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

[see colon]

What is the point you are trying to make about Deathloop? A game that was contracted with Zenimax before MS acquired Zenimax for a PS timed exclusivity?
I dont see the point you are trying to make. There were legal bindings and also the regulators.

This is all in response to a question. "Why isn't Microsoft publishing its games on PS5, too". I simply provided examples of them publishing games on PS5. The question of why they are publishing games on PS5 is different as to why they are not. Because there is clear evidence that they are, in fact, publishing games on PS5.

As Microsoft's evidence showed, Zenimax insisted that Microsoft honour existing contracts and Microsoft said were happy to do so. In business, you do not want a reputation for breaking contracts, it you become known as a party who does not value contracts it becomes more difficult and costly to do business.

Right. And then they published games on PS5. Again, I was simply citing examples of games Microsoft (or companies they owned) published games on PS5 in response to a question, and had a slew of comments about how those examples don't count. The question as to why Microsoft published games on PS5 is different from a question as to why they aren't publishing games on PS5.

Here is the original quote I was responding to.

Only through cloud gaming. Why isnt Microsoft publishing their games on the PS5, too?

 

[JPT]

Right. And then they published games on PS5.

Serious hair splitting, but yes, MS published the games that Zenimax was under contract to do. But other than Minecraft, MS will most likely not publish any more games that is usually 3rd party, on PS going forward. Which is the issue about about this acquisition, will this impact endusers, ie games from ABK only be available on MS platforms going forward, if you only look at the console games bit of the acquisition

 

[BRiT]

ie games from ABK only be available on MS platforms going forward, if you only look at the console games bit of the acquisition

Contract with Nintendo says otherwise.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Contract with Nintendo says otherwise.

The contract with Nintendo only covers Call of Duty.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1628172233544765440

 

[BRiT]

The contract with Nintendo only covers Call of Duty.

View attachment 8351

Which is still enough to go against what JPT posted.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Which is still enough to go against what JPT posted.

I presumed he was not including Call of Duty in that statement.

 

[mr magoo]

EGDF observations on Microsoft’s ActivisionBlizzard acquisition

21.2.2023 Today EGDF was invited to join a formal European Commission oral hearing on the acquisition of ActivisionBlizzard by Microsoft. EGDF underlined that the more global platforms and pub…

www.egdf.eu

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Which is still enough to go against what JPT posted.

I presumed he was not including Call of Duty in that statement.

To put a halt to this hair-splitting, I suggest the original remark from Troyan is update with more focus. I understand the gist of the argument to be that MS is not freely publishing all its games to PS, and is indeed only publishing a bare minimum for particular reasons for each title. But I'm not making the argument and it's for others to refine the point if they didn't mean "not one single game" which is debunked by Minecraft and COD.

 

[Reznor007]

Other games on Nintendo are already happening anyway. The Ori games are on switch, banjo Kazooie is on switch n64 online, goldeneye, cuphead, Super luckys tale, and misc Microsoft properties show up in smash ultimate as well.

They may not be as high profile as Elder Scrolls and whatnot, but they do release stuff on other platforms.

 

[JPT]

Which is still enough to go against what JPT posted.

Yes, it does, but again CoD is just a magicians misdirection, by both Sony and MS.
Sony pulls out all stops, since ABK games brings in a lot of money, but also CoD might be a big enough tent pole for people to switch from PS to other platforms if CoD would not be available on PS. Or if PS versions are released later than on Gamepass or you get to play it for "free" on Gamepass.

MS wants the ABK deal to go through, personally I want it to, I would make a couple of bucks on it. But MS mainly wants it because it has a serious potential to skew the market in MS favour.

As for the customers, fanboys excluded, better the devil you know in my opnion. Currently Sony does better in the high-end console market, based on market numbers. If MS is able to close the gap some or overtake Sony then that is probably a good thing.
But if MS becomes a very dominant, that would probably be bad, but it would be the same for any company to become dominant enough to be able to dictate the market.
So if either MS or Sony ends up pulling out of the console business, its us the customers/gamers that will lose.

I presumed he was not including Call of Duty in that statement.

Thinking about it, myy assumption actually is that CoD will release on PS even after the current contracts run out, but most other ABK and Zenith games will not. So the conversation turns from buying PS to play most games and Cod.
To buy PS to play Sony + Cod and none of the other titles by ABK/Zenith that used to be 3rd party.

Other games on Nintendo are already happening anyway. The Ori games are on switch, banjo Kazooie is on switch n64 online, goldeneye, cuphead, Super luckys tale, and misc Microsoft properties show up in smash ultimate as well.

