yea I thought so. It is really odd that the UK would allow sony to continue purchasing third parties when they are the market leader and try and block MS when they are in third place. All it does is reinforce sony's market share.
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
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What? Are we, or the CMA supposed to have some sort of insight into the motivations of every decision regarding any game that was once released on multiple platforms? How is that even quantifiable, and has that ever been applied to any merger ever? Is there an example of it happening in the past?
For example, was the CMA ever concerned with any company Adobe purchased when the new products released by that company were only available from Adobe? And if so, how did the CMA determine the motivation of Adobe to be a "bad faith" decision?
Metal_Spirit
Regular
I find it really sad to see newspaper like Forbes publishing such an atrocity. As if Sony is in any position to make demands.
Sony’s List Of ‘Demands’ For Microsoft Owning ‘Call Of Duty’ Is Ridiculous
No one is fighting back harder against Microsoft’s pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard than Sony, and this week, it seems they have possibly swayed UK regulators to their side.www.forbes.com
Sony’s List Of ‘Demands’ For Microsoft Owning ‘Call Of Duty’ Is Ridiculous
No one is fighting back harder against Microsoft’s pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard than Sony, and this week, it seems they have possibly swayed UK regulators to their side.
This resulted in the release of a lengthy document from the UK’s CMA regulatory body, including a number of eye-popping passages that stand out if you read through the sprawling 76 page report.
One thing that caught my eye was Sony’s cautionary tale about the “dangers” of Microsoft controlling Call of Duty for consumers, which reads like a list of demands of things that Microsoft shouldn’t be allowed to do if they take possession of the franchise. Among them:
Microsoft and Sony stated their cases. CMA decides what they find relevant on their presentations and make their judgement.
So those are not Sony's demands. Those are the CMA data compilation of possible concerns and things that, because of claims, they believe require further analysis.
Funny enough I never saw any statement from Forbes claiming that the regulators that approved the merger were obeying Microsoft's demands.
But as I said before. It's funny to see how all of a sudden everyone's a regulator.
Besides, let's look at the points on the article. They are three:
1 - Microsoft would be able to give the Xbox version of Call of Duty extra content.
This is not uncommon, even now. Exclusive content on COD is a fact, and as such there is a possibility that this can be kept on the future. With a multiplatform game exclusivity is available to the highest bidder. With Activision under Microsoft's wings keeping the exclusivity to themselves would not be anything out of the ordinary.
2 - Microsoft could give the Xbox version of Call of Duty better performance somehow on Xbox hardware.
Look at Psychonauts 2, now owned by Microsoft. Released on both Xbox and PS. It was released with support for Xbox one and Xbox series. But only for PS4 on Playstation.
3 - Microsoft could offer a range of attractive incentives about Call of Duty through Xbox Game Pass, whether that’s bonus features or modes or presumably, the idea that they’d offer the game itself through Game Pass, which they obviously plan to.
Why would anyone be surprised with this?
I really don't see anything ridiculous. And also don't see any demands, just a list of possibilities.
So, I find this article to be just a over exaggerated piece of journalism made by someone who is not able to just wait for the final rulling and wants to make a push on public opinion.
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Deleted member 11852
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The commercial aspect will be included as part of the existing agreement and the technical angle is not complicated. The principle would be as long as Sony's and Nintendo's future machines are technically competitive with future Xbox consoles - with an indepdanant arbitrator appointed to settle disputes, as is common in many agreements.
Microsoft could have been in the driving seat making sensible proposals, which if rejected by Sony just make Sony look unreasonable and puts Microsoft in a better position. The alternative is to have approval mitigations placed upon you by the regulator. However, the CMA report, says that Microsoft's internal documents contradict their public statements that Call of Duty isn't that relevant, and they contradict their public statements that it would not be commercially viable to drop Call of Duty on PlayStation. The coverage of the CMA report is becoming widespread, but some abridged highlighted parts:
CMA Report said:
As I've said before, Microsoft rushing to make Starfield and Elde Scrolls VI console exclusive has set regulator expectations going forward, with isn't helped when Microsoft's public statements on this acquisition conflict with their internal documentation that they must have known at the time they would have to disclose.
A further CMA report, with some limited disclosure (probably with some redactions) of supplied documentation, is likely to be published at the time of the final decision unless Microsoft can appease the UK regulator. This is not just about Microsoft and Sony of course, the full list of concerns cover what this might mean for more Microsoft content not appearing on other stores like Steam and Epic Games Store, or being included in other subscription or cloud services. Microsoft sell their PC (incl. Mac) games through all stores now, but that could change at any time - which may be when they feel they have enough studios to not need Steam of EGS, because customers will come the Microsoft Store - because they would have too.
