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

[Scott_Arm]

Growth is going to be harder from now on and the tech sector in general is over inflated in terms of value. Shareholders can still very much make profit for sometime via dividends but they think they can make more by selling their shares. There's really not much to it when shareholders voted to approve the transaction ...

Yah, so basically what I'm saying.

Overall I think the governments ability to pick winners and losers is about as good as private industries. That is to say it's absolutely dog shit. Unless they have a genie, predicting ten years into the future is outright dumb. That said, Activision generally makes horrible games and Microsoft would probably still somehow struggle to get them to release any games. Seems like any game company Microsoft touches just suddenly goes silent and stops releasing anything.

 

[Shortbread]

Curious to see if MS would entertain this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1651223746923864065

https://twitter.com/x/status/1651223752175235078

They can, but they wouldn't. Some of these tweets are starting to enter into fanboy fantasy land. MS should simply invest in their current studios and/or purchase those studios with close ties (i.e., Xbox only IPs) or need serious funding.

 

[iroboto]

They can, but they wouldn't. Some of these tweets are starting to enter into fanboy fantasy land. MS should simply invest in their current studios and/or purchase those studios with close ties (i.e., Xbox only IPs) or need serious funding.

They can, they can just remove all ABK content from Gamepass UK and their cloud offerings for the UK. If cloud is the concern with ABK for the merger to go through, they can just remove all ABK content on Cloud. And 10 years from now, if Cloud is that platform that has taken over, they can assess if MS should be allowed to put it on, and if it doesn't then no harm really; they're getting their ass beat down as it is. They aren't losing all that much in the UK by doing it.

 

[SmooTh]

The probability that they will do it is probably the same as me flying into space.

 

[iroboto]

The probability that they will do it is probably the same as me flying into space.

It's a nuclear option, if they want it. The ABK stuff would return to console after they meet the regulatory items, the gamepass and cloud stuff it would be left out.

 

[Lurkmass]

Yah, so basically what I'm saying.

Overall I think the governments ability to pick winners and losers is about as good as private industries. That is to say it's absolutely dog shit. Unless they have a genie, predicting ten years into the future is outright dumb. That said, Activision generally makes horrible games and Microsoft would probably still somehow struggle to get them to release any games. Seems like any game company Microsoft touches just suddenly goes silent and stops releasing anything.

Well it's not hard to see in 10 years that many cloud games will be relying on Windows infrastructure/code so unless the industry makes a pivot to more accessible infrastructure, regulators clearly don't want to encourage another solid monopolization of a market by a corporation that already holds a monopoly and is using the very same property again. Owning Windows is turning out into a very good boogeyman for regulators ...

At least with a licensing agreement, there's more value to be shared with other competitors since they have their own advantages like compelling content ...

 

[eastmen]

It's a shame that cloud is keeping things from going through since its a pretty small market segment that Sony left to rot and are now being rewarded.

MS and AB have said they will appeal this so it will be interesting to see what happens. Perhaps if the EU approves and MS wins in the USA they will still go ahead with the purchase. The UK could in response prevent Ms from doing business in the UK but that would likely be a death sentence for UK business at that point, so who would blink first in that case. Of course if its approved everywhere else before the appeal from the UK goes through they might just go ahead and approve it.

Would also be interesting if this is the last Xbox console and MS just focuses on windows gaming

 

[Shortbread]

They can, they can just remove all ABK content from Gamepass UK and their cloud offerings for the UK. If cloud is the concern with ABK for the merger to go through, they can just remove all ABK content on Cloud. And 10 years from now, if Cloud is that platform that has taken over, they can assess if MS should be allowed to put it on.

At some point, trying to circumvent or maneuver around obstacles that are legitimately there for a purpose, doesn't guarantee success for other future endeavors (i.e., acquiring other companies). In other words, pissing off UK regulatory bodies isn't the smartest thing to do, and could (more than likely will) make things harder for MS when they have a history of "getting around things."

 

[Lurkmass]

The good news for the FTC is that it gives them more time to proceed in their own court which forces Microsoft into a longer legal process with a federal court ...

 

[Scott_Arm]

@Lurkmass No one predicted that Google would show up and take like 80% of the browser market and a monopoly of the search engine business. No one predicted Amazon would take over e-commerce, and certainly no one predicted their cloud business. I don't think anyone would have predicted ten years out, or even five years out, the success that Apple and Google would have in the smartphone business. No one predicted Facebook would exist, or show up and take over social media, and when it did they thought it'd be too big to fail and then Tik Tok ... etc etc.

It is very hard to see what cloud gaming will look like in ten years. Most experts are pretty much terrible at making predictions.

 

[Shortbread]

Sony left to rot and are now being rewarded.

How so? MS is a trillion dollar company that has all the opportunity in the world on making great games by investing all that money into their studios. MS can money-hat just like Sony, if not more (MORE!). The problem that MS has: is managing those studios and IPs, not the lack of having [more] studios.

 

[iroboto]

At some point, trying to circumvent or maneuver around obstacles that are legitimately there for a purpose, doesn't guarantee success for other future endeavors (i.e., acquiring other companies). In other words, pissing off UK regulatory bodies isn't the smartest thing to do, and could (more than likely will) make things harder for MS when they have a history of "getting around things."

Cloud market isn't cemented. I'm not sure what you mean on this. The regulation decision stipulated that console market was not the problem. So they could own ABK and let the console market continue as is. Their issue is with cloud, which is way too small to matter, so if that is the concern, toss cloud out. MS doesn't even have an actual cloud offering, right now it's just pooled in with Ultimate, but it's not even a standalone service.

