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

[Shifty Geezer]

Microsoft to defend Activision deal at EU hearing on Feb. 21

Microsoft will make a last-ditch effort to defend its $69 billion bid for "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard in front of EU and national antitrust officials at a closed hearing on Feb. 21, the U.S. software company said on Tuesday.

www.reuters.com

BRUSSELS, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O) will make a last-ditch effort to defend its $69 billion bid for "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O) in front of EU and national antitrust officials at a closed hearing on Feb. 21, the U.S. software company said on Tuesday.

The company asked for the hearing after receiving a statement of objections from the European Commission warning about the possible anti-competitive effects of the deal.


A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the oral hearing.

 

[Nesh]

I remember reading an article years ago where a publisher, maybe even Sony, said this but have not been able to track it down.

I think I have glimpses of this article. Sony was bringing many titles, of which many were experimental. I can see how many of these titles couldnt succeed, although they were good in their own right

 

[iroboto]

But to be a replacement or perfect substitute of a franchise that already captured the millions of faithful players that are coming back to the same franchise, is a rare super achievement that sounds almost impossible.

Sports games so this all the time, it’s nothing special. The same people buy football, soccer, baseball, racing etc every single year a new one is released.

If cod fell off the market today, the game industry would fill it in seconds. The number of options available in the FPS space is massive.

Im a bit blown away by this massive over extension of the importance of cod. There are a ton of substitutes and replacements for cod, none for games like Minecraft and Roblox.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sports games so this all the time, it’s nothing special. The same people buy football, soccer, baseball, racing etc every single year a new one is released.

Sports games are the very opposite, resisting new players as brand fans buy the same franchise ad nauseum. Do you honestly believe anyone could create an American Football game and outsell Madden?

If cod fell off the market today, the game industry would fill it in seconds.

Yes. But so long as it's present, that space is occupied and cannot be replaced by another new contender. Same with FIFA. There used to be loads of football games in the pre PS2 eras. Eventually FIFA rose to massive dominance with PES playing a weak second place and no room for new entries. Same with cola - there are two players, Coke and Pepsi. There's no room for another drink to come along and usurp these so long as they exist because the brands are bigger than just the product.

 

[Cardassian Bob]

I remember reading an article years ago where a publisher, maybe even Sony, said this but have not been able to track it down.

I know what article you're talking about. It was with a Sony boss and the interview was around E3 2014.

 

[iroboto]

Sports games are the very opposite, resisting new players as brand fans buy the same franchise ad nauseum. Do you honestly believe anyone could create an American Football game and outsell Madden?

Yes. But so long as it's present, that space is occupied and cannot be replaced by another new contender. Same with FIFA. There used to be loads of football games in the pre PS2 eras. Eventually FIFA rose to massive dominance with PES playing a weak second place and no room for new entries. Same with cola - there are two players, Coke and Pepsi. There's no room for another drink to come along and usurp these so long as they exist because the brands are bigger than just the product.

Not all CoDs have Equal pull. The most successful ones behave like sports games. In particular the modern warfare series which directly ties in with hobbyists who purchase and collect the guns in the game. The military folk who use these weapons. And basically fans of modern action.

There’s a reason cod has had to remake its modern warfare series and why its warzone series can’t leave its modern warfare connection.

Do I think something can replace cod ? We have new entrants all the time. We have a large list if successful shooters today.

Modern military:
Counter strike, r6 siege, battlefield, pubg, Arma,

Fantasy:
Apex legends, overwatch, Fortnite, destiny

 

[Cyan]

If an investigation takes place and finds out it is the result of price fixing then yes. Otherwise not.

Of course its not. But here you are advocating that Sony being a market leader is a problem and the regulators should step up and help MS because MS supposedly cant compete adequately, whereas such demand for regulatos to step up in the OS market where MS is a monopoly does not exist.

Regulators are checking for signs of price fixing/cartel/formation of trusts and market manipulation.
This is what happened to Standard Oil with the Sherman Antritrust Act and broke it to multiple companies.
This is why Nintendo was fined in the 90s https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/11/...ay-25-million-in-rebates-on-price-fixing.html
And I am trying to find articles which I cant find that covered the fact that all companies making games for Nintendo were forced to sign a contract that prevented them from porting their games on other platforms. This stopped after antitrust laws came in effect

edit: The only thing I could find is this https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1488&context=facscholar

Nintendo wins antitrust suit - UPI Archives

A federal court jury ruled in favor of Nintendo of America in a $160 million antitrust case brought by Atari Corp., finding that Nintendo did not monopolize...

www.upi.com

Nintendo had its fair share of mafia like practices at the time. It's too bad here in Europe the PC Engine (Turbografx) didn't achieve, 'cos it was the best 16 bits console and imho had the best games, but everything we watched on TV and ads was either Sega or Super Nintendo.

