Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13

[BRiT]

@DSoup you want your mind blown? Well here's the starting point of the Axon and FTC situation.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) takes antitrust action against Axon​

Axon Enterprise, Inc., a body camera company, acquired a competitor in 2018 and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened an antitrust investigation. The FTC ordered Axon to undo the acquisition and turn the competitor company "into a 'clone' of Axon using Axon's intellectual property."

Additional info @ https://ballotpedia.org/Axon_Enterprise,_Inc._v._Federal_Trade_Commission

 

[BRiT]

Here's Axon's info on it, of course it's biased to their view, but it has a decent rundown of events to make you question how the FTC was allowed to proceed.

The FAQ goes over a few things to get a bullet point overview.

FTC - Axon.com

www.axon.com

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Basically Amazon bought twitch and pushed out MS who bought Beam, or Mixer. Yea, so I totally get it.

Amazon acquired Twitch for £940m in 2014, and Microsoft acquired Mixer two years later in 2016 from a 18-year old. I'm not sure how Amazon/Twitch pushed out Microsoft/Beam out, it didn't feel like it was a viable competitor to Twitch to begin with.

I'm not following you position on Lina Khan who if I understand you correctly, either logically hates acquisitions, or hates acquisitions logically! The difference is lost on me.

 

[eastmen]

Amazon acquired Twitch for £940m in 2014, and Microsoft acquired Mixer two years later in 2016 from a 18-year old. I'm not sure how Amazon/Twitch pushed out Microsoft/Beam out, it didn't feel like it was a viable competitor to Twitch to begin with.

I'm not following you position on Lina Khan who if I understand you correctly, either logically hates acquisitions, or hates acquisitions logically! The difference is lost on me.

Beam/ Mixer would have been a fine competitor as it was doing pretty decently. The heads of Mixer were just toxic as fuck

Former Mixer employee accuses management of racism, causing top streamers to leave

Streamers have announced a delay in their streams following racial allegations from a former Mixer employee.

www.sportingnews.com

All that broke , MS figured out what was going on inside of mixer and just shut it down right away to stop more crap from getting out

 

[BRiT]

Microsoft Says It Offered FTC Consent Decree on Call of Duty

Microsoft Corp. said that antitrust regulators shrugged off its offer to make Call of Duty available to gaming rivals — including Sony Group Corp. — as part of its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard Inc.

www.bloomberg.com

“The thing that probably disappoints me is not that we will have to present this case to a judge in a court because this is a case in which I have great confidence,” Smith said. “I’m disappointed that the FTC didn’t give us the opportunity to even sit down with the staff to even talk about our proposal to even see if there was a solution there.” Smith made the comments at Microsoft’s annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday.​

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Microsoft Says It Offered FTC Consent Decree on Call of Duty

Microsoft Corp. said that antitrust regulators shrugged off its offer to make Call of Duty available to gaming rivals — including Sony Group Corp. — as part of its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard Inc.

www.bloomberg.com

I am really confused by the US process and Microsoft's position in it. A 'consent decree' is a way to resolve a dispute without any admission of guilt.

What is it Microsoft feel they may be guilty of, or is this just another baffling aspect of the US judicial process? The more I read about the FTC process, the less I feel I understand it. How is it possible for a modern country, not saddled with hundreds of years, or millennia, or archaic legislation, to have such an utterly opaque process. It's almost impressive.

 

[BRiT]

is this just another baffling aspect of the US judicial process? The more I read about the FTC process, the less I feel I understand it. How is it possible for a modern country, not saddled with hundreds of years, or millennia, or archaic legislation, to have such an utterly opaque process. It's almost impressive.

This entire thing stinks from ineptitude. Nothing makes any sense. Everything that's ever tried to improve anything is instead twisted or perverted to become even worse than before.

 

[Nesh]

There were some definite fabrications of things, fabrication of market segments, we don't have a high performance and low performance console market. etc etc.

Then why are people buying PS5's, Series' and Gaming PCs since they have mobile phones and tablets or old consoles for that matter?
Why are many choosing Switch and many others don't

Why DID I buy a new gen console? Am I a market anomaly? Did I pass through an interdimensional membrane to come into this reality?

 

[see colon]

Twitch is not a relevant market player
Nvidia should not have any concerns because they are just a reseller of steam
I have my doubts Epic or Ubisoft cares
Leaving: Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google. which frankly, while are potential future players, they are likely to leave the market before this merger is even completed.

The evidence so far, is overwhelmingly in favour that this is purely an MS vs Sony debate. Other competitors are clearly not a factor here in protestation. And it should not be on the behalf of the CMA to protest on the behalf of companies who are not protesting. That just wouldn't make any sense either.

Someone earlier brought up the Mixr closure by Microsoft, and I think it's worth mentioning that Microsoft partnered with Facebook after it closed Mixr for game streaming. If I remember correctly, this was not long after the comments that Sony wasn't a "real" competitor to Microsoft, long Amazon and Google were. I wouldn't expect Facebook to strongly oppose the deal, to be honest.