Amazon created new studios. Microsoft's acquisition would mean less independent studios in the existing market. And not small studios, great behemoths of which many supported any and all platforms capable of running their games for decades. The less independent studios out there, the harder it is for any competitors who is not also a massive companies with tons to money to spend, to enter the market. Much of the report comes back to this. As I said above - this comes back t the theme of "big tech" just being too big.
My mistake, having checked the CMA were not required to approve this deal because Bungie have no UK presence. You can see the list of UK CMA investigations into Sony for either acquisitions or unfair practices here. As Bungie are based solely in the US, that would make the FTC the only regulator with a voice.
The FTC (and EU) are also taking their investigations of Microsoft acquiring Activision-Blizzard acquisition to the highest scrutiny levels. the EU will be interesting one to watch, because they will also release information about their process. But Xbox is a little less prevalent in the EU compared to the UK, which is important.
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They had all the time to do it since the OG XBOX and still have money to start off gradually. Games arent supposed to be released on one batch regardless. There are other talented studios out there too they could invest in instead of buying off Zenimax and ABK. These studios produce as we speak. They also already acquired exclusive deals with 3rd parties. Everything else about needing specifically those big studios that own these multiplatform franchises is just an excuse. It is obvious that this move was about owning significant existing multiplatform content away from competition
If MS is unable to do what Sony did with so many resources then their incompetence should be reflected in the market. Not "punish" competition and remove accessibility from consumers from many games unless they buy their platform because MS just sucks at it
Also there is a lot of contradiction by supporters of this move.
One one hand they are like:
"MS did well to make these multiplatform games exclusives. They need it because Sony is stealing exclusives (which they really aren't)"
And on the other they are like: "MS is good unlike Sony, and they wont really make these games exclusives".
They should decide what their argument is.
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But we're beyond that now right, those days are over, and few studios are made from scratch because of how complex studios are. If creating a studio from the ground up is such a viable strategy, then Sony wouldn't be closing some and acquiring others, it's just not a reasonable strategy anymore for players in this space. While it's true that MS had since the beginning to make these studios, MS is not nearly committed to gaming back then as they are now, both Gates and Balmer did not take gaming as seriously as Satya. You're seeing a very different Microsoft with a very different strategy and other players in the market are making moves as well, like any company they still want to get ahead. It's no different than Sony buying GaiKai, they've had forever, why didn't they make that from scratch but MS was able to?
We can point all sorts of fingers about the past, the reality is, each company has an easier time at doing things than others, and we're at a point in time in development where honestly AAA development is much too expensive, too labourous, too specialized, and quite frankly risky on return to grow things from scratch. The expectations for these games are way too high, perfect story, perfect game play, best visuals, best multiplayer, best open world, best online play, best connections etc. It's too much and too hard to do things from scratch. Acquiring the talent you need is the way that the big 3 will move if they need that talent.
To be fair, MS is also creating studios from scratch and building up a number of smaller studios into larger ones. Acquisitions for them is just more of what they want, and where they want to go.
It doesn't bother me that they grab COD because anyone paying attention to how all previous king of FPS games have died out, COD turn in the sun will not last forever. To that end, I'm not even sure it matters that COD goes exclusive for next gen, people may not care, like they no longer care for Battlefield, Halo, Gears, Quake, and Doom. Right now it's fortnite, apex legends, counterstrike, valorant, COD and Destiny. Something will cycle in and another will cycle out, OW2 is currently growing in size now that it's gone F2P and this will likely cause something else to cycle out. That's why I don't think this deal is as lucrative as people are making it out to be, ABK is shrinking as a publisher because they continue to pour all their resources into COD, and COD continues to shrink out of relevance. The FPS market is only so large and competition is heavy in that space.
As for why MP content is important, well, it's because MS sees MP content as the metaverse, and they want to build their version of the metaverse before the other silicon valley players get a hold of it. Which sounds as stupid as I write it, yet, it also seems to align with their strategy of appealing to this digital life/twin in the form of gaming. They own Minecraft, they may very well be interested in buying Roblox for the same reasons.
I can't tell you that it's a great for the industry, all I can say is that, acquisitions are the only thing that makes sense now, and if you're going to risk making a new studio for any purpose, those investments will be small until the formula is clear to proceed with additional investment.
Personally, of course I welcome MS taking over ABK. I don't care for COD personally, but if you're going to pay the largest price tag in merger history, you should want to get it all.