Under this decision as it is, the regulators don't want MS to own anything, any mention of cloud and they'll block it.
By removing ABK content from cloud, then the competition is allowed to thrive according to their documents; and IIRC, there is currently no ABK content on gamepass.

 

[Scott_Arm]

It's a shame that cloud is keeping things from going through since its a pretty small market segment that Sony left to rot and are now being rewarded.

MS and AB have said they will appeal this so it will be interesting to see what happens. Perhaps if the EU approves and MS wins in the USA they will still go ahead with the purchase. The UK could in response prevent Ms from doing business in the UK but that would likely be a death sentence for UK business at that point, so who would blink first in that case. Of course if its approved everywhere else before the appeal from the UK goes through they might just go ahead and approve it.

Would also be interesting if this is the last Xbox console and MS just focuses on windows gaming

Microsoft seems completely incapable of making games, so if they get out of making console hardware, they're pretty much leaving the gaming market. All they'd have is a game store on PC that nobody likes and a Game Pass that probably couldn't survive without game consoles.

 

[iroboto]

How so? MS is a trillion dollar company that has all the opportunity in the world on making great games by investing all that money into their studios. MS can money-hat just like Sony, if not more (MORE!). The problem that MS has: is managing those studios and IPs, not the lack of having [more] studios.

There has never been any guarantee that $ invested = success. If this were true, a great deal of many games would not be called 'flops'.
They could invest all of that money and make no dent into the market into the 2 main entrenched players.

No amount of money spent is currently making a dent into Google from Bing. You actually need a game changer for there to be movement, cloud is that game changer for games, just like ChatGPT maybe a game changer for search. All speculative of course.

 

[SmooTh]

MS needs another Moore era with all the Studios they have now.

 

[Lurkmass]

@Lurkmass No one predicted that Google would show up and take like 80% of the browser market and a monopoly of the search engine business. No one predicted Amazon would take over e-commerce, and certainly no one predicted their cloud business. I don't think anyone would have predicted ten years out, or even five years out, the success that Apple and Google would have in the smartphone business. No one predicted Facebook would exist, or show up and take over social media, and when it did they thought it'd be too big to fail and then Tik Tok ... etc etc.

It is very hard to see what cloud gaming will look like in ten years. Most experts are pretty much terrible at making predictions.

The search engine doesn't really make Google any money, it's complementary to their advertising business and mobile services of which the latter can be partially circumvented by not releasing software on their digital app store ...

Do you see compelling digital content being released on other platforms besides consoles because I and many others surely can't ? Games are still probably going to rely on Windows unless it becomes irrelevant to gaming. Regulators are not to going to tolerate corporations gaining another monopoly by using their own property that's already seen as another monopoly by them ...

I'm sure others competitors like Amazon would appreciate an alternative in not having to pay out licensing costs for Windows VMs just as much as Sony. If not then regulators would prefer competitors being able to at least monetize content available to them ...

 

[Scott_Arm]

The search engine doesn't really make Google any money, it's complementary to their advertising business and mobile services of which the latter can be partially circumvented by not releasing software on their digital app store ...

Do you see compelling digital content being released on other platforms besides consoles because I and many others surely can't ? Games are still probably going to rely on Windows unless it becomes irrelevant to gaming. Regulators are not to going to tolerate corporations gaining another monopoly by using their own property that's already seen as another monopoly by them ...

I'm sure others competitors like Amazon would appreciate an alternative in not having to pay out licensing costs for Windows VMs just as much as Sony. If not then regulators would prefer competitors being able to at least monetize content available to them ...

Steam Deck runs games without Windows, so we are we expecting that ten years from now cloud platforms will be locked into Windows VMs? If Valve actually released a desktop version of the Steam Deck OS, what might happen? They pretty much have a monopoly on the PC storefront.

My main point is basically that you can't predict the tech market, or pretty much anything ten years out. You just can't. Anyone that says they can is full of shit. Everyone thought Microsoft was going to have a browser monopoly and they did for a time ... until they didn't. Google just took it from them.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The search engine doesn't really make Google any money, it's complementary to their advertising business and mobile services of which the latter can be partially circumvented by not releasing software on their digital app store ...

Do you see compelling digital content being released on other platforms besides consoles because I and many others surely can't ? Games are still probably going to rely on Windows unless it becomes irrelevant to gaming. Regulators are not to going to tolerate corporations gaining another monopoly by using their own property that's already seen as another monopoly by them ...

I'm sure others competitors like Amazon would appreciate an alternative in not having to pay out licensing costs for Windows VMs just as much as Sony. If not then regulators would prefer competitors being able to at least monetize content available to them ...

Search is Google's advertising business. A big part of their advertising business is being able to sell targetted ads due to data harvested from a variety of methods, search being one of the most prominent.

It's why MS is so interested in search and why they continue to invest large sums of money into it, because they need it in order to compete with Google for ad revenue.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's a nuclear option, if they want it. The ABK stuff would return to console after they meet the regulatory items, the gamepass and cloud stuff it would be left out.

The nuclear option would be MS just withdrawing from the UK market. That would hurt MS's bottom line but it would also hurt the UK as currently a lot of infrastructure there relies on MS products.

Obviously MS aren't going to do that and the UK would do whatever they could to prevent it. Hell, at that point the UK would likely petition the US Gov't to ensure that MS continues to provide services to the UK.

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

The nuclear option would be MS just withdrawing from the UK market. That would hurt MS's bottom line but it would also hurt the UK as currently a lot of infrastructure there relies on MS products.

Obviously MS aren't going to do that and the UK would do whatever they could to prevent it. Hell, at that point the UK would likely petition the US Gov't to ensure that MS continues to provide services to the UK.

Regards,
SB

It’s still a pretty big action but yes. That’s as nuclear as it gets and I can’t see them hitting that.