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

Silent_Buddha said:
Unlike some countries consumer benefit/harm is the most important thing to look at with regards to any deal going through.
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I do not have time looking through the video for the comment that you refer to, but this is from the UK CMA website

We work to promote competition for the benefit of consumers, both within and outside the UK. We have staff in London, Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff, Manchester and Darlington.
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www.gov.uk

About us

We help people, businesses and the UK economy by promoting competitive markets and tackling unfair behaviour.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk

I find it interesting that all the blustering in the news and the shots traded in the public spaces are what people actually think is the key points. The news highlights certain bits that will bring readers in, NO MORE COD for SONY!. MS PROMISES MORE COD for SONY etc.

While we really have no clue what the actual arguments are in the filings, unless I missed reports on that vs what each commercial entity is doing in the press. Are the filings public?

Its really interesting looking at the arguments for this merger, very few people on here are against it. Just a couple that belive that the current government M&A reviews are not due to being Anti-MS, but something that happens with larger deals that might impact the market in a negativ way for consumers. While others are "This is anti America, Anti MS etc" At least that is my read.
 
Silent_Buddha said:
That second is the other important thing. The only thing that truly matters in the US about whether a court would find a deal is illegal and thus can be blocked is if it can be proved that said deal would actually be harmful to consumers. NOTE - it does not matter if it is harmful to a rival corporation if it is not harmful to consumers.
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This is only the consideration for the UK CMA and EU as well. The assessment is entirely about wether the changes to the market - which includes the ability of other companies to compete - will result in reduced competition, which defacto bad for consumers except in a highly fragmented markets.

But I think I'm passed posting factual accounts of the process here. It's clear that most don't care. Let's just all convince everbody of a nonsensical international conspiracy against Microsoft for.. reasons. :-?

JPT said:
I find it interesting that all the blustering in the news and the shots traded in the public spaces are what people actually think is the key points. The news highlights certain bits that will bring readers in, NO MORE COD for SONY!. MS PROMISES MORE COD for SONY etc.
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Microsoft have done a really good job keeping the comms about Sony and Call of Duty. It doesn't matter what regulators say at this point, people who just aren't interested in the truth will just lap up their corporate PR.
 
stu11 said:
I guess Call of Duty : Finest Hour (released in 2004) and Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (released in 1005) don't count then? Both were released on PS2/Gamecube/Xbox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Finest_Hour
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Still fits into what I was saying about the first game in 2003 so do whatever you want with the dates. It's still less than 20 years. So 10 years would be more than half the franchises current life span.
 
JPT said:
I do not have time looking through the video for the comment that you refer to, but this is from the UK CMA website


www.gov.uk

About us

We help people, businesses and the UK economy by promoting competitive markets and tackling unfair behaviour.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk

I find it interesting that all the blustering in the news and the shots traded in the public spaces are what people actually think is the key points. The news highlights certain bits that will bring readers in, NO MORE COD for SONY!. MS PROMISES MORE COD for SONY etc.

While we really have no clue what the actual arguments are in the filings, unless I missed reports on that vs what each commercial entity is doing in the press. Are the filings public?

Its really interesting looking at the arguments for this merger, very few people on here are against it. Just a couple that belive that the current government M&A reviews are not due to being Anti-MS, but something that happens with larger deals that might impact the market in a negativ way for consumers. While others are "This is anti America, Anti MS etc" At least that is my read.
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The issue is the brief that the CMA put out. Outside looking in Nintendo and Sony control the market place. PS4 sold about a 120m units and Switch has sold a 120m and counting. Xbox one is at 60-70m. MS has had 3 completed generations. One they sold 25m , one they sold almost 90m and one they sold almost 70m. Sony has sold 120m , 150m+ , 90m and 118m . Sony's sales have been extremely consistent across all generations even after MS entered the market. There is no evidence that Sony not having access to Activision / Blizzard games would cause any significant market changes. Nintendo doesn't have access to them and is selling as much as Sony. It also makes little sense that Sony is able to continue to buy up studios to create exclusive games for them. The market leader is the one that should be having issues purchasing more companies and removing content from other platforms

Then there is the cloud streaming BS. Sony bought into the market 10 years ago and has done jack all in it. But now we have to worry about protecting the market for them? Makes little sense that they were able to buy 2 streaming companies and can continue to buy more and more developers to prop up their streaming services. That's before we even factor in that unlike MS , sony has multiple streaming properties that are popular and successfull. They have crunchy roll , they have funimation , they have a tv streaming package , they own about 30% of the music industry and so on and so forth.

