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

[iroboto]

But aren't you making the same argument that Sony was making, that Activision (COD and all) is important to them in their current space, on staying successful? I really don't see the difference other than MS wanting to succeed in one space with Activision, and Sony wanting to stay successful with Activision in the current space. As such, I see both their arguments as being valid, but also bullshit at the same time. Sony has the money and studios on making a successful COD clone, and Microsoft has enough wealth and studios on creating great cloud content.

There's a subtle but important difference between the two.
MS is trying to legitimize and turn the cloud market into something significant in the gaming umbrella, currently it's worth less than 1% IIRC. There's no guarantee here that putting those titles onto Cloud will increase adoption, but they are trying.

On the flipside, Sony is already leveraging COD to bolster their business, they aren't guessing how much business COD will get them, they know already how much it gives them in the console space.

I don't necessarily agree that Sony can make a successful COD clone, nor would they want to, and I don't necessarily agree MS has enough wealth and studios on creating great cloud content, because these neither of these are guaranteed returns. Buying ABK is of course, trying to legitimize a library on a technology that people don't seem interested in.

So let's be impartial to each other and read between the lines what fanboys may know intuitively but are failing to express in their outrage.

Today the market leader will and will likely be Sony from here on out in the console market. There's no flipping this unless Sony is deciding to sabotage their own business.
I don't think any amount of investment MS can make to turn this around for them, I'll be straight honest, if money was so powerful as many here continue to persist it is, our voting wouldn't be the way it is, the biggest companies would never produce a flop and so forth. Big companies are likely to routinely produce flops, most don't see how many small businesses die in the process compared to the flops of a big business.

Having said that, and having an honest conversation about whether MS, as a pure software and cloud company, can actually compete with Sony, which is an electronics company designed to put electronics into the homes of customers, I think there is no reasonable way that MS can compete in the console space. It's not their forte, and they don't want to reorganize their entire business to become an electronics business. They are about software into the home space and their strategy moving forward is cloud.

Here's the thing that's interesting for Sony, being in the position they are. If nothing changes (bar MS manages to produce some weird viral hit), Sony will be the ones who decide when the gaming market is allowed to transition to cloud gaming.

But why is that the case? IMO, if we make a graph of titles released day one on cloud and day one on console, there is going to be a break over point in which both are equal, and then eventually you're just releasing more titles on cloud over console. That break over period is going to be up to Sony since they control the market today in the console space.

What is probably angering people is that Sony will determine the battlegrounds in which they will also then be cloud dominant, and they will be the market leader there. CMA's decision here has pretty much cemented that, bar a viral success from MS, MS will not be allowed to pursue this hail mary to push the population into the cloud space while Sony continues to be out of position.

Effectively, we're not moving to Cloud until Sony wants the future of gaming to become cloud. They hold the gamers and content today, they are the most entrenched player today with access to the largest library of games. Gamers go to where the games are, and if people are nitpicking about how Xbox has no titles, CLOUD gaming would be the literal definition of having none. And such they will determine when it's time to transition cloud, and will do so in a way that advantages them.

In a sense, CMA may have cemented Sony's leadership into the next generation of games, and that's why you're seeing some outrage here, even if they can't express it.

It's debatable, but when we talk about 'the world eventually moving to cloud because it's inevitable', the market leadership of today's gaming industry is in the driving seat for when that will happen now that CMA is blocking strategical mergers, no small company has the funding to legitimize the cloud infrastructure and licensing costs, and no new cloud entrant would be willing to risk going in without having some sort of legitimate titles on the platform in which to gain revenue.

IMO, with this ruling, cloud gaming adoption period may be pushed back probably 20+ years (3-4 more console generations). But that's just me. And I would love cloud to happen, because all this console warrior non sense goes out the window. No one fights over what hardware Disney and Netflix use, they just care if there is something there for them to watch. But more importantly, the bullshit around demand and supply and scalping gets tossed out the window. New generation means everyone gets access to it. They just fill their data centers and go, and players from around the world rich and poor can play off of these streaming services and not get robbed or killed over tiny plastic boxes that are approaching $1000 dollars.