But at the same time, since MS has started making serious investments into games again, particularly the PC space, we're seeing a resurgence of types of games RTS, Flight Sims that largely died out when ABK decided the Blizzard IPs weren't worth supporting anymore because it didn't make as much as COD. I welcome a new MMO to replace WoW. I welcome new RTS games, as we've been waiting longer today for a new RTS game, then the distance between SC1 and SC2. There's been no new Warcraft either. There's very little happening at ABK because all their money is on COD. It's a single basket strategy that allows them to stay alive, but they have no game plan for when COD falls out of relevance, then what? How will ABK course correct with nothing else supporting them? It would die out and someone would have bought them out anyway, which is, imo, what you're seeing.
The reason why you're seeing such support for MS taking over ABK is because there is a very large and loud and disappointed PC population that doesn't exist on the console base that wants MS to take over Blizzard and bring it back to what made Blizzard great to begin with.
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Historically, though, every mainline Elder Scrolls game that's been released on a console has been an Xbox console exclusive for at least some time except Skyrim. Starfield is somethings else, and there's nothing mandating a new Bethesda IP can't be a console exclusive. In fact, they recently had 2 console exclusives released with Ghostwire Tokyo and DeathLoop.
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Deleted member 11852
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Daggerfall wasn't on console and I saw an old interview with Todd Howard where he said it was wasn't technically possible to bring Morrowind to PS2, which could be a reference to the lack of a HDD as standard. Oblivion was launched on Xbox before PS3's hardware was launched but was released on PS3 after the console's launch in Europe. Bethesda Game Studios have delivered release parity for both Fallout and Elder Scrolls ever since.
Starfield was announced as releasing on PS5, and would have been in development for PS5 for many years when Microsoft changed that. These types of decisions will be contributing towards regulators assessments.
Cynicalking
Regular
I don't remember Starfield ever announced for PS5. It was announced with a vague teaser with no platforms mentioned.
Of course there are reasons. But that doesn't change the fact that, historically, mainline Elder Scrolls games have been at least timed exclusives on Xbox more often than not. Much of the argument regarding COD is based on it's history of releasing on Playstation, right? They made COD games for Wii, Gamecube and DS but Nintendo isn't trying to use regulators to compel COD releases on Switch, much less trying to manifest favorable terms in some marketing agreement. Honestly, if the deal somehow doesn't go through, could Activision management be upset enough at Sony to either sign the next marketing deal with Microsoft or give them an exclusive COD game?
And Starfield... apparently there were talks of making it a PS5 exclusive like Ghostwire and Deathloop. The real question is, did Sony cancel those talks when the acquisition was announced, or did Bethesda? If it was Sony, how could they now use talks they canceled as evidence that MS was leveraging their ownership in an unfair way? But also, even if it was Bethesda, why would you want to enter an agreement with your parent companies rival? I just skimmed through the E3 reveals and trailers and I didn't see any PS5 confirmation. Which makes sense, because for a fair portion of it's development PS5 wasn't officially announced. And when it was announced, Bethesda had 2 games to promote that already had exclusivity deals.
Easy to snatch up exclusivity when you're the leader by a country mile; the contracts aren't proportionate. If you take the exclusivity deal you must pay for what would have been lost on the competing platform. With the way things are setup, Sony will always pay the lower price and have the bigger benefit from it, MS will have to pay for the loss of PS ecosystem and barely gain new customers from it. It's not like the publisher will charge Xbox and PS the same amount of cash for exclusivity.
This single differentiating point is largely what Sony uses to continue their market dominance, and MS response to this is acquiring what they can (as it helps build out their studio/gamepass/xcloud strategy as well) since have significantly less leverage on exclusivity and marketing with double the costs. Not to mention, if Tomb Raider was any example of what happens when they purchase said exclusivity rights, MS gets shitted on disproportionally more than Sony does for these types of moves. Destiny crowd on xbox had it really bad until they finally went f2p.
This single differentiating point is largely what Sony uses to continue their market dominance, and MS response to this is acquiring what they can (as it helps build out their studio/gamepass/xcloud strategy as well) since have significantly less leverage on exclusivity and marketing with double the costs. Not to mention, if Tomb Raider was any example of what happens when they purchase said exclusivity rights, MS gets shitted on disproportionally more than Sony does for these types of moves. Destiny crowd on xbox had it really bad until they finally went f2p.
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Deleted member 11852
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Sure, but I don't see why this is relevant? Is there a suggestion that regulators are taking a harsher view of Microsoft because Morrowind didn't launch of PS2? Or that Oblivion launched later on PS3 even though the console was still going through it's phased regional launch? I'm not seeing that at all. This is all in the past.
