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Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard (UPDATE: CMA says NO!).

MidWalian

By MidWalian
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Stanley

Stanley

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, rgraves said:

 

I'm not saying they fought hard for it, or see it as even slightly essential to them in the way that Sony want authorities to believe - I'm just saying now they don't have CoD, but if MS win they do. If Nintendo have a preference either way in this, surely it's going to be the way that a) brings them more popular content to their platform(s) and b) puts one over on their old rival. They did not sign and agree to the public annoucement of that CoD deal for no reason. They effectively nailed their colours to the mast with that.

 

Or, alternatively - what good would the deal being blocked do for Nintendo? Going through they get content. Being blocked they get nothing.

 

They won't lose sleep over it either way, but if asked the question I'd say they'd vote allow (because saying anything other now would make the deal they just signed look a little odd - "you don't want it, but you just signed an agreement with one of the parties involved in it regarding the content produced by the other")

You make a good point, I’d personally be happy to see COD on the Switch even though I’m not a player, but not a streaming version, that would suck. 
 

Did I imagine it or was there talk of the single player COD4 Modern Warfare and its sequel coming over to Switch, like a few years ago? 

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Sarlaccfood

Sarlaccfood

Posted
Posted
24 minutes ago, layten said:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-ot-antitrust-simulator-update-ec-responds-to-ftcs-case-against-actiblizz-ms.633344/page-234#post-97883719


Cheers.

 

Reading that thread a bit, it’s so weird watching people cheer on a merger/acquisition and getting angry with the FTC for trying to stop it. I don’t think that’s ever happened before?
 

Maybe the Disney/Fox one but that just sailed through with no issue iirc.

 

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MidWalian

MidWalian

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Posted
55 minutes ago, Sarlaccfood said:

Sorry I really don’t want to use Twitter. 
 

Any chance of a quick summary on what you’re both linking to?

 

A journalist for Axios and a lawyer points out that the EC response to an unknown question in an article which got Resetera excited doesn't actually contradict what the FTC have said.

 

Not sure if there will be any more developments in all of this until early next year. 

 

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Giddas

Giddas

Posted
Posted
34 minutes ago, Sarlaccfood said:


Cheers.

 

Reading that thread a bit, it’s so weird watching people cheer on a merger/acquisition and getting angry with the FTC for trying to stop it. I don’t think that’s ever happened before?
 

Maybe the Disney/Fox one but that just sailed through with no issue iirc.

 


A lot of people want a load of AAA games on game pass presumably. I’d like to see load more indie stuff on there, spend your 60bn on that Microsoft.

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Gabe

Gabe

Posted
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52 minutes ago, Giddas said:


A lot of people want a load of AAA games on game pass presumably. I’d like to see load more indie stuff on there, spend your 60bn on that Microsoft.

I mean they're doing both, aren't they? There hasn't been a particular shortage of indies - I'd say they've probably carried the service for a while.

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RubberJohnny

RubberJohnny

Posted
Posted

Who are you talking about, I don’t see anyone hoping that in here? If they do think that they haven’t been paying attention because in addition to the multiplatform agreement CoD has some “no game pass” agreement with Sony lasting a number of years.

 

We’ve got people trying to puzzle out the confusing logic of the regulators, but that’s not remotely the same thing.

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rgraves

rgraves

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, SMD said:

regardless of what you think of actiblizz, this is bad for the market overall and gamers wanting it to happen for gamepass reasons are incredibly short sighted

 
What? I Support it as I think it’ll open up more content to more people. I think Sony have spent a long time locking CoD stuff behind marketing agreements and it’s better for that not to happen.

 

Im supporting it as I think this will lead to CoD on PS/XBox/Switch being relatively level. I support it as I think MS will be less shitty to work for than Acti currently are.

 

 There are plenty of reasons to support this that aren’t just ‘I want this on GP’ - although to be honest it IS massively shitty of Sony to tie people into contracts that aren’t about content on their own platform but are about simply denying content for people on others IMO.

 

If anything, it’s short sighted to believe that losing CoD as a semi-PS exclusive will somehow massively alter the state of the market. It won’t.

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Gabe

Gabe

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, SMD said:

regardless of what you think of actiblizz, this is bad for the market overall and gamers wanting it to happen for gamepass reasons are incredibly short sighted

The viewpoints on this are worthy of discussion, definitely.

 

On the one hand you have people saying ActiBlizz are just a cod and diablo factory now, so those properties going single platform (at some point) don't represent a massive loss in terms of the breadth of gaming. Others say CoD is dying anyway, so what does it matter? And Warzone would presumably always stay available to all. 

 

Then you have MS making some noises about wanting the plethora of IP that Acti are doing nothing with - so that's a good thing, right? Plus stuff on Game Pass, yay, how can that be bad?

 

The counter-argument is that hiving stuff off that was previously available to all is bad, more because of the precedents it sets than perhaps this deal in isolation, and that a consolidation of the market players - especially by platform holders is not good for consumers.

 

I tend to slide more towards that latter view, though I do see some merit in the former.

 

Exclusivity of third-party stuff sucks enough as it is, without more devs being hoovered-up by Sony/MS and making that worse.

 

Whether or not this deal in isolation leads to less competition is an interesting question though, especially with the guarantees MS are willing to agree to. Bungie are probably the only other premier maker of FPS titles, yet there wasn't much noise about that deal really. Does that not reduce competition? (I appreciate there is a question of scale here, but at the same time drilling down into the detail is perhaps more useful.) 

 

It'll be interesting to see how this develops, and at what point MS feel the concessions they have to make outweigh the benefits.

 

 

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Gabe

Gabe

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, footle said:

There's also the bit where they just get bought by Tencent or Saudi Arabia if this doesn't happen. I'm not sure that's better.

Well, quite - there are some other players that could look to pick them or EA or ubisoft etc up - consolidation will continue, I guess it's what flavour is more palatable at this stage.

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SMD

SMD

Posted
Posted

consolidation is bad regardless of who is doing it, it's not about whether i prefer microsoft or sony. right now people see microsoft as being better than sony but ten years ago that was flipped. you can't rely on individuals determining how things will be when the system will always tend to businesses making the shittiest decisions for consumers and workers

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Gabe

Gabe

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, SMD said:

consolidation is bad regardless of who is doing it, it's not about whether i prefer microsoft or sony. right now people see microsoft as being better than sony but ten years ago that was flipped. you can't rely on individuals determining how things will be when the system will always tend to businesses making the shittiest decisions for consumers and workers

Yes, I already said consolidation was bad in my first post, and it is. But there's nothing we can do to stop it, and the CMA or FTC will only get involved in certain cases - look at Tencent or that other company I forget that now has a stupid amount of studios.

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stir fry

stir fry

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, moosegrinder said:

Resetera is just fucking weird at the best of times.

After a while you just sort of dodge certain threads on there cause they inevitably descend into shit-flinging and a graveyard of banned accounts

 

The community focused 'OT's are decent though. Also the era thread on this merger is pretty well informed from the contributions of some of the posters and they are actually trying to crackdown on the fanboy brain discourse a bit. Still annoying to read through sometimes tho

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JPL

JPL

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, SMD said:

the resetera thread linked a few posts up

I can imagine there’s another group of people cheering on all Sony’s acquisitions and exclusivity deals.

 

I’ve said this for years and I still stand by it, I wish games were all a standard format and we could just buy whichever console we liked best to play them on. Yes, I know it’s not really feasible, due to companies innovating in slightly different ways through each generation to give their console a USP, but I’d forgo that if it saw an end to all this daft posturing by these companies.

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