The CMA isn't consistent. For console gamers its important to have multiple companies competition in that space. It would terrible for console gamers if MS exited the market and just stayed a pc publisher. We already see sony increasing prices on hardware and games as they get a more dominate market postion. The playstation 5 has increased from launch price in many markets. At the same time looking at the cloud market there are a lot of cloud streaming services out there and is healthier in terms of competition than the console space.

You also have issues where people involved with the CMA are tweeting out things like my playstation and you get a conflict of interest.
 
eastmen said:
The issue is the brief that the CMA put out. "snip"
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These are your grievances with the market today, unless somebody is clearly a monopoly there is nothing the regulators can do. And since we have the current trifecta, it seems there is no monopoly.
This is about consumers having choice, what is being evaluated is wether there will be detrimental less choice in the future if this goes through and/or create a monopoly.

From wikipedia
As of March 2018, it was the largest game company in the Americas and Europe in terms of revenue and market capitalization.
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This means that there is a chance of changing the market to much, now if it was Saudia Arabia that bought it, nobody would blink an eye. Because we would all assume that they would try to get their games on all the platforms going forward to.

All the regulators are looking at it, across the board, it's not USA vs world, its just normal business. And the process is ongoing, nobody knows if it will be yes or no. But most likely it will be yes, but not on the timeline some people in here want to have it.

Something think its not fair and its not how i should be, sure why not, but these are the rules that have been codified and must be followed.
 
JPT said:
These are your grievances with the market today, unless somebody is clearly a monopoly there is nothing the regulators can do. And since we have the current trifecta, it seems there is no monopoly.
This is about consumers having choice, what is being evaluated is wether there will be detrimental less choice in the future if this goes through and/or create a monopoly.

From wikipedia


This means that there is a chance of changing the market to much, now if it was Saudia Arabia that bought it, nobody would blink an eye. Because we would all assume that they would try to get their games on all the platforms going forward to.

All the regulators are looking at it, across the board, it's not USA vs world, its just normal business. And the process is ongoing, nobody knows if it will be yes or no. But most likely it will be yes, but not on the timeline some people in here want to have it.

Something think its not fair and its not how i should be, sure why not, but these are the rules that have been codified and must be followed.
Click to expand...

What is from the wikipedia ?

MS has a very small part of the gaming market. They have almost no mobile foot print , they are third in the console market and they are small in the pc sector.

what do you mean the market changing to fast ? What would cause the market to change ? MS has now offered up to a 10 year deal to keep cod on the playstation.

What are the rules that are codified ? Where are they ? Because nothing in the briefing sounds like its codified. It jumps all over the place in its own logic. Did you read it ?
 
Dr. Nick said:
www.forbes.com

Why Sony Is Never Going To Take Any ‘Call Of Duty’ Deal Xbox Offers

A short while after Microsoft said they were open to a longer term contract with Sony to ensure, in writing, that Call of Duty would continue appearing on the platform for a long time, we now know exactly just how long Microsoft ...
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
https://twitter.com/x/status/1595065666201161728
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Yea I have said this before. Unless MS has something crazy in these deals its going to back fire on sony if the deal goes through. MS can simply say hey we offered them a standard 3 year contract and when went above and beyond and offered them a 10 year contract. If the deal goes through Sony may not have a contract and will loose COD
 
eastmen said:
Yea I have said this before. Unless MS has something crazy in these deals its going to back fire on sony if the deal goes through.
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I can see Sony getting a less-than-desirable outcome on Call of Duty (and other games) but it's not just about Sony and call of Duty is it. I'll keep posting this for the people in denial..

The UK CMA sought evidence from Microsoft's direct competitors, with the key named ones being Amazon, Apple, EA, Epic, Facebook, Google Netflix, Nintendo, Nvidia, Sony, Twitch, Ubisoft, Utomik and Valve and (quoting CMA's report) "Most competitors raised concerns regarding (i) Microsoft making ABK games exclusive to its own platform; and/or (ii) degrading the quality of ABK games on other platforms; and/or potential self-preferencing behaviour by Microsoft.".