 

[iroboto]

Someone earlier brought up the Mixr closure by Microsoft, and I think it's worth mentioning that Microsoft partnered with Facebook after it closed Mixr for game streaming. If I remember correctly, this was not long after the comments that Sony wasn't a "real" competitor to Microsoft, long Amazon and Google were. I wouldn't expect Facebook to strongly oppose the deal, to be honest.

They are under their own FTC challenge right now over the same thing, major doubts FB would say anything at all.

 

[iroboto]

Then why are people buying PS5's, Series' and Gaming PCs since they have mobile phones and tablets or old consoles for that matter?
Why are many choosing Switch and many others don't

Why DID I buy a new gen console? Am I a market anomaly? Did I pass through an interdimensional membrane to come into this reality?

Market Research
Based on type, the market can be segmented into:

• Home Consoles
• Handheld Consoles
• Hybrid Consoles
• Dedicated Consoles
• Others

There has never been a category called high performance and low performance consoles.
Switch falls under hybrid.

We don't break ipads into different categories just because there is a new generation.
We wouldn't label Ipad 1 is a low performance ipad, and ipad 2022 as a high performance ipad.

 

[wco81]

@DSoup you want your mind blown? Well here's the starting point of the Axon and FTC situation.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) takes antitrust action against Axon​

Axon Enterprise, Inc., a body camera company, acquired a competitor in 2018 and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened an antitrust investigation. The FTC ordered Axon to undo the acquisition and turn the competitor company "into a 'clone' of Axon using Axon's intellectual property."

Additional info @ https://ballotpedia.org/Axon_Enterprise,_Inc._v._Federal_Trade_Commission

Sounds like that case occurred way before Khan took office.

That link says Axon sued on 1/3/2020, challenging the FTC order. Doesn't say when the FTC issued the order but it would have been before the Axon lawsuit.

Biden administration didn't take office until 1/20/2021 and Khan would have been appointed to the FTC well after that date.

 

[BRiT]

Sounds like that case occurred way before Khan took office.

No where did I imply this was Khan or Biden administration.

I was giving additional information to show overall FTC insanity. It goes to the comment Dsoup made earlier as a view from outside the US looking in of "I know very little about the FTC process that isn't explained on their terrible website, but how is that legal?" It's one of those "you think that's bad, wait til you see this" situation.

 

[wco81]

No where did I imply this was Khan or Biden administration.

I was giving additional information to show overall FTC insanity. It goes to the comment Dsoup made earlier as a view from outside the US looking in of "I know very little about the FTC process that isn't explained on their terrible website, but how is that legal?" It's one of those "you think that's bad, wait til you see this" situation.

With a different FTC board composition, you can't generalize since the board members are political appointees.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Fair enough, I was only going on your statement: "Lina hates all mergers and consolidations" statement. So she doesn't hate all mergers, but she seemingly wants to stop the biggest companies on the planet getting even bigger.

Is that a fair assessment?

That's incorrect. She is opposed to all mergers and acquisitions involving a large corporation. However, she's "fine" (accepting may be a better word) with large corporations swallowing small businesses since that doesn't generate enough press to push the President's agenda.

Thus, she's mainly targeting large corporations making large acquisitions.

Basically,

• Large corporation negotiates a deal to acquire another corporation for 50 billion USD.
  • FTC (Lina Khan) opposition likely.
  • FTC (Lina Khan) is hoping that the media attention will get public approval which she hopes will influence how Federal Courts rule on the case.
    • This is how the President (Executive branch which appoints the members of the FTC board) is attempting to usurp the power of the Congressional branch of the government.
    • Trying to use the Federal Courts to change the law by attempting to make them broaden the scope of the law far past the boundaries set forth within the law.0
  • Thus far, the Federal Courts are sticking to the letter of the law, and thus the FTC is losing a lot of cases and wasting a lot of taxpayer and corporate dollars.
• Large coporation negotiates multiple deals acquiring multiple companies the total value of which is, for arguments sake, over 100 billion USD.
  • FTC (Lina Khan) likely to not even investigate unless the large corporation is one that is itself already a target and even then she may not feel it will generate enough media interest.
  • Resources spent wouldn't generate enough publicity with the media to push their agenda
  • Without media attention they think there won't be enough media pressure to try to force Federal Court judges to ignore the law as written and broaden the interpretation of the law.

If she could, she would halt all acquisitions and mergers by large corporations. But to do so she needs the law to change. Only the Federal Court can stop a merger by finding it in violation of the laws governing acquisitions and mergers. The FTC is part of the Executive Branch of the government and can't change the laws since that is the jurisdiction of the Congressional branch.