A lot of people are dwelling on things that happened over a decade ago, but the regulators - the CMA at least - are looking at much more recent events and what the recent decisions by Microsoft may mean for the future - including what these company's own disclosed internal documentation show as being their strategic trajectory. The CMA report highlights contradictions between what Microsoft have said publicly (Call of Duty not being that important, no change of dropping PlayStation as it made too much money) and what their internal position is based on disclosed internal documentation.
And - again - I cannot fathom how people how are only focussed on Microsoft and Sony. Reading the report, just a couple of dozen paragraphs look at the console situation. The entire report looks at how this could give Microsoft an unassailable competitive advantage in many of their market positions, including operating systems, hardware, services infrastructure, and commerce/ stores. The report looks at what the impact may be on people playing games on non-Microsoft platform, including macOS and linux and Nintendo. It looks at what may mean for anybody wanting to offer a subscription-based games services, or provide streaming services. What might this mean the the ability of PC gamers being able to buy games in the future, and the possible impact to Steam and Epic Games Store.
There are over 60 - sixty - considerations of how this acquisition by Microsoft, if approved, could empower foreclosure of competitors ability to compete in pretty much all of their rivals in every sector Microsoft operate, impacting Amazon, Apple, EA, Epic, Facebook, Google Netflix, Nintendo, Nvidia, Sony, Twitch, Ubisoft, Utomik, Valve. It even considers the implications of platforms like Chrome and Proton.
For anybody who think this whole process is happening only because Sony have been vocal and obected, you are wrong. Do and read the report and educate yourself. This is much bigger than Microsoft and Sony. A lot of companies will have input into this process and I doubt any were supporting this acquisition other than the two key parties.
That's the first I've ever read this. I assume there is a credible source for this? Let's not give internet rumours and
Don't know where you've been to not hear the vast rumors about Sony attempting to make a metric ton of Bethesda games as PS Exclusives including Starfield. What see colon is posting isn’t creating any rumors at all, but merely saying what has been out there already.
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Deleted member 11852
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I heard all people supporting democracy in the USA are actually lizard people but I'm disinclined to repeat it as I'm not wholly convinced on the veracity of the information.
It was a simple question, is there a credible source? The CMA, like any reputable regulator, is not going act on rumours and claims, they will demand evidence. Microsoft would have such evidence as they now own Bethesda, yet Microsoft have not made this claim to the CMA about Sony's bullshittery. So what does that suggest? Why wouldn't Microsoft release this type of information as it can only help their cause in convincing the regulator that Sony play dirty.
MS should shut up until phase 2 is completed otherwise regulatory can just fuck them up. I think they were bold to have said what they have said while the investigation is still on going. MS should have gone in knowing well in advance that they would be investigated for the largest merger in our history, I'm not sure what the value of their responses were however, I guess to get other regulators to not follow suit I dunno. But at this point in time, it will be in phase 2 investigation and that type of info would likely be clipped.
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Deleted member 11852
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It was not bold, it was stupid. It was stupid to say things publicly, knowing that you would have to disclose internal documents that showed what you were saying is not what you believed.
Microsoft look incompetent and they look like liars. You really do have to wonder if they do want one of the regulators to torpedo this deal. Why else would you do this? It doesn't make any sense.
Doing this after all of the damaging things that came out of the disclosures made during the Apple-Epic trial. Just WTF.It's too late to keep quiet, if they have dirt on Sony they may as well throw it on the fire. They literally have nothing to lose.
It was not bold, it was stupid. It was stupid to say things publicly, knowing that you would have to disclose internal documents that showed what you were saying is not what you believed.
Microsoft look incompetent and they look like liars. You really do have to wonder if they do want one of the regulators to torpedo this deal. Why else would you do this? It doesn't make any sense.
It's too late to keep quiet, if they have dirt on Sony they may as well throw it on the fire. They literally have nothing to lose.
What did MS lie about ?
They'll stick to their talk track. If they wanted to torpedo the deal they would just leave like nvidia did with arm. At this point in time with Stadia out, and they have the feedback from phase 1, they should be working to address everything written in there. This may all be grand standing for the public, but behind the scenes they are likely putting the things together to cross the line here. It would be ridiculous for MS to pull out now.It was not bold, it was stupid. It was stupid to say things publicly, knowing that you would have to disclose internal documents that showed what you were saying is not what you believed.
Microsoft look incompetent and they look like liars. You really do have to wonder if they do want one of the regulators to torpedo this deal. Why else would you do this? It doesn't make any sense.
It's too late to keep quiet, if they have dirt on Sony they may as well throw it on the fire. They literally have nothing to lose.
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