There's no easy answer here of course. By blocking MS today they may have put the future in Sony's hand. By letting the merger pass, they may have put the future in MS's hand.
No correct answer really.

 

[Nisaaru]

Can somebody tell me why MS should actually care what some UK org allows?

What can they do if MS just finishes the deal. Block them from their market? That is a gamble the UK would regret.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

@DSoup Yah, I'm going to stop here because we're in the realm of political disagreements about how wise, useful these kinds of regulations are, especially in a global market.

I agree with you, but for different reasons. The UK have only said no - and can only say no - as far as the UK market goes. The fact that Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard are massive international companies is what makes the impact wide-reaching. But this is no different if France said no (and they may), or the Germans or the EU as a bloc. Not to mention China and parts of Asia where cloud gaming is a larger market. I'm ignoring the US which seems to be clown show.

This decision actually provides something of an incentive for big tech to self-regulate its own downsizing.

Well, they'll likely have to pursue more exclusivity deals as a result of this if they can't appeal.

In the UK you can appeal any Government decision. But you need to have actual grounds, such as demonstrating the decision was flawed (rather than you just didn't like it), or provide new information not available at the time the original decision was made.

Microsoft were told this is the way the decision was going if they didn't divorce Call of Duty from the acquisition - they were told this by the CMA back in February. The only reason this decision has come as a shock is because people have be eating Microsoft's narrative about this being about Sony, when in fact it was about cloud gaming - which is also one of the markets that the EU Commission as being a concern back in November:

The Commission's preliminary investigation shows that the transaction may significantly reduce competition on the markets for the distribution of console and PC video games, including multi-game subscription services and/or cloud game streaming services, and for PC operating systems.

It wouldn't surprise if the EU rule the same way next month.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's always great to be concerned about a market that isn't really a thing yet (it's impact on the gaming market is little more than statistical noise at the moment) and may never become a thing.

Regards,
SB

 

[fehu]

I know lots of people believe cloud gaming is the future, but I just don't see it happening for the vast majority of people that are into "core" or console gaming as anything other than a once in a blue moon thing (like travelling).

Gaming on mobile sucks. It lacks controls, it lacks variety, the screen is too small and half covered by your hands, the graphic is from the ps2 era, sounds is basically mono, still is a huge industry that prints money.
It's all about finding the right angle. If the latency is a problem use the right kind of games, if competition with consoles is a problem don't compete with them.
It has potential, it just must be exploited before not gaming mobiles are powerful enough to make it irrelevant.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I know lots of people believe cloud gaming is the future, but I just don't see it happening for the vast majority of people that are into "core" or console gaming as anything other than a once in a blue moon thing (like travelling).

The moment people can chose to subscribe to a cloud streaming service where latency is not an issue, and bandwidth is not an issue, so you could run games at higher resolutions than your monitor, with everything supersampled, at a monthly cost less than what you pay pro-rata for PC hardware upgrades at whatever frequency you upgrade CPU, GPU, RAM or SSDs, vastly fewer people will be buying hardware themselves.

I mean, why would you?

 

[nutball]

Can somebody tell me why MS should actually care what some UK org allows?

What can they do if MS just finishes the deal. Block them from their market? That is a gamble the UK would regret.

How so?

The UK Govt spends billions each year with MS on all sorts of stuff. Then there's the consumer market, which is not zero either.

If MS is going to turn around and say to a first world government that it doesn't give two penny bits about regulation then other powers are going to take notice. They (the non-UK powers) might think that MS would say the same to them in other circumstances.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The moment people can chose to subscribe to a cloud streaming service where latency is not an issue, and bandwidth is not an issue, so you could run games at higher resolutions than your monitor, with everything supersampled, at a monthly cost less than what you pay pro-rata for PC hardware upgrades at whatever frequency you upgrade CPU, GPU, RAM or SSDs, vastly fewer people will be buying hardware themselves.

