D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
I agree. It's astonishing that Activision-Blizzard would sign contracts that screw-over a valuable strategic partner like Microsoft.
What has the world come to.
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
What has the world come to.
it was an agreement until 2023. After this acquisition Sony are airing their dirty laundry.
Like I said they will try and avoid it. They wont be spinning up new studios and will when given an opportunity move out studios and jobs. Like I said they just laid off a 1,000 people. When covid hit they shuttered all the stores taking huge losses in the hundreds of millions. So I doubt that MS will care about moving studios
Plus UK is their 2nd biggest markt
I'm going to have to hard disagree here. M&A happen all the time to improve the status and competitiveness of companies. The regulators are not there to stop whether the market leaders are harmed. They are only involved to ensure that the M&A does not cause monopolistic end to competition.
CMA will have to prove that this M&A will reduce competition (ie result in the foreclosure of competition) in the console, cloud and other game streaming services like EA Access and Ubisoft+ as well as PSNow and Geforce Now.
If you click on the CMA website itself: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/competition-and-markets-authority/about
Competition that works for everyone
Competition is good for consumers and businesses. It means that people get better products at lower prices, and it helps ensure the most consumer-focused and innovative businesses are the ones that succeed.video
Our responsibilities
We work to ensure that consumers get a good deal when buying goods and services, and businesses operate within the law.We do this in a number of ways:
- we investigate mergers between organisations, to make sure they don’t reduce competition
- we investigate entire markets if we think there are competition or consumer problems
- we take action against businesses and individuals that take part in cartels or anti-competitive behaviour
- we protect consumers from unfair trading practices
- we encourage government and other regulators to use competition effectively on behalf of consumers
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Just to correct this slightly. There is no strict burden of proof required, i.e. this is not akin to a court of law with a concept of reasonable doubt but they operate under a published multi-department framework. The CMA's role in this particular case (some of which your quoted) is assessing the impact of acquisitions to determine "possible harm" (a standard consideration by CMA and the EU) and "reduced competition". This are the assessments that the CMA is mandated to do using a framework designed to implement the established legislation.
You could argue that any acquisition is reduction of competition but it would be ludicrous to reject all acquisitions so there will be an assessment process and probably an underlying risk management policy or criteria - this is common for any risk-based assessment process in UK Government. That will be followed and a decision made at the appropriate seniority, and it will be positions that are very senior that are also asking a lot of questions.
All UK Government decisions are appealable, through administrative processes or judicial review. Believe me - having been through the latter a number of times - no department or body will take such a decision lightly if there is a high risk of legal challenge and the decision being overturned. This kind of thing undermines trust in the Government, although right now...
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
In many ways this is a classic case (at least in the US) of a smaller market player being investigated for potentially monopolistic behavior despite them being a smaller market player. IE - not being a monopoly or dominant market player doesn't prevent you from being investigated for potentially monopolistic behavior. In this case, potentially future behavior WRT this acquisition.
The hope is that if this acquisition, which would help a smaller market player compete more effectively against the dominant market player, is denied or approved with "conditions" then the reasons for that denial or the "conditions" for that approval will then in the future also apply equally to the larger market player.
IE - if MS were to be prohibited from creating exclusive content for COD as a "condition" of acquisition, then in the future Sony should also have to operate under those conditions with any future acquisition. Likewise if MS not developing Starfield or Avowed for PlayStation (both new IPs, one of which was announced after they were acquired) is a potentially claimed reason for denial, then any future acquisition for Sony should also be potentially denied due to new IP developed by previously acquired companies not being developed for competing platforms.
If any restrictions, conditions, or reasons for denial aren't also applied in the future to the dominant market player (Sony) then the whole thing is a farce, IMO and only serves to help protect the dominant market player at the expense of competition and the consumer.
Regards,
SB
The hope is that if this acquisition, which would help a smaller market player compete more effectively against the dominant market player, is denied or approved with "conditions" then the reasons for that denial or the "conditions" for that approval will then in the future also apply equally to the larger market player.
IE - if MS were to be prohibited from creating exclusive content for COD as a "condition" of acquisition, then in the future Sony should also have to operate under those conditions with any future acquisition. Likewise if MS not developing Starfield or Avowed for PlayStation (both new IPs, one of which was announced after they were acquired) is a potentially claimed reason for denial, then any future acquisition for Sony should also be potentially denied due to new IP developed by previously acquired companies not being developed for competing platforms.