The biggest non-Microsoft gaming stores/platforms are operated by Apple, Epic, Nintendo, Sony and Valve. Most of these raised concerns. Call of Duty isn't on most of these stores which tells you it's not just about Call of Duty.
 
Sony "MS can't buy acitvision , call of duty makes us too much money ! " MS " here is a ten year contract " Sony " but but "

This is laughable. Sony could have bought Activision but decided to buy other studios. Sony could have had a huge advantage in cloud gaming since they bought the biggest company in it 10 years ago but they didn't. Sony's lack of action is not Microsofts fault.

"Similarly, highly successful gaming platforms like Nintendo and Steam have prospered without access to Call of Duty. Nintendo’s console business is highly successful, without a single version of Call of Duty being available to play on its latest console, the Nintendo Switch. A further example of a platform that has succeeded without Call of Duty is Steam, which is the largest digital storefront, with a [40-50]% share of PC game digital sales in the UK. Steam has not carried any newly released Activision games for the last three years following Activision’s commercial decision to only sell its PC games on Battle.net. This has not affected Steam’s leading position"

Good point right here
 
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BRiT said:
Did they really try to claim LinkedIn is a gaming community? 🤣

View attachment 7590
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Did you mis-read the paragraph? It says that Microsoft is downplaying its existing assets which could be leveraged in the future. This is the crux of the EU pre-assessment, that is the risk that Microsoft may leverage business units including those not currently involved in games. LinkedIn is Microsoft's biggest cross-platform community of individuals.

Microsoft desperately wants to build a gaming community platform, that is why it bought Mixer and why it was pursuing the acquisition of Discord. Phil Spencer talks about community a lot, and Sony's comment cites (the superscript 51) a NYT interview with Phil Spencer, who talks about this very thing. :-?

But sure.. it's Sony being crazy. :nope:
 
Both documents are CMA versions of Microsoft and Sony documents with redactions. If look at the files, the CMA Microsoft document you can see it was compressed, whereas the CMA Sony document was not. If you compress it, it's then much smaller than the CMA Microsoft document.

I am not denying that the document may also include secret messages from Sony to the Illuminati, providing thanks from for the arranging the international conspiracy. :yep2:

edit: also - which I didn't spot earlier - almost the entirety of the CMA Sony document is graphics, rather than text. I.e text rendered graphically. A weird output choice, but perhaps made because of the amount of specific redactions. It's not the way I would have done it, but the CMA don't pay enough for me to work there. :nope:
 
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cheapchips said:
111 pages! Just give me the saucy Sony vs MS headlines! 😉
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I personally love this

"Steam has launched a new console without Call of Duty: The Steam experience is also directly relevant to console, as Steam has recently launched a new console, the Steam Deck, without Call of Duty. The Steam Deck is a handheld console which has a docking station that allows it to be plugged into a television or used as a PC. 141 The console runs on a Linux-based operating system and allows gamers to access Windows PC games through the Steam digital storefront. In the words of Valve, “[t]he Proton translation layer allows most Windows games to run with equal or better performance on Steam OS without requiring game developers to do any heavy porting work to get their games running”.142 This means that there are thousands of games available to play on the Steam Deck – and as explained above this does not currently include Call of Duty. Valve has promoted the Steam Deck using a range of other popular titles (including a number of Sony first-party titles) – see Figure 32 below. 133 Steam, “Steam – 2021 Year in Review”, 08.03.2022 (link available here). 134 []. 135 See, e.g., []. 136 See, e.g., []. 137 See []. 138 []. 139 []. 140 []; see also []. 141 Steam Deck website (link available here). 142 Valve, “Steam Deck Booklet”, 25.08.2022, page 16 (link available here). 39 WEIL:\98901777\1\99910.H419 Figure 32: Games used to promote the new Valve Steam Deck143 3.41 Indeed, the Phase 1 Decision in general overlooks the vast array of gaming?
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imagine that a brand new console in the market that doesn't run windows or xbox os but still has access to windows games even though its running Linux which is a competitor of MS. MS actually worked with Valve to put xcloud on the device.
 
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