They may not be as high profile as Elder Scrolls and whatnot, but they do release stuff on other platforms.

Yes, MS have done and do it for the foreseeable future, problem is if they would drop that a bit longer into the future=

i would not mind if MS and Sony where closer and that Nintendo also keeps their market share. But shifting the market in this way, well have I to trust whomever works the merger approval things, to do the right thing based on their expertise and not my armchair lawyer analyses.

 

[see colon]

MS wants the ABK deal to go through, personally I want it to, I would make a couple of bucks on it. But MS mainly wants it because it has a serious potential to skew the market in MS favour.

Statements like this confuse me. Are they only supposed to purchase companies that would skew the market in their competition's favor?

Serious hair splitting, but yes, MS published the games that Zenimax was under contract to do. But other than Minecraft, MS will most likely not publish any more games that is usually 3rd party, on PS going forward. Which is the issue about about this acquisition, will this impact endusers, ie games from ABK only be available on MS platforms going forward, if you only look at the console games bit of the acquisition

Is it splitting hairs, though? If I was splitting hairs I would point out that they are currently listed as the publisher on Psychonauts 2 on Playstation, as the publishing rights reverted to them some time ago. But that would be silly. Because continuing to sell an already published product isn't really publishing a product.

Funny story, though. If you go to Playstation.com and type "Bethesda" in the search box, you get a drop down of Bethesda games. Hit enter, it shows you all of the Bethesada games. Same with Square/Enix, Namco, and 505 Games. If you type in Microsoft, no drop down. Hit enter, no games. Same with Xbox, which is expected because Psychonauts 2 is published by "Microsoft Corporation". Minecraft is published by Mojang. If you type in Mojang, you get only 1 result... Minecraft Story Mode Season 2. A game published by Telltale.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Funny story, though. If you go to Playstation.com and type "Bethesda" in the search box, you get a drop down of Bethesda games. Hit enter, it shows you all of the Bethesada games. Same with Square/Enix, Namco, and 505 Games. If you type in Microsoft, no drop down. Hit enter, no games. Same with Xbox, which is expected because Psychonauts 2 is published by "Microsoft Corporation". Minecraft is published by Mojang. If you type in Mojang, you get only 1 result... Minecraft Story Mode Season 2. A game published by Telltale.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but all of the information you see in the PlayStation and Xbox online stores is provided by the publisher and can be updated. The next gen version of Skyrim for PS5 (and Xbox Series) that was Published in 2021 (after the acquisition) was published by Bethesda Softworks because that's what was submitted when the game was published. They could also choose to add 'Microsoft' to the list of search terms that produces hits in the PSN Store search but they obviously didn't.

 

[see colon]

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but all of the information you see in the PlayStation and Xbox online stores is provided by the publisher and can be updated. The next gen version of Skyrim for PS5 (and Xbox Series) that was Published in 2021 (after the acquisition) was published by Bethesda Softworks because that's what was submitted when the game was published. They could also choose to add 'Microsoft' to the list of search terms that produces hits in the PSN Store search but they obviously didn't.

I don't know if it's intentional or not, I just find it strange that the Microsoft owned publisher don't have search results on Playstation.com when other publishers do. There is some weirdness with search on there anyway, like when you serach for "From Software" the top 2 results are Sekiro and Demon Souls (the PS5 remake), but the other top results include Lego Star Wars, NHL 21 and Dead Island 2. Not exactly correct results, but results all the same. "Microsoft" has no results at all.

 

[stu11]

I don't know if it's intentional or not, I just find it strange that the Microsoft owned publisher don't have search results on Playstation.com when other publishers do. There is some weirdness with search on there anyway, like when you serach for "From Software" the top 2 results are Sekiro and Demon Souls (the PS5 remake), but the other top results include Lego Star Wars, NHL 21 and Dead Island 2. Not exactly correct results, but results all the same. "Microsoft" has no results at all.

All of Bethesda games are still listed under Bethesda on the ECS also, even HiFi Rush. Same goes for Steam. They don't show up if you search for either Microsoft or Xbox Game Studios. So the Playstation store is not being any different to any other non MS Game store. Hilarously the MS Windows store still has those games under Bethesda also.

So I think no massive conspiracy by Sony to stop selling games under the MS banner.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't know if it's intentional or not, I just find it strange that the Microsoft owned publisher don't have search results on Playstation.com when other publishers do. There is some weirdness with search on there anyway, like when you serach for "From Software" the top 2 results are Sekiro and Demon Souls (the PS5 remake), but the other top results include Lego Star Wars, NHL 21 and Dead Island 2.

