple times and even had to drop the console argument because their math was off

Why did the CMA come out and make a statement? No one asked them to, they did it on their of their own volition

They are insecure and feel they need to double down, they're clearly not happy that the EC didn't peddle the same bullsh*t that the CMA did. They know the EC approval is going to be huge for when MS appeals. The CMA know they have no credible argument and they know all eyes are on them which is exactly why the parliament has been on their asses recently

Could you imagine if the EC commented when the CMA blocked? They didn't have to because the EC aren't insecure and incompetent, the EC did their due diligence, consulted actual experts and actually worked out a solution with Microsoft where the CMA ghosted MS for 2 weeks

There is no metric where the CMA looks good right now, for a group that wants to be a leader in the regulatory space, the CMA are at an all time low, they absolutely look incompetent and even the UK Parliament is embarrassed right now.

I'll be back again after MS wins the appeal, no reason to be here otherwise.

[Edge-]

if they want to argue that, then they need to set limits on a lot more stuff besides companies buying up others and getting to decide with fuzzy logic "yeah, we like this/no, we don't like this."

My position has remained consistent: I have strong opposition to major consolidation of entertainment properties like this.

I'm talking number of employees, number of IPs; total upper limits on what's allowed.

Irrelevant. If a company grows their own studios and IP's, great for them. That's fantastic. I have no problems if Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo grow massive because they keep creating more studios that release successful games and create popular new IP's.

Because IMO, until microsoft gaming is on-par with the other two giants, they should be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want.

It's not just "Xbox" and "PlayStation", and thinking that way is wrong. These include the respective broader companies of Sony and Microsoft.

Letting Microsoft "do whatever they want" is absolute nonsense of the highest order and lacks a single second of critical thought about a company with a $2.32T market cap, especially compared to Sony's pretty trivial $119B market cap.

It would be like some company trying to compete with disney by buying up tons of studios. Like.. I don't care if you cry about competition while you let some huge fuck like disney exist. You at least have to afford others the ability to get to that top power level *by any means they can* if you want me to think you're in ANY way consistent.

Would need context for this hypothetical, because as-is it's pretty silly.

Let's take a different example. I don't care if someone buys a car and hand wrenches all their custom parts themselves or if they pay some shop to do it. All I care about is the performance of the two cars after the fact.

Another completely irrelevant comparison.

[Tech614]

I'm talking number of employees

What the actual fuck? If you want a reason for no one here to take you serious you just gave them one. Microsoft has 200k total employees. Amazon has 1.6 million. There is nothing here relevant to employee counts. Lay off the drugs and stop posting irrelevant ass shit to this discussion.

[BeepBoo]

What the actual fuck? If you want a reason for no one here to take you serious you just gave them one. Microsoft has 200k total employees. Amazon has 1.6 million. There is nothing here relevant to employee counts. Lay off the drugs and stop posting irrelevant ass shit to this discussion.

My point is: I don't really care about anything other than actual revenue as far as a particular company of a certain type is concerned. Whatever subsidiaries are used by these, unless their revenue is equal, it really doesn't matter how many things they buy up to me. Again, buying instead of building is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the outcome of said business endeavors.

Until microsoft gaming is anywhere near an actual monopoly on market share (hard to argue when this merger wouldn't even make them #1) they shouldn't have to deal with dumb shit like this.

I was all for the microsoft breakup back in the day because windows was clearly a monopoly. Microsoft gaming is nowhere near that. Tencent and sony make this a non-issue.

[Edge-]

My point is: I don't really care about anything other than actual revenue as far as a particular company of a certain type is concerned. Whatever subsidiaries are used by these, unless their revenue is equal, it really doesn't matter how many things they buy up to me. Again, buying instead of building is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the outcome of said business endeavors.

Then compare Sony's revenue to Microsoft's revenue. Those are the companies in question here. Not "Xbox" which is a division of Microsoft or "PlayStation" which is a division of Sony.

[BeepBoo]

Then compare Sony's revenue to Microsoft's revenue. Those are the companies in question here. Not "Xbox" which is a division of Microsoft or "PlayStation" which is a division of Sony.

Say microsoft gets into 100 different major industries that are all unrelated. They have a microsoft grocery store, furniture, etc. Think amazon. Am I really concerned about what they do in their furniture realm if the acquisition in question is specific to their games industry? No. Each industry is its own entity and I don't really care about the overall parent umbrella.

[Deus Mortis]

if they want to argue that, then they need to set limits on a lot more stuff besides companies buying up others and getting to decide with fuzzy logic "yeah, we like this/no, we don't like this."

I'm talking number of employees, number of IPs; total upper limits on what's allowed.

You do know Xbox has more employees than Playstation, as well as 1st party studios. If this deal went through they would definitely have more IP's than Playstation as well. So by your own words they should put a stop to the deal since you want upper limits, and Xbox would be ahead in numerous of the things you just listed. It is not Sony's fault Microsoft is awful with their studios and the IP's they control.