If any restrictions, conditions, or reasons for denial aren't also applied in the future to the dominant market player (Sony) then the whole thing is a farce, IMO and only serves to help protect the dominant market player at the expense of competition and the consumer.
Regards,
SB
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Pretty much. Microsoft may be smaller in market times, but in terms of their resources and other business they can use to extend their reach and influence, Microsoft far exceed those of their present immediate competitors. The dissonance that Microsoft have kind of created for themselves is, that one hand they often refer to their place in the market relative to Sony (i.e. being smaller), but on the other hand Microsoft often refer to them bring gaming to mobile devices which is a vastly bigger market than Sony.
Microsoft's public pitch is essentially "hey we're a bit smaller than Sony right now, and that's unfair but if you let us acquire Activision-Blizzard, we can grow to have a market that is 8x to 10x the size of Sony's biggest ever market and competition is good".
The difference between Sony and Microsoft right now - and this may only be a matter of timing - is that Microsoft have acquired studios who used to produce a lot of IP on multiple console platforms, and since Microsoft's acquisition, no IP announced produced by those acquired studios is appearing on anything other than Xbox consoles. Sony have mostly been picking up teams that don't create their own games, or teams like Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Sucker Punch who were mostly Sony console exclusive for years to begin with.
What Bungie does after Destiny 2 will be the real test and Sony's commitment to have 'Bungie remain a multiplatform studio, with the option "to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play."'
The timing is unfortunate for Microsoft, but releasing Starfield on PlayStation may have reduced the heat a little. They could have played this smarter.
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Anti-Monopoly regulators are Sony Fan-boys confirmed.
Well the people who make up the groups are just people and can be fan people of anything. When I worked for Gamestop the fire marshal would always tell us how our alarm company was crap because of the smoke detectors they used and how gamestop would be better off with this other companies stuff. It was super annoying cause of course I had no power to change any of that stuff (i actually think it was the mall locations that controlled it)
I have no idea why you are bringing the argument of how great competition is, when regulators are seeing MS actions as potentially harming competition and it seems very likely thats the case
Cynicalking
Regular
So, you agree with every decision regulators make?
So do you disagree with any decision regulators make?
Cynicalking
Regular
Some I do, some I don't. I question and analyze them, I sure as hell won't use "because they said so" as an argument of a good decision they made.
Based on my observations and the arguments here I agree with the regulators
Cynicalking
Regular
Awesome. Maybe use that instead of dismissing anyone that doesn't?
I dismiss anyone I consider has no good arguments against the regulators concerns. If that doesnt feel good for you, then be it.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Me too. It is worth remembering that the CMA, EU and FTC have not yet made final decisions. The FTC and CMA have undertaken an initial assessment of the acquisition, and both have taken the process to a second higher-scrutiny stage. The EU is expected to announce their first stage conclusion in the 2nd week of November, but based on what has been disclosed, it is also expected to go to stage two of their process. The EU are asking the exact same questions as the UK CMA:
Reuters said:
Microsoft want people to believe this is only Sony complaining about Call of Duty. It's not, it's much wider and considers the acquisition impact to PC and cloud sectors as we ll. What is odd is there is not reported application by Microsoft to Chinese regulators, which means that they probably have not begun this yet. It's unclear why.
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They are just saying no and then Tencent will swoop in
Foreign Comptition Agencies Must Play by the Rules
International competition regulators must play by the rules they've agreed to.
www.uschamber.com
...
On appeal, the Competition Appeal Tribunal found that the CMA had violated Meta’s procedural rights. The CMA improperly redacted material and failed to disclose that Meta’s competitor, Snap, had turned down a chance to buy GIPHY and considered its ad business worthless. In other words, Facebook’s competitor saw no competitive problems with Facebook’s acquisition, a pertinent fact that the CMA should have disclosed. Nevertheless, Meta ultimately abandoned the deal after the CMA issued a final decision against the company.
Of course, the process failures beg the question of whether foreign regulators should review purely American mergers at all. Facebook’s transaction involved American companies, employees, and shareholders, with an established American legal framework to address any competitive concerns. GIPHY earned no revenue in the U.K and had no physical presence or employees there. This is a growing problem as the European Commission has intervened in Illumina’s proposed purchase of Grail, a biotech company, even though Grail had no activities in Europe. In this case, it appears that the Europe collaborated with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in ways that denied the companies their day in court.
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