I mean, why would you?

The problem is always going to be latency and there is always going to be an absolute limit with the physics of transmission (2 way round trip) on top of that induced by actual hardware and logic (transcoding the video feed, the hardware it's run on, not to mention the game code itself, etc.). Without some sort of quantum tunneling it's always going to be significantly worse on cloud than on console, even assume you get to the point where transcoding the video happens instantaneously with no delay and with imperceivable graphical impairments.

The question is, why would I?

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

The problem is always going to be latency and there is always going to be an absolute limit with the physics of transmission (2 way round trip) on top of that induced by actual hardware and logic (transcoding the video feed, the hardware it's run on, not to mention the game code itself, etc.). Without some sort of quantum tunneling it's always going to be significantly worse on cloud than on console, even assume you get to the point where transcoding the video happens instantaneously with no delay and with imperceivable graphical impairments.

The question is, why would I?

Regards,
SB

Its not that bad, not all games require that level of latency precision. I played a big portion of Nier through cloud, as well as Code Vein. I would other titles where graphics aren't priority.

 

[mr magoo]

The moment people can chose to subscribe to a cloud streaming service where latency is not an issue, and bandwidth is not an issue, so you could run games at higher resolutions than your monitor, with everything supersampled, at a monthly cost less than what you pay pro-rata for PC hardware upgrades at whatever frequency you upgrade CPU, GPU, RAM or SSDs, vastly fewer people will be buying hardware themselves.

I mean, why would you?

So basically never.
I don’t know, I want to see someone prove that cloud gaming CAN be a success first before we can talk about monopoly. So far no one has manage to do that.
It’s enough to see twitch most popular games with most viewers, those are games that will not work in cloud. Highly competitive low latency games. People chose to use wired mouse over wireless becouse of latency. So people who play for real are out. Even filthy casuals are not sold over cloud gaming. So not many actually left. Looks like cloud is a niche with very narrow customers.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1651538769974108160

Yap 5 k players.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Its not that bad, not all games require that level of latency precision. I played a big portion of Nier through cloud, as well as Code Vein. I would other titles where graphics aren't priority.

Sure that point isn't that some people would find it acceptable, it's whether most console gamers would find it acceptable and thus far it's been a resounding "no". There's likely still opportunities to shave off a little bit of latency but it's never going to be on the same level as local hardware, so I'm not really seeing the revolution that's going to suddenly make it acceptable to the majority of console and PC gamers.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The problem is always going to be latency and there is always going to be an absolute limit with the physics of transmission (2 way round trip) on top of that induced by actual hardware and logic (transcoding the video feed, the hardware it's run on, not to mention the game code itself, etc.).

In the short term, optical cable replacing fibre for longer stretches will drive latencies to the point where the actual round-robin latency isn't relevant compared to what you get on local hardware - and for anything server driven, could halve the latencies (and kill cheaters) - and quantum communications will effectively make reduce latency to zero over any distance at all.

In terms of encoding/decoding, the latency kicks in because of bandwidth limitations, i.e. the need to compress data ti fit into whatever bandwidth id available. As bandwidth becomes less of an issue, and my first modem was 300 baud, and 1200/75 felt like I was in some sci-fi future, the need for more frames to get greater compression becomes a null argument.

 

[Nisaaru]

It's always great to be concerned about a market that isn't really a thing yet (it's impact on the gaming market is little more than statistical noise at the moment) and may never become a thing.

Regards,
SB

The funny part about that imaginary market is that it will always be limited by the server infrastructure which automatically limits it to a handful of companies who can even compete.

Google, Amazon and MS. Anybody else will play catch-up anyway and doing this just for games might never be profitable.

 

[iroboto]

Sure that point isn't that some people would find it acceptable, it's whether most console gamers would find it acceptable and thus far it's been a resounding "no". There's likely still opportunities to shave off a little bit of latency but it's never going to be on the same level as local hardware, so I'm not really seeing the revolution that's going to suddenly make it acceptable to the majority of console and PC gamers.

