Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
I meant us gamers.
So arguments I see, for it going forward are
1. People want cheaper games ie Gamepass
2. People want COD on Gamepass
3. Do not care about consumers big chance of being screwed over in the future
4. Do not care if MS (in this case) gets a Monopoly og cloud gaming in the future.
Against are basically reverse of 3 & 4.
Also some fanboyism's for both sides.
As personal a side note, taking gamepass at face value and believing that it will be sustainable and profitable for MS going forward. If they become the monopoly in cloud gaming, what makes people belive that the prices won't go up? The barrier to entry to compete with MS then would be billions in capex investments , so the probability of competition is low. If I was a MS shareholder, I would ask why is MS leaving cash on the table instead of maximising my profit/value (shareholder).
The comments about, oh well, if they can not buy ABK, they should just spend that 70B in buying smaller studios until they reach the same dominance, then the regulators can not intervene. Most likely they would after being N+1 studios and the outlook becomes the same as it has been listed now.
Ohh yeah switch out MS with Sony or Nintendo and it would be the same in my mind.
1. People want cheaper games ie Gamepass
2. People want COD on Gamepass
3. Do not care about consumers big chance of being screwed over in the future
4. Do not care if MS (in this case) gets a Monopoly og cloud gaming in the future.
Against are basically reverse of 3 & 4.
Also some fanboyism's for both sides.
As personal a side note, taking gamepass at face value and believing that it will be sustainable and profitable for MS going forward. If they become the monopoly in cloud gaming, what makes people belive that the prices won't go up? The barrier to entry to compete with MS then would be billions in capex investments , so the probability of competition is low. If I was a MS shareholder, I would ask why is MS leaving cash on the table instead of maximising my profit/value (shareholder).
The comments about, oh well, if they can not buy ABK, they should just spend that 70B in buying smaller studios until they reach the same dominance, then the regulators can not intervene. Most likely they would after being N+1 studios and the outlook becomes the same as it has been listed now.
Ohh yeah switch out MS with Sony or Nintendo and it would be the same in my mind.
3. Do not care about consumers big chance of being screwed over in the future
How? And will block on ABK acquisition prevent that? Noone knows what will happen in the future.
4. Do not care if MS (in this case) gets a Monopoly og cloud gaming in the future.
Maybe they will, maybe they will be the ONLY cloud gaming provider in the future. Will gamers care thou? will cloud be relevant 10 years from now? Perhaps VR glasses will be THE thing or whatever Ninny will cook up.
Fanboism or not, people may have strong opinion about stuff not everything has to be foanboism related. I belive many people who raise their voices pro or con are not fanbois they just care.
"If they become the monopoly in cloud gaming, what makes people belive that the prices won't go up?"
they WILL 100% like everything else! games costs 70 bucks now
" so the probability of competition is low"
as high as probability of making profit out of it. Wich is yet to be proven wich is hard and not because noone tried.
No. It's clearly not good for MS!
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
It's not about sympathy towards MS, it's all about wanting what's best for the largest group of consumers.
In this case, the merger would be incredibly good for consumers, but not so good potentially for competitors in a hypothetical cloud gaming space that hypothetically may be a big market in 10 years but just as hypothetically (and more likely, IMO) be extinct or at best a minor niche market that continues to be within the realms statistical error WRT gaming in general.
The CMA is concerned about a hypothetical that doesn't currently exist and may never exist but has a possibility to exist. And thus the acquisition was denied based on that hypothetical.
All other regions that have approved it are far more concerned by its impact on consumers and unlike the CMA not it's impact on other corporations based on a hypothetical that doesn't currently exist and might never exist. Keep in mind some of these competitors in cloud gaming tried before MS officially entered this statistical anomaly of a market (1% or less of the gaming market) and failed through no interference by MS. Yet somehow MS getting it's hands on COD would cause its competitors to fail in a market that most gamers don't even care about. A market in which their competitors already already failed though no fault of MS?
That's like saying...
"Hey, this company has a chance to make cloud gaming a relevant market, but we're going to deny this acquisition so that their competitors who have already failed to create that market can have a chance in this non-existent market that they failed to create when given the opportunity."
Some of the other regions outside of the CMA also looked at the impact of the acquisition for employees of ABK and saw this as a relatively large improvement for employee conditions.
Regards,
SB
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Yes and no. 1) Luna only became available to UK on 23rd March, well into the considerations. 2) How many users actually use Amazon Luna? 3) What about library etc.? As ever, there's nuance.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yes and no. 1) Luna only became available to UK on 23rd March, well into the considerations. 2) How many users actually use Amazon Luna? 3) What about library etc.? As ever, there's nuance.
Sure, but that's similar to the CMA using the total number of Game Pass subscribers for their ruling rather than how many Game Pass subscribers actually avail themselves of the cloud gaming service in the UK. Keep in mind of the total 20 some odd million Game Pass subscribers only a fraction are actually in the UK and MS have stated they have a total capacity of 5,000 for their cloud gaming service within the UK.
Regardless, going by the numbers and the CMA's reasoning (all GP subscribers are using cloud gaming services) that 18 million Amazon Prime UK subscribers that have access to cloud gaming in the UK trumps whatever fraction of 20-something million GP subscribers in the UK have access to cloud gaming in the UK.
I doubt their ruling would have been affected in any way even had the service been available in the UK since early last year. Perhaps I'm just being overly cynical, but this seems more about just preventing a large corporation from acquiring anyone than it is about it's impact on the market or consumers.
Regards,
SB
Destin had Michael Pachter on his podcast talking the CMA decision. He still believe the deal is going through after the EU makes their ruling. He also believes if the EU does approve they won't wait on the FTC & will go ahead and close the merger.
Tommy McClain
Tommy McClain
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I still believe the deal will go through and be great for gamers, but bad for Sony.
Consequences.
Can the UK stop a company like MS from purchasing something? Not really, but there would be consequences.
Yes Ms can do so if they and activison agree to amend the purchase agreement which likely Activison will do. The FTC doesn't have final say , federal judges do and the likely hood of a federal judge telling and American company it can't purchase another American company to better compete against two Japanese companies is very unlikely. When you look at the public information about all this there isn't an actual reason outside of fanboyism to block this. Amazon continues to expand Luna as noted above and MS has signed contracts with a bunch of smaller players. Activison will help MS in the console gaming market which a stated above is the only american company in that market, it will also help them with a mobile app store that can expand competiton in the mobile market.
maybe or maybe not. If EU says yes , MS closes without FTC then the CMA on appeal can simply say oh well MS signed more deals and Amazon has been made available to 18m + gamers and we are satisfied that this wont hinder competition.
There is an easy out for the CMA there. IF the EU says no then I think this is likely over but it depends on why they say no and how ms can fight it
Watch the video.
Actually he believes that if the EU approves with no provisions then they will either win on appeal in the UK or make a locked pricing on Game Pass concession or just carve out Game Pass in the UK: so no Activision games on Game Pass for UK gamers.
Not uniformly. Its mostly for some businesses rather for gamers
Maybe consequences to the CMA and careers there but in practice I can't really see any angle for the UK to stop this as they have no leverage to go to war with MS. Neither would there be any profit in doing so either.
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