UK Blocks Microsoft’s $69 Billion Activision Deal

[Milchshake]

No one thinks Genshin Impact is a monopoly because it launched a million Maoist Waifu Avatars.

[Draco-Onis]

Sigh, as is way too frequent these sorts of line of thoughts stop a few steps short of where they ought to.

Do you really think the UK is the only country that would start getting nervous and having second thoughts about Microsoft products and Microsoft in general, when it is underpinning a whole ton of other economic and governmental activity, if they decided to retaliate against regulatory action blocking an acquisition like that?

What would it be a retaliation? people are talking about the UK blocking the new merged company altogether from the UK they would have no choice. A selective ban on cloud gaming would probably be a result for the UK market which would basically be nothing to the new combined company.

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What they can do is not offer ATVI products from Microsoft cloud services in the UK. Expect the UK version of Game Pass to not include ATVI titles. Which is probably going to be their next offer during the appeal and has a decent chance of being accepted. "Win" for competition in cloud gaming in the UK I suppose.
Microsoft is not going to present such aggression by any means just because a UK regulatory body wants to show it has teeth.

I doubt the UK would go as far to ban the new merged company just select services which would not a deterrent to complete the merger. That is a tiny tiny hit compared to the huge financial benefits from the acquisition.

[Elder Millennial]

Since the UK is not part of the EU they are pretty much irrelevant here.

The merger still hasn't been approved by the EU either, tho it's considered likely.

[Draco-Onis]

The merger still hasn't been approved by the EU either, tho it's considered likely.

It seems less likely that the US will approve but it could be that they haven't greased enough palms yet to get it through. The presidential election is around the corner things can easily change.

[Doktor Faustus]

Lot of salt in this thread. Lot of hatred against UK. *Rubs salt on chest*

[diller]

What happens to all the Xboxes and PC's that run windows in the UK?

Why would those things be affected?

The block is on Microsoft taking over Activison, I doubt the UK would block Windows or XBOX.

[Bakis]

The deal is just bad, bad as F for consumers.
Same goes for SONY aqusitions.
There is literally nothing good coming from THE two major players in terms of premium consoles buying up tons of studies compared to a healthy market of big and small studios/publishers.

[Elegiac]

EU regulators approve the Microsoft-ATVI merger, with a number of stipulations.

Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard has been approved by EU regulators just weeks after UK regulators blocked the acquisition. The European Commission has concluded that the deal can pass thanks to commitments from Microsoft related to cloud gaming.

The EU found that Microsoft “would have no incentive to refuse to distribute Activision’s games to Sony” and that “even if Microsoft did decide to withdraw Activision’s games from the PlayStation, this would not significantly harm competition in the consoles market.” But EU regulators, much like the UK, did find the acquisition could harm competition around the distribution of PC and console games through cloud gaming services.

The European Commission has identified remedies to allow for the deal to go ahead through 10-year licensing deals that Microsoft has offered to competitors. These include a free license to consumers in EU countries that would allow them to stream via “any cloud game streaming services of their choice” all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games that they have a license for. Cloud providers will also be offered a free license to stream these games in EU markets.

These licenses are automatic and mean that consumers will have a right to stream Activision Blizzard games they’ve purchased or subscribe to on “any cloud game streaming service of their choice and play them on any device using any operating system.” It appears that the European Commission requested Microsoft offer this automatic license, and the Xbox maker will now apply this globally.

I don't think it's likely the UK's ruling will stand on appeal given the commitments Microsoft has given as part of this decision.

[Elder Millennial]

I don't think it's likely the UK's ruling will stand on appeal given the commitments Microsoft has given as part of this decision.

Imagine having all the power of a massive state like entity looking out for the interests of consumers...even sweaty gamers.

Meanwhile the US government is doing round 2645 of arguing about what is and isn't woke and whether that 1 trans kid in Kansas can play field hockey with the girls or not.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Kinda weird that they are all so fixated on the cloud gaming rubbish. I really don't see it as a new market, just another transition (with even worse DRM) further away from owning physicial media towards temporary licenses.

Also in regards to streaming as a service, the overabundance of streaming services hasn't done consumers any favors. When Netflix used to have everything for 10 bucks, it was a great service. Now you need to have 5 services to just cover the major ones, it's like needing 5 cable provider, when previously getting just one was plenty and got you most of the core program (or you got satelite tv if you wanted to watch your shows in 300 different languages..).

I probably wouldn't even care if the merger fell through if it wasn't sony of all companies playing the victim here with their shitty japanese centric strategies. For all I care they can choke on their double standards. Another thing that irks me is the fact that we constantly talk about CoD as if it was the second comming of gaming-christ, just a get a grip FFS, it's just a shooter. I'm in fact against the big players gobbling up other studios, but I fail to see why it's okay to buy out 10 smaller studios while it's sacrilige to buy them out as a bundle with a "publisher" (glorified holding) in the form of activision.

[Lynarii]

All the practices Sony is crying about the possibility of Microsoft doing are things that Sony itself does regularly. I mean hell, I'm a girl who has regularly bought playstations and never bought an XBox, and even /I/ can see that Sony is by far the bigger threat to the gaming landscape right now.

[Nymrohd]

EU regulators approve the Microsoft-ATVI merger, with a number of stipulations.



I don't think it's likely the UK's ruling will stand on appeal given the commitments Microsoft has given as part of this decision.

The appeal process reviews the process of how the committee arrived to their conclusion, not the merits of their arguments. That said, it is not impossible for the appeal to work but even if it does, it will take time, well past the deadline for the acquisition and all the appeal does is bounce back the case to the CMA.

That said, I agree with the EU regulators over the CMA. If Sony and others want to better compete in the cloud market, the licensing deals are giving them a full decade to catch up to MS infrastructure.

[Nymrohd]

BTw we should add that China approved the merger as well.

[Logwyn]

Past time to start breaking up all the monopolies across all industries. Good for the UK!

[postman1782]

Past time to start breaking up all the monopolies across all industries. Good for the UK!

Good way to get UK IPs blocked to get the deal to continue.

[Gaidax]

So, they will just tell UK to fuck off, IP filter them and proceed.

UK consumers will lose.

[Logwyn]

Good way to get UK IPs blocked to get the deal to continue.

When a company is so large and monolithic to be able to shut off the internet to that large of the population they need to be broken up.

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So, they will just tell UK to fuck off, IP filter them and proceed.

UK consumers will lose.

When a company is so large and monolithic to be able to shut off the internet to that large of the population they need to be broken up.

[Gaidax]

When a company is so large and monolithic to be able to shut off the internet to that large of the population they need to be broken up.

Bullshit, it's a standard practice for every company ever. If they can't comply with local rulings or don't give enough damn to comply - they don't offer product locally, the end.

Welcome to what 2/3rd of the world is dealing with my dear Western snowflake.

Your internet is there, you just won't get to launch Battle.net and play Actiblizz shit without VPN. It's not a human right violation.

[postman1782]

When a company is so large and monolithic to be able to shut off the internet to that large of the population they need to be broken up.

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When a company is so large and monolithic to be able to shut off the internet to that large of the population they need to be broken up.

No thanks, they don't like the deal? Then they aren't entitled to the product. There is no legitimate reason to stop the deal.

[Baraden]

So, they will just tell UK to fuck off, IP filter them and proceed.

UK consumers will lose.

They won't do that

Fifa and Call of Duty are the biggest selling games in the UK every single year, it is an absolutely huge market