The PSN Store search is very basic. The search will check all text fields (title, publisher, description and search terms) in the metadata provided by the publisher for the words provided. 'Microsoft' is not mentioned in any of the Bethesda Games text so it comes up with nothing. Microsoft may wish to update the publisher text for Bethesda games which only reads:

© 2021 Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company. The Elder Scrolls, Skyrim, Bethesda, Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax and related logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks or trade names are the property of their respective owners. All Rights Reserved. https://bethesda.net/document/privacy-policy

Searching for 'From Software' will look for those two words against all all games in the PSN Store, and 'from' and 'software' are used a lot, e.g. from the description of Lego Star Wars:

This product entitles you to download both the digital PS4™ version and the digital PS5™ version of this game.

Play through all 9 films of the saga in LEGO® Star Wars™: The Skywalker Saga Galactic Edition and enjoy playing as over 400 characters from the expanded universe.

...
...

To play this game on PS5, your system may need to be updated to the latest system software. Although this game is playable on PS5, some features available on PS4 may be absent. See PlayStation.com/bc for more details.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Idas has posted an update based on his reading of the CMA PF. So far I have found this the most interesting.

The Microsoft / Activision Blizzard acquisition |OT| Antitrust Simulator (completed; discussing post-merger issues) OT

There hasn't been feature parity since like the early 360 days I don't think. Marketing agreements mostly require non-parity for whoever holds the marketing rights. things like exclusive skins, modes, early betas, and things like that would be out the door, which would be great for everyone.

www.resetera.com

Making COD exclusive to Battle.net allowed ABK to compete with Steam (page 126)

Notwithstanding the above, making CoD exclusive on Battle.net allowed Activision to compete with Steam by offering fewer than 10 games, whilst Steam offered c.8000 games in 2018. The fact [REDACTED] shows the strength of the Activision portfolio, particularly CoD.

8% of PlayStation gamers played CoD in 2021? (page 163, footnote 579)

Data from [REDACTED] indicates that [REDACTED]% of PlayStation gamers played CoD in 2021, as noted in our assessment of Ability above. We therefore divided 8% by [REDACTED]% to obtain the share of CoD gamers that would need to switch for total foreclosure to be profitable.

PS: I think that someone forgot to redact that 8%, but I'm not sure if it's related to the number of PS players that played COD in 2021 or something else.

MS is already discussing plans for next generation consoles and cloud gaming is part of it (page 184)

Two documents dated September 2022 and November 2022 discussing plans for next generation consoles show that [REDACTED]. One slide describes [REDACTED]. Another slide discusses [REDACTED].

Has Nvidia solved the latency problem on cloud gaming? (page 185)

The same rival [REDACTED] submitted that technological barriers to streaming, including latency, were quickly dropping and were likely to continue to drop. It described how it had reduced latency on its service [REDACTED]. On a call the same rival stated that it had solved the latency problem, and that its service now outperformed playing on a local console device including from a latency perspective, which it had achieved by using more powerful graphical processing units (GPUs).

PS: the reference to GPUs make me think that this could be Nvidia.

Most current competitors, with the exception of Nintendo, self-supply cloud infrastructure (page 210)

Third party responses indicate that most current competitors, with the exception of Nintendo, self-supply cloud infrastructure. For example:

(a) Amazon [REDACTED], which has the [REDACTED].

(b) SIE generally [REDACTED] to provide cloud gaming services.

(c) NVIDIA developed its own custom cloud gaming servers utilising its GPU assets [REDACTED].

(d) Google hosted Google Stadia [REDACTED]. Its GCP cloud infrastructure network has [REDACTED].

(e) Nintendo uses a third-party cloud infrastructure provider [REDACTED] to run its limited cloud gaming service. The Parties submitted that this provider [REDACTED] uses cloud infrastructure from multiple cloud infrastructure providers [REDACTED].

Unless forced to do otherwise I see Microsoft using Xcloud as a means of providing COD to Nintendo Switch. At this point I think Geforce Now would provide a better experience to Nintendo games but I don't think Microsoft or Nintendo would see it as beneficial to go that way.

MS removed 2 games from Nvidia GFN, in theory for licensing issues, but the CMA is not convinced of the arguments (page 245)

We have also considered internal documentary evidence in relation to the previous acquisition of Zenimax (which includes the publisher Bethesda). Bethesda had two games (Wolfenstein: Young Blood and Quake 2 RTX) on NVIDIA GFN at the time of Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax. Following the acquisition, a Microsoft internal document shows [REDACTED]:

(a) In an internal email in March 2021 to [REDACTED] notes that [REDACTED].