Regards,
SB

mainstream titles, on console, some of them are tripled buffered, others are double. I think with enough horsepower on cloud, you reduce it quite far, and the player would experience an equivalent of double or triple buffered rendering on their side. For some titles this is suitable, but for twitch games, I recognize this won't work for the people looking to compete.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

mainstream titles, on console, some of them are tripled buffered, others are double. I think with enough horsepower on cloud, you reduce it quite far, and the player would experience an equivalent of double or triple buffered rendering on their side. For some titles this is suitable, but for twitch games, I recognize this won't work for the people looking to compete.

I'm always baffled by anybody in the 20s, but more so for people in their 30s and 40s, who genuinely doubt the pace of technological progression. I mean, in the last four years we've gone from raytracing being some offline-only technique in modern games to, sure just ramp that setting up because hardware does that in realtime as pretty insane quality.

But the speed of electrons and photons, nor the quantity that can be sent over a cable? Nope. Sci-fi dreams.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I think the tech will get there. I don't think it will matter to people 20 years from now if console is .1ms latency and 3000 fps and cloud is "only" 1 ms latency and 120 fps. There's a point at which the local hardware advantage won't matter to almost everyone IMO. It's like someone saying "the horse and buggy will always be around because I can't see out of the window of one of those fancy autos when it rains" and then someone invented the wind shield wiper. There WILL come a time when Cloud latency is a non-factor. What I won't say is WHEN. My crystal ball is fuzzy on that point.

I'll reiterate that the CMA decision is using Cloud cover. It's a bullshit reason and everyone knows it. They just wanted to stop MS and Sony is the beneficiary. I won't go so far to say that they did it TO protect Sony, but that's the consequence nonetheless.

I still think MS should end-run it by saying no ABK on Cloud in the UK. It's .000001% of gaming right now and by the time it matters everyone at the CMA that made this decision will be retired.

 

[tuna]

I'm always baffled by anybody in the 20s, but more so for people in their 30s and 40s, who genuinely doubt the pace of technological progression. I mean, in the last four years we've gone from raytracing being some offline-only technique in modern games to, sure just ramp that setting up because hardware does that in realtime as pretty insane quality.

But the speed of electrons and photons, nor the quantity that can be sent over a cable? Nope. Sci-fi dreams.

Right now I have 2.5 times the internet bandwidth I had in 2000. Some things have not really changed that much.

 

[mr magoo]

I'm always baffled by anybody in the 20s, but more so for people in their 30s and 40s, who genuinely doubt the pace of technological progression. I mean, in the last four years we've gone from raytracing being some offline-only technique in modern games to, sure just ramp that setting up because hardware does that in realtime as pretty insane quality.

But the speed of electrons and photons, nor the quantity that can be sent over a cable? Nope. Sci-fi dreams.

I heard the same when stadia came out and here we are.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Right now I have 2.5 times the internet bandwidth I had in 2000. Some things have not really changed that much.

I am in an area of London where I could not get anybody better than copper-DSL (~20Mpbs) with no other tangible cable options.Then Three rolled out 5G nearby, which is absolutely f***ing ridiculous. Lower latencies and vastly higher bandwidth.

Until BT deliver fire to the premises, which is supposedly coming this year, 5G has been an absolutely revelation for me.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I heard the same when stadia came out and here we are.

Does what Stadia have to do with latency and bandwidth? Stadia, like many failed content solutions, was an unappealing content service with no USP to drive people to subscribe.

Once companies seriously start competing - which is the environment the CMA want to nurture - and let you rent remote hardware to run your software, including running your Steam library games, then you will see appealing cloud offerings. You can rent cloud hardware to run pretty much any software, where you can run and configure your software just as you could when running locally, except for videogames.

If you want something that doesn't exist, the way you get there is through enabling competition. Because if companies A, B and C don't find something profitable, other companies will. Carving that profit niche out if how Netflix got to be as large as they have.