On a different note, apparently Sony executives flew to Seattle to negotiate the Call of Duty and Activision deal.

HARD EVIDENCE: Sony executives flew from London to Seattle in a Falcon 8X on February 6, presumably to negotiate Call of Duty license with Microsoft

This is a follow-up to my previous post on Microsoft-ActivisionBlizzard, Rumor of Sony having visited Microsoft to negotiate Call of Duty li...

www.fosspatents.com

 

[Nesh]

Sports games so this all the time, it’s nothing special. The same people buy football, soccer, baseball, racing etc every single year a new one is released.

If cod fell off the market today, the game industry would fill it in seconds. The number of options available in the FPS space is massive.

Im a bit blown away by this massive over extension of the importance of cod. There are a ton of substitutes and replacements for cod, none for games like Minecraft and Roblox.

Sports games and racing games that sell by the droves are extremely limited and have the benefit of the official licensing that not many games can have.

IF COD falls, is a guesswork. You dont know if it falls, when it will fall, who will replace it and if replaced, if its going to have the same impact and sales. So it is not a strong argument and is a completely different subject to begin with. Too much guestimation.
We arent discussing what will happen if it falls.
The subject of COD exists because it is an existing unmatched powerful multiplatform franchise that has strong impact on sales and on where a large portion of gamers play.

 

[iroboto]

Sports games and racing games that sell by the droves are extremely limited and have the benefit of the official licensing that not many games can have.

IF COD falls, is a guesswork. You dont know if it falls, when it will fall, who will replace it and if replaced, if its going to have the same impact and sales. So it is not a strong argument and is a completely different subject to begin with. Too much guestimation.
We arent discussing what will happen if it falls.
The subject of COD exists because it is an existing unmatched powerful multiplatform franchise that has strong impact on sales and on where a large portion of gamers play.

Unmatched?
Serious?

Fortnite has 4x the number of players cod has.

Counter strike has nearly as large a player base on a single platform

Valorant has nearly as large a player base on a single platform

Apex legends has a larger player count than cod

They don’t spend a fraction of what cod spends on their annual releases.

Warzone 2 Steam player count has spooked some players, as faith in the game falters

Warzone 2's Steam player count has some fans concerned, but does this spell the end of the popular shooter?

www.vg247.com

The joint steam player count for MW2 and Warzone 2 has dropped to 84K in a 24 hr peak. This was 9 days ago.

 

[Nesh]

Unmatched?
Serious?

Fortnite has 4x the number of players cod has.

Counter strike has nearly as large a player base on a single platform

Valorant has nearly as large a player base on a single platform

Apex legends has a larger player count than cod

They don’t spend a fraction of what cod spends on their annual releases.

Warzone 2 Steam player count has spooked some players, as faith in the game falters

Warzone 2's Steam player count has some fans concerned, but does this spell the end of the popular shooter?

www.vg247.com

The joint steam player count for MW2 and Warzone 2 has dropped to 84K in a 24 hr peak. This was 9 days ago.

Are you comparing completely different games that catter to different audiences just to make a point?

 

[SmooTh]

Sony's subpoena extended until March 1
Google's subpoena extended until March 2

 

[iroboto]

Are you comparing completely different games that catter to different audiences just to make a point?

They are FPS titles with massive populations and compete for the same player base.

These are completely different titles? Warzone is their f2p option that represents the bulk of their revenue.

 

[BRiT]

As some third party(ies) said to regulators, every game competes with every other game. They all try to get the vastly limited resource of Gamer playtime. It doesn't matter what genre they are in.

 

[Nesh]

They are FPS titles with massive populations and compete for the same player base.

These are completely different titles? Warzone is their f2p option that represents the bulk of their revenue.

And Wipeout competes with Forza because fuck logic

 

[AlphaWolf]

And yet it will be sold less than the Xbox360. It is obviously easier to have the "the most successful launch in its history" today, than it was 18 years ago.

How do you figure that the series s/x is sold less than the 360? Any data points I can find the series s/X are ahead significantly.

 

[iroboto]

And Wipeout competes with Forza because fuck logic

Are you serious?

Sony is stating this is the most important IP in all of gaming.

And we can’t look at other fps and esport titles that aren’t milsim? Should we corner the most important IP if all time to just fps cinematic single player with low skill ceiling multiplayer. The absolute best milsim battle royale is therefore the most important battle royale of all battle royale games and nothing else should count ?

Really ?

The FPS category is the most competitive market of games there are and there are many new entrants arriving all the time, with a great deal of innovation coming from games not named call of duty.

