Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard for $69 Billion, NICE! Possibly Completes 2022-07 to 2023-06

I wonder if it is possible to close the deal by September.

 

In my opinion, the best thing that can happen because of this deal is that I don't have to wait forever for the console release of Diablo 4, as MS tends to have games released simultaneously on Xbox and PC.

 

Why September in particular?

 

Microsoft has their new Xbox launcher software on the pc and its really good and they continue to improve it. That will be microsofts play now. They have talent from Bethesda with their launcher and now Blizzard with theirs. They will fix any issues with the xbox launcher and combine that with game pass a lot of users will start to migrate over.

If the deal for Activision completes before cod launches this year you could have a 2022 that shapes up like this

Scorn , Stalker 2 , Redfall , Ark 2 , Forza Motorsport , Starfield , warhammer , COD and who knows what else gets announced for this year . That is a lot of value for $10 a month on pc or $120 a year if you go game pass vs just buying one or two of those titles for $60 each on steam. You also get access to all the other titles on the platform.

There will be a lot of changes over the next few years

 

Why not? Faster is better.

 

FTC is reviewing it so god only knows

 

Were it not for the new head of the FTC assuming her position the day of this announcement.... I read that previous mergers of this size take about 8-9 months to get approval. So it could happen late this year. Though I think MS stated it expects the deal to close 1st quarter 2023.

 

I don't think the FTC is really going to do anything. Microsoft will be third in gaming. Cloud gaming as sugested in another thread puts them even further behind since Netflix has created their gaming label and is going to be releasing games on their platform of like 250M users world wide. Even with Call of Duty becoming exclusive there are still other really large multiplatform shooters , Battlefield , Fortnight and apex come to mind

 

You might want to read her NPR interview. Lina Khan dislikes big tech companies and has views that they should not get larger. She is a strong proponent of breaking up existing big tech companies, which was a view strongly expressed into the report on Amazon which she co-authored. Amazon tried to get her removed from further involvement in their investigation given previously expressed views.

 

Except it has nothing to do with Microsoft. The crux of the matter and what she is pursuing in relation to Amazon (as well in Apple) is that they undermine competitors that use their platform. In general big tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon are scrutinized because they all own big consumer markets that they leverage for their own benefits. (Google Play, App Store, Amazon Marketplace and Facebook who is a bad actor in general). Microsoft has nothing of it.

On their own platform their browser is not important and they cannot leverage it against Chrome for example, even among stores on their own platform - Steam is much bigger and so on. There could be arguments regarding enterprise markets but if MS undermined competition by making Slack running slower than Teams, then they would have some trouble. But just bundling it with Office is not a problem, and enterprise markets is a completely different beast where the concerns about privacy are on entirely different level.

People always ask why Microsoft is not the list with the big tech giants and the answer is because they have neither a platform that they leverage against the competition (they did with Windows in 90s but not anymore) nor they have huge consumer data collection.

 

Are you sure? My uncle on facebook was just telling me not to upgrade to windows 10 or 11 because they track everything you do on there.
Yes, I'm kidding.... Or am I? #WeAllKnowThatGuy

 

I've been told that since windows 3.1 work groups.

I've also been told that they put microphones in tvs since I was a kid in the 80s

 

I have a friend. She is deeply religious and afraid of QR codes, government spying on you and so on. Yet asking me about when ID2020 will be finally introduced

 

ID2020 ? Not sure what that is.

But people hold weird beliefs all the time and seem to never like to be challenged .

 

ID2020 is something aking a global digital passport.
https://id2020.org/

 

https://www.nintendolife.com/featur...jagLpWa0h2eyuSs3eQGFrmd09VyqzcnProxRDiUdB8fMo

 

One could argue that outside of the Xbox 360 generation this is exactly what was happening. The first xbox sold roughly 25m units and the third xbox sold what 60m .

If anything the last few purchases by MS have a chance to bring the 3 console makers closer together in market share. After all the switch is going to surpass 120m units easily and the ps4 will do over that also since I think its at 117. So obviously its not a healthy market when third place is sitting at half the units or less than first and second place. If you discount the switch as a handheld then the market is even more unhealthy.

It will be best for consumers when all 3 players are at roughly equal market shares. It will be even better than that if a fourth or fifth enter the market and they all get roughly similar market shares.

 

Home console market is pretty dilluted though. We have mobile, PC and home console segments and across that layout we have companies with and without consoles that weild huge market shares. Then we have emerging (again) handheld market that is also dilluted between PC, mobile and so on.

 

What's the thinking here? Why does it matter to me as a consumer if Sony sell more PS5s than Microsoft sell Xbox Series, or vise-versa.

 

Ahh the old "you know, competition actually isn't good". Saw this a lot on ERA.

If you dont like competition then how can you have antitrust issue with MS acquiring Activision?