Was going to post the same news, but with pics of some of the tasty bits:
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
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Simply following a basic rule: Never provide your own evidence. They're not going to put in writing that they will hold a grudge.
Warzone 2 & Modern Warfare 2 player count plummets to record low
Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2's popularity is seemingly declining, as the player count drops to an all time low.
www.charlieintel.com
Warzone 2 & Modern Warfare 2 player count plummets to record low
A March Update on the Microsoft Deal
From Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.
activisionblizzard.substack.com
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Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick sent the following email to staff on Tuesday:
Team,
As you know, our proposed merger with Microsoft is under review by regulatory agencies around the world—some coverage of which you may have seen recently in the press. I will continue to provide updates regarding the deal.
We remain confident that the transaction will ultimately be approved. Last month, our team traveled to Brussels and London, with the team from Microsoft, to speak at closed door hearings with the European Commission (EC) and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK. During these hearings, Microsoft proposed thoughtful, generous remedies to address regulators’ concerns, and made additional announcements reinforcing their pledge to bring more games to more players around the world. These included contractual commitments to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo, and games to Nvidia, for 10 years. They recently announced similar cloud services agreements with Boosteroid and Ubitus.
Our proposed merger will help us compete in the increasingly competitive marketplace that includes rapidly growing foreign, powerful companies that enjoy protection in their home markets and access to strong talent pools. The partnership with Microsoft will enable us to more effectively compete against these market-leading competitors.
The good news is, regulators who initially had concerns about console competition are starting to better understand our industry. The data and evidence Microsoft has been presenting are tilting the scale. You may have seen statements from Sony, including an argument that if this deal goes through, Microsoft could release deliberately “buggy” versions of our games on PlayStation. We all know our passionate players would be the first to hold Microsoft accountable for keeping its promises of content and quality parity. And, all of us who work so hard to deliver the best games in our industry care too deeply about our players to ever launch sub-par versions of our games. Sony has even admitted that they aren’t actually concerned about a Call of Duty agreement—they would just like to prevent our merger from happening. This is obviously disappointing behavior from a partner for almost thirty years, but we will not allow Sony’s behavior to affect our long term relationship. PlayStation players know we will continue to deliver the best games possible on Sony platforms as we have since the launch of PlayStation.
We will continue to have discussions with European and UK regulators until the decision dates, which we expect in the coming months. You may have also seen today that the Japan Fair Trade Commission found that the deal wouldn’t harm competition and unconditionally cleared our transaction. We will update you again when we have more information to share.
Our team is working collaboratively with Microsoft to make sure we have answers to the many questions you have about the progress of the merger. We will continue to be helpful, supportive, and transparent as we progress through the regulatory process.
Thank you for staying focused on ensuring our players continue to have the very best games and on maintaining the best workplace for our colleagues.
With appreciation,
Bobby
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According to Mr Ding, Activision was harassing and taunting companies and regulators. Seems to me this wasnt necessary a thread towards Kotick but more like describing to Kotick that the Chinese government will form a decision based on how Activision is planning to collaborate/make deals. The narrative of course may be subject of politics. We tend to get the western narrative and it is always biased one way as it is biased the other way in the east.
Transcripts/reading media from both sides of the world form a better picture.
Considering what kind of personality Kotick is and is being acquired by one of the biggest corporate bullies in the world with huge lobbying influence, I wouldnt be surprised if there is more about their own attitude than meets the eye
Transcripts/reading media from both sides of the world form a better picture.
Considering what kind of personality Kotick is and is being acquired by one of the biggest corporate bullies in the world with huge lobbying influence, I wouldnt be surprised if there is more about their own attitude than meets the eye
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I wouldn't be surprised if the CCP was the real problem instead of Activision/Kotick. Let's get real here.
If Kotick is involved, you can be sure it's in part due to him.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Why's that? This is an honest question. Have any allegations against him ever been proven? I'm not a fan of mob rule. I'm truly open to actual evidence.
When you have hundreds of employees speaking ill of him in social media, thousands signing a petition for his removal and trying to unionize then definitely something is wrong.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
It's the same authority as everywhere else, when one company established in your territory (Microsoft) tried to buy another company established in your territory (Activision-Blizzard), an assessment is required. It doesn't matter that the companies are headquartered in the USA, many operate and are established in lots of countries.
No idea what the German process is, but if other national EU authorities decided to do this too this could drag on for a few more months even of the EU reach a conclusion - particularly of France get involved as their acquisition assessment process is notoriously slow and draconian.
It would be interesting to know if is this Microsoft engaging regulators in a protracted way, or if this is the regulators sticking their oar in at the eleventh hour.
CEO? No. Bobbie Kotick though? Guy's reputation isn't particularly trustworthy!
If Sony has been engaging in anticompetitive behaviour in Japan, MS neds to raise this with their regulators. And should have been raising it when it was apparent it was happening.
Maybe the extent of the Sony behavior was not revealed until the discovery processes in the regulatory reviews of this MS/ABK acquisition.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Sony's acquisition of Bungie was assessed and approved by the FTC.
Companies headquartered outside of Japan investing in, or attempting to acquire Japanese companies, have both a merger/acquisition process to go through and an assessment required under Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA). This exists only to prevent dilution of Japan business and impact to Japanese culture. To the best of my knowledge, only China has something similar.
Any foreign company buying Square or SEGA is pretty much off the table. They are category 1 protected companies listed as protected by Government of Japan. Since 2020 Sony has also been off the table but for national security reasons.
It's not the first time it was brought up, so I'll leave it at that. The he said she said bit is not really something we can comment on, except ABK has gone on record twice, 1 through social media, and another via an employee company email. Sony can respond if they'd like by making a better argument with regulators since they've already dismissed Sony - I'm leaning on ABK being more honest than false.
It's hard to narrow down precisely what congress is kicking around. It is difficult for an American entity to gain a foothold into Japan without a Japanese subsidiary. It's also hard for foreign ownership of Japanese company due to protection laws, basically the company must be for sale, and looking for a buyer with their blessing. I think it's fairly easy for Sony as market leader in Japan to give more favourable terms to developers to ensure they never sell, thus, the challenges MS faces. The push from congress might be to loosen some of that national protectionism that is limiting MS from expanding there, and while it may not have been as important back then, it's certainly heavily on the radar going forward.
According to the journalist, Microsoft may have great difficulty in acquiring major studios in Japan. In fact, Serkan Toto from Kantan Games, quoted by Brown, even said that "in some ways" an acquisition of a major Japanese publisher by Microsoft would be a bigger deal than the purchase of Activision Blizzard.
Hoeg touches on this on the video, due to regulators moving to separate Nintendo from Sony and Microsoft on market definitions, politicians are abusing this definition to declare Sony a monopoly in Japan. And he touches that, if we continue to remove Nintendo from the console market definition of high end, then you're in a situation where the marketshare is lop sided in Sony's favour, and their continue usage of exclusives is harming competition.
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Perhaps so and that's why it's being raised now, but I find that hard to believe. MS was okay getting Japanese content for XB360. If they then felt a change and devs were declining that, they must have been able to get a sense of why from contacts. I won't say it's impossible and hopefully the industry will be fairer overall when this settles, but based on my current limited perception I continue to struggle to understand a world where MS was getting exclusive content, then not, yet being clueless why as Sony was blocking them from the shadows. Certainly I'm not taking either side's story at face value!Maybe the extent of the Sony behavior was not revealed until the discovery processes in the regulatory reviews of this MS/ABK acquisition.
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