[BeepBoo]

You do know Xbox has more employees than Playstation, as well as 1st party studios. If this deal went through they would definitely have more IP's than Playstation as well. So by your own words they should put a stop to the deal since you want upper limits, and Xbox would be ahead in numerous of the things you just listed. It is not Sony's fault Microsoft is awful with their studios and the IP's they control.

The point was they need to define this type of stuff if they're going to care instead of just "we don't like it because we feel it's not competitive!" Set actual standards that everyone has to adhere to, not just a case by case wishy washy feelz. Personally, as I said, my only requirement would be revenue. Or maybe market share stats of some kind. "No more than 25% of total games sold in a single year." I don't care how inefficient you are at what you do, I really just care if you are, indeed, a monopoly or not.

[Tech614]

The point was they need to define this type of stuff if they're going to care instead of just "we don't like it because we feel it's not competitive!" Set actual standards that everyone has to adhere to, not just a case by case wishy washy feelz. Personally, as I said, my only requirement would be revenue. Or maybe market share stats of some kind. "No more than 25% of total games sold in a single year." I don't care how inefficient you are at what you do, I really just care if you are, indeed, a monopoly or not.

There is nothing wishy washy about it, well except your posts on the matter. You just completely don't understand what you're talking about, are completely out of your realm, refuse to do any research before posting random ass shit that has nothing to do with this. The worst type of person, the one that feels to need to give their opinion about something they have no clue about.

[rhorle]

So you don't appear to understand the topic of this thread or the issues around this acquisition at all, then.

The issues are all manufactured though. First it started with Sony heavily pushing against it. Now it is about the cloud but even if the deal doesn't go through Microsoft will have a huge advantage because they are a large company investing heavily into it while most are not. Google exited. Amazon is stagnant. Nvidia is the "big" thing doing stuff.

Also couldn't Microsoft just sign an exclusive deal with ABK rather than buying them making the objections just for the principle rather then doing any good for the world.

[Tech614]

Also couldn't Microsoft just sign an exclusive deal with ABK

Good luck. The deal would have to pay more than the revenue they make on playstation yearly, conversely a similar deal would cost Sony way less if it went to a bidding war since the xbox revenue for CoD is massively dwarfed by their own.

There is a reason why MS isn't trying to win exclusive deals over Sony right now or even attempting to fight against them, it's not financially viable in the long run. Sony does it because the cost for them doing so is peanuts in comparison.

But this has nothing to do with any of this, if companies can pony up the money for exclusive deals they can do what they want. Why people keep bringing up random ass exclusive arguments into this thread is beyond me. It's not even about exclusives, that's not why the CMA blocked the deal ffs. Go read the damn report before the 5th person brings this lame tired argument back into the thread.

[rhorle]

But this has nothing to do with any of this, if companies can pony up the money for exclusive deals they can do what they want. Why people keep bringing up random ass exclusive arguments into this thread is beyond me. It's not even about exclusives, that's not why the CMA blocked the deal ffs. Go read the damn report before the 5th person brings this lame tired argument back into the thread.

Someone is angry. It has everything to do with exclusives because that is the argument for why Microsoft would have a monopoly in cloud gaming. You know they would have the rights to things by virtue of being a first party title. An exclusive deal accomplishes the same exact thing as owning the rights just through different means.

The CMA blocked the deal because of exclusive rights harming competitors. They even turned down a 10-year commitment to license to competitors. So it has everything to do with Microsoft having the ability to sign, or circumvent, deals to their first party titles. But it is easy to rage instead of you know not responding.

[Bakis]

SONY kinda fumbled focusing on CoD when they should have been should have focused on MS having strong positions in server, console, studios and buying up more studios.

[Makabreska]

SONY kinda fumbled focusing on CoD when they should have been should have focused on MS having strong positions in server, console, studios and buying up more studios.

What does it matter, really? The deal is blocked.

[Tech614]

SONY kinda fumbled focusing on CoD when they should have been should have focused on MS having strong positions in server, console, studios and buying up more studios.

Sony didn't focus on anything, they simply opposed the deal outright and everything about it. It was the regulators themselves that focused purely on CoD for the most part, because it's a revenue monster.

Deal got blocked because the CMA doesn't want the future cloud market to be reliant on MS, nothing to do with Sony for the record.

[rhorle]

Sony didn't focus on anything, they simply opposed the deal outright and everything about it. It was the regulators themselves that focused purely on CoD for the most part, because it's a revenue monster.

“Microsoft might release a PlayStation version of Call of Duty where bugs and errors emerge only on the game’s final level or after later updates. Even if such degradations could be swiftly detected, any remedy would likely come too late, by which time the gaming community would have lost confidence in PlayStation as a go-to venue to play Call of Duty. Indeed, as Modern Warfare II attests, Call of Duty is most often purchased in just the first few weeks of release. If it became known that the game’s performance on PlayStation was worse than on Xbox, Call of Duty gamers could decide to switch to Xbox, for fear of playing their favourite game at a second-class or less competitive venue. " -https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/8/23630700/sony-microsoft-call-of-duty-sabotage-cma-documents-activision-deal


Sony specifically made arguments about Call of Duty. There is even the claim by the CCO of ActivisionBlizzard how the CEO of SIE said "I don't want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger" https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/sta...73899400093699.