 

[stu11]

Because Insomniac were mostly work for hire developers that didn't own the art they created. Had they owned Spyro they would have been scooped up by Vivendi years ago. Sony would have likey purchased them earlier if Insomniac owned Ratchet. Ironically, not owning their own work meant that they would never earn residual income from those franchises, affecting them financially, but also made them less attractive for acquisition.

Ratchet & Clank (like Jak and Daxter) is a Sony owned IP, Sony made sure that they owned the IPs that they developed with 2nd party teams after they lost the rights to Crash Bandicoot and Spyro because those 2 IPs were owned by Universal Interactive (which then became Vivendi Universal, which then was sold to Activision and will likely end up in MS's hands)

Bright side for Xbox fans is they will finally have a Naughty Dog and an Insomniac developed IP to call their own ..lol

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Do I think something can replace cod ? We have new entrants all the time. We have a large list if successful shooters today.

Modern military:
Counter strike, r6 siege, battlefield, pubg, Arma,

Fantasy:
Apex legends, overwatch, Fortnite, destiny

I think that's missing the point. It's not about popular games, but what the fans need in purchasing decisions. If there are 30 million console gamers who will not buy a console without COD today, a console that doesn't get that game will need something else that they will play instead. "PS6 doesn't have COD? Well then, I'll get Xbox. Oh wait, PS6 has New Shooter Extreme. Well I'll give up COD along with my COD playing friends and we'll all get PS6's and this new game instead."

In the hypothetical scenario where COD disappears from PS platforms, it is unrealistic to think Sony can just create some new game that'll woo those COD fans away from COD and onto their new shooter. Sony could create a new game that might do well, it might do as well in raw numbers with COD players sticking to XB and new people buying into PS6 to play New Shooter Extreme, but it will mean the loss of that audience of COD fans unless these fans stop caring about COD (or buy two platforms).

To be clear, the point is how difficult it is to create a game that'll attract COD users away from their existing favourite title. It's not impossible, but it shouldn't be talked about as if an easy, inevitable thing to do and Sony should just knock up a COD rival. We can look at what it takes to make a AAA single player game - if MS wants more of these and is pointing to Sony's first-party success in that areaa s something they need to catch up with, that's because it's not easy even with even more game studios than Sony has. And creating a hugely popular FPS franchise brand is harder than creating single-player AAA adventures.

 

[iroboto]

I think that's missing the point. It's not about popular games, but what the fans need in purchasing decisions. If there are 30 million console gamers who will not buy a console without COD today, a console that doesn't get that game will need something else that they will play instead. "PS6 doesn't have COD? Well then, I'll get Xbox. Oh wait, PS6 has New Shooter Extreme. Well I'll give up COD along with my COD playing friends and we'll all get PS6's and this new game instead."

In the hypothetical scenario where COD disappears from PS platforms, it is unrealistic to think Sony can just create some new game that'll woo those COD fans away from COD and onto their new shooter. Sony could create a new game that might do well, it might do as well in raw numbers with COD players sticking to XB and new people buying into PS6 to play New Shooter Extreme, but it will mean the loss of that audience of COD fans unless these fans stop caring about COD (or buy two platforms).

To be clear, the point is how difficult it is to create a game that'll attract COD users away from their existing favourite title. It's not impossible, but it shouldn't be talked about as if an easy, inevitable thing to do and Sony should just knock up a COD rival. We can look at what it takes to make a AAA single player game - if MS wants more of these and is pointing to Sony's first-party success in that areaa s something they need to catch up with, that's because it's not easy even with even more game studios than Sony has. And creating a hugely popular FPS franchise brand is harder than creating single-player AAA adventures.

I am totally onboard with that perspective. But I could easily say the same thing about Fortnite, or Apex Legends. You can't just knock one of those out either.

CoD Warzone is the most important IP that ABK has today, its not the most important IP in gaming. Warzone 2 just flopped to shit, their numbers are terrible and it could very well be on its way out.

Sony has Destiny. And Destiny is likely to have a larger player base than CoD WZ2 right now. As it stands from a playerbase perspective, it's pretty close or beating COD.

I didn't see anyone freak out that Destiny is now owned by Sony, and I would largely consider that one of the biggest breakthrough FPS titles in the last 10 years.

COD isn't going exclusive under MS. They have offered to 10 years parity.

Battlefield is in position take up the mantle, if I'm being serious. If you want a movie style milsim FPS game -- EA just needs to focus on releasing a proper SP experience.
They are capable and have come very close to over taking CoD during BF3/BF4. Falling apart following BF4.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Sony's subpoena extended until March 1
Google's subpoena extended until March 2

If this is the same subpoena asking for Sony's personnel review files on its senior management, or another dumb ask, then I am not surprised. Likewise, Google.