It's basically the Executive Branch of government attempting a power play to usurp some of the power of Congress and to do so, they need the media's help to put pressure on the Judicial branch to rule in the FTC's favor despite their case being extremely weak in terms of the current laws governing mergers and acquisitions. To get the media to help them in the fight they need to only go after mergers and acquisitions that are news worthy.

It's been a theme for the past few presidents. Obama abused executive orders to bypass Congress. That led to Trump following suit and abusing executive orders to bypass Congress. President Biden is making a play with the FTC to see if he can use that to usurp some of Congress' power.

Regards,
SB

 

[stu11]

Well its funny cause Sony keeps buying parts of Epic. So is sony going to be barred from buying more of epic in the future or even divest themselves of what they own now ?

You know, you've been kinda obsessed with this idea that you've manufactured, that Sony is somehow trying to "buy Epic" but you've seemed to have forgotten that 50% of the shares in Epic are owned by Tim Sweeney (and he seems to be in no rush to sell up). Another 40% is owned by your other favorite company Tencent, in comparison Sony owns about 5%. How is Sony going to buy up Epic the same way MS is trying to buy up Activision?

The company is valued at about 31 billion, if Sony couldn't afford to outbid MS for Bethesda, how are they going to afford Epic? More likely that Tencent will buyout Sweeney, if and when he chooses to sell up.

What do you think MS's treatment of the steam deck is like? They put xcloud on it and have been supportive of it. That is a new player in the console market

Oh come on! Of course microsoft is supportive of Steamdeck, its a PC that can run Windows, hardly a threat to MS, is it?

 

[Nesh]

Market Research
Based on type, the market can be segmented into:

• Home Consoles
• Handheld Consoles
• Hybrid Consoles
• Dedicated Consoles
• Others

There has never been a category called high performance and low performance consoles.
Switch falls under hybrid.

We don't break ipads into different categories just because there is a new generation.
We wouldn't label Ipad 1 is a low performance ipad, and ipad 2022 as a high performance ipad.

And within those you can also define high performance and lower performance consoles.
What was Wii? Home? Other? What was my PS3 when it got motion controllers? Other? Hybrid Other?
What da fuck is a dedicated console? Is my PS5 a dedicated or a home console?
I was certainly not looking into all these categories when I was buying a PS5 instead of a Switch. Or when I bought a PS3 and a 360 instead of a Wii
We can create different category descriptions according to how we want to observe the market and can be equally valid.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

That's incorrect. She is opposed to all mergers and acquisitions involving a large corporation. However, she's "fine" (accepting may be a better word) with large corporations swallowing small businesses since that doesn't generate enough press to push the President's agenda.

So the US process is driven by US politics. No wonder it's disfunctional. The UK and EU processes are overseen by civil servants, the assessments are transparent, the whole machine is weighted towards making approvals easier than rejections and process each has two escalating levels to appeal disputed decisions that are considered by groups, outside of party politics. Crazy I know, but it works.

I link to advice from a UK legal guidance website which explains the UK processes area appealed. The first level of appeal is handled by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), and the second is taking the Government to court via judicial review.

 

[iroboto]

And within those you can also define high performance and lower performance consoles.
What was Wii? Home? Other? What was my PS3 when it got motion controllers? Other? Hybrid Other?
What da fuck is a dedicated console? Is my PS5 a dedicated or a home console?
I was certainly not looking into all these categories when I was buying a PS5 instead of a Switch. Or when I bought a PS3 and a 360 instead of a Wii
We can create different category descriptions according to how we want to observe the market and can be equally valid.

Wii was a home console. And no, you cannot just make up segments. The closest thing there is to high performance and low performance console is x1X and PS4 Pro. And Series S and Series X. If there is a Nintendo switch Pro, that would count as well. That way you are actually knowing which demographic wanted performance and which ones did not care for it. People buy Nintendo for its content!

A lot of third party games did not make it to Nintendo because Nintendo dis not care to cater to 3rd party titles. But that has been changing.

They wanted to bind Nintendo demographic as being children but it’s clear there is a large number of adult purchasers given the amount of mature content and 2nd party mature title.

The Nintendo segment is indeed family. Nintendo brands it’s demographic as famoly
Friendly but it wants matures games, but can’t make them under the Nintendo brand, so they have a lot of 2nd party games like Bayonetta to fill that in. And unsurprisingly we have a lot of 3rd party H games.
Why?
Because Switch is the dominant seller in Japan because space is an absolute premium there and in so many other households. So their demographic in Japan is everyone! Try hiding a PS4/5 in a drawer!

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Wii was a home console. And no, you cannot just make up segments.

The segments are entirely made up according to the what analysis the research firm are trying to analyse. There is no standard ISO or industry-wide definition of "home console". That's mad, mate. Completely mad.

I guarantee that when Microsoft And Sony were considering higher-performance consoles (Pro and One X), that their market research teams segmented the "home console" market for analysis. For some, the Switch is only a portable device, for others it's a home console, for many it's both.