(b) In the same email chain, [REDACTED] replies to [REDACTED] suggesting they [REDACTED]. [REDACTED].

(c) Ultimately Microsoft decides to remove these games from GFN. In another email, [REDACTED] confirms that he has the 'OK' from [REDACTED] to give [REDACTED]. In this email thread, when discussing whether Microsoft should [REDACTED].

Microsoft submitted that it had a consistent policy not to allow a provider to stream its games without a license. Microsoft also submitted that while the Xbox Cloud Gaming team did not object to continuing to support these games on NVIDIA GFN, Microsoft ultimately removed the titles in 2021 because no valid licensing agreement was in place. Microsoft submitted that [REDACTED].

We consider that Microsoft did not provide convincing evidence to show the full motives behind Microsoft's decision to remove Wolfenstein: Young Blood and Quake 2 RTX from NVIDIA GFN.

Most importantly, Microsoft's submissions do not address the fact that a Microsoft senior employee [REDACTED]. In any case, we consider that these motives ([REDACTED] licensing) are not mutually exclusive and [REDACTED] are likely to have contributed to Microsoft's decision to remove the two Bethesda games.

This should not be used as a concern. If Nvidia had a licensing agreement with Microsoft the titles would not have been pulled. The CMA would have to give better evidence than that for concern that Microsoft would pull their titles. If Nvidia had licensed the games and Microsoft pulled them then yes it would be hard to trust them but that is not the case.

Here is a Phil Spencer interview.

Microsoft makes its last stand in $69bn battle for Call of Duty

When Microsoft unveiled its £57 billion takeover of video game maker Activision Blizzard in January last year, the US tech giant’s gaming boss, Phil Spencer, kn

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[see colon]

All of Bethesda games are still listed under Bethesda on the ECS also, even HiFi Rush. Same goes for Steam. They don't show up if you search for either Microsoft or Xbox Game Studios. So the Playstation store is not being any different to any other non MS Game store. Hilarously the MS Windows store still has those games under Bethesda also.

So I think no massive conspiracy by Sony to stop selling games under the MS banner.

Not exactly what I was pointing out. Psychonauts 2 is published by "Microsoft Corporation" on PSN. But if you search for Microsoft, there are no search results. Not wrong results, just none. It's not that Bethesda games aren't listed as Xbox or Microsoft games. Technically, Zenimax is a separate division inside Microsoft and not part of Xbox. That's why all of their events are Xbox and Bethesda. It's that a game listed as a Microsoft game doesn't show up if you search for Microsoft. I think DSoup has it right, though. I think the search is just so basic that it isn't actually searching all of the available text fields. As Microsoft is listed as the publisher of at least that Psychonauts 2.

Why searches for other publishers produce results is sort of a mystery to me. Since they are clearly not including publishers in the searches.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

This should not be used as a concern. If Nvidia had a licensing agreement with Microsoft the titles would not have been pulled. The CMA would have to give better evidence than that for concern that Microsoft would pull their titles. If Nvidia had licensed the games and Microsoft pulled them then yes it would be hard to trust them but that is not the case.

You quoted in full why this was categorised as a concern. Microsoft had created a licensing process to assess which games can appear on rival streaming services, which were assessed by consulting internal Microsoft teams. None of the assessment was predicated on contractual or legal obligations, and having consulted internally for some games, and received no objections from the internal Microsoft teams, Microsoft refused to allow some games to appear on Geforce Now rather than pursue licensing with Nvidia.

What the CMA are saying, is that Microsoft were motivated to remove content from rivals - which is kind of important in the context of the acquisition. And it's further examples of where Microsoft's internal document has failed to evidence their public position on policies.

 

[see colon]

You quoted in full why this was categorised as a concern. Microsoft had created a licensing process to assess which games can appear on rival streaming services, which were assessed by consulting internal Microsoft teams. None of the assessment was predicated on contractual or legal obligations, and having consulted internally for some games, and received no objections from the internal Microsoft teams, Microsoft refused to allow some games to appear on Geforce Now rather than pursue licensing with Nvidia.

What the CMA are saying, is that Microsoft were motivated to remove content from rivals - which is kind of important in the context of the acquisition. And it's further examples of where Microsoft's internal document has failed to evidence their public position on policies.

They also added Bethesda games to Playstation Plus's service when the on demand/streaming stuff was launched. Although, I don't know if any of the Bethesda games are streamed since... You know, it's impossible to tell what's what on that service. But Skyrim is used prominently in the marketing on the main page of PS+.

 

[mr magoo]

Will the FTC Block Microsoft From Acquiring Activision Blizzard? Legal Experts Are Divided - IGN