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

[SeanR]

And EA gave the dreamcast a pretty wide birth… which lead in part to its failure.

 

oh. my. god…

 

all this has happened before, and will happen again.

[Stanley]

25 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

 

I'd imagine the PlayStation's life's blood is the percentage cut they take from every game sold and games such as COD/FIFA/GTA are probably far bigger console sale drivers than we would think, and that leads to further games bought and a better attachment rate. Sony would not be disputing this move if it wasn't going to fuck them to a degree. 

 

 

Drives subscriptions too. COD is the perfect game, sells a tonne every year and requires a sub. I can’t think of any other game that does this, apart from sports games. So it would make it very hard for Sony to remain competitive on that title. 

[Kryptonian]

49 minutes ago, squirtle said:

Well... It's not like there was a Microsoft console to put them on at the time...

Wow. I used to have a brain back then too.

edit:

 

Yep, predated the xbox console by 2 years. I feel my flimsy observation still might be interesting but I fear I’ve lost a lot of credibility now  

[MidWalian]

There's a new document up on the FTC website regarding what information Microsoft wants from Sony. It's a lot. Stolen the summary below from ResetERA:

 

Quote

Sony gets 7 more days to serve the subpoena from MS, but this time it wasn’t completely agreed by Microsoft (the judge granted it).

New, and it sounds like final, deadline is February 10th.

We have more info about what MS is requesting:

- 45 distinct document requests, 13 of which have multiple subparts, for a total of more than 120 separate document requests.

- These requests demand all documents related to nearly all aspects of SIE's business, as well as extensive sets of sales, financial, and personal user data (e.g., user date of birth, user country, user gender, covering what will likely be millions of users).

- Ten of these requests seek materials going back more than 11 years to January 2012.

- Sony estimates that providing the response to MS will cost approximately $2 million or more in fees and expenses and demand weeks of intense work and substantial efforts and involvement of SIE personnel.

- MS is requesting all documents related to performance reviews and evaluations of all Sony gaming leadership or management, all documents relating to SIE's gaming business sent to, received from, or exchanged with other Sony entities, and executed copies of every content licensing agreement SIE has entered into with any third-party publisher over the past 11 years, among others.

- Sony is not happy with the unrealistically short deadlines and irrelevant requests from MS.

- In any case, Sony anticipates that this will be its last request for an extension to the motion to quash deadline and that they will either reach final agreement or narrow any impasse by February 10, 2023. Microsoft disagrees with the relief requested in this motion.
 

 

[MidWalian]

Pfft, the UK is already death valley thanks Bobby!

 

[phillv85]

We’ll never become the Silicon Valley of Europe because our competition commission makes any company that might look like it may actually compete with American companies sell chunks of itself every time it gets close.

 

And I don’t see this merger/buyout creating jobs either Bobby….. that’s not how mergers/buyouts usually work.

[Clipper]

good lord how badly must this deal be going if they have to wheel out Bobby Kotick to defend it?

 

 

[teddymeow]

1 hour ago, Clipper said:

good lord how badly must this deal be going if they have to wheel out Bobby Kotick to defend it?

 

 

 

It's almost as if he risks not getting a massive payout if the deal fails to go through...🤔

[Alex W.]

Bobby K is a Demon Lord anyway, surely he’d like Death Valley.

 

[Flanders]

Actually starting to think this deal might not go through now. Microsoft have gone about things in a very misguided way - as I said before they should not have bought Bethesda if they wanted to do this, and they should absolutely not have made any Bethesda games exclusive before the ABK deal closed. 
 

They also seem to have underestimated how much of a tempting target this deal is to regulators looking to send a message to big tech. It’s massive in transaction size but there’s no political risk to any of the big three regulators in blocking this, it’s not like the deal will preserve thousands of jobs or create thousands of new ones, so no politician is really going to go to bat for it. 

[MidWalian]

Remove the COD?

 

[rgraves]

It's just totally odd how this thing is getting caught up on CoD - the current #1 selling console WW does NOT HAVE CoD at all, so how it can be argued it's so essential to success and market position that Sony need protecting is totally beyond me.

 

Maybe that's the angle we're all missing - if this goes through then Switch gets CoD as well and they think that's where the monopoly suddenly comes from 

[Alex W.]

1 minute ago, rgraves said:

It's just totally odd how this thing is getting caught up on CoD - the current #1 selling console WW does NOT HAVE CoD, so how it can be argued it's so essential to success and market position that Sony need protecting is totally beyond me.

Because Nintendo didn’t previously have CoD. If McDonalds got the exclusive rights to beef, Burger King would be upset but KFC wouldn’t.

[Uzi]

24 minutes ago, MidWalian said:

Remove the COD?

 

Lololol

 

From a selfish point of view I want this for more free games on gamepass but this is fucking hilarious 

 

Going to set off the thread Lulus! 

[rgraves]

11 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Because Nintendo didn’t previously have CoD. If McDonalds got the exclusive rights to beef, Burger King would be upset but KFC wouldn’t.

 

 

So having CoD is not essential to success in the market, and MS have been very clear they are not about to make it exclusive anyway - they've gone the other way and commited to more platforms.

 

This feel like protecting Sony more than competition - and the cloud stuff is just bonkers and nothing Activivision has is going to swing the pendulum decisively on that in any shape or form.

 

MS should back away and sign a $30bn CoD exclusivity contract with Acti for the next 15 years of content. Or call their bluff - strip CoD out and then say the deal needs to go from $69bn to $69m as a result. Pick up a raft of IP cheap.

[Giddas]

5 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

 

So having CoD is not essential to success in the market, and MS have been very clear they are not about to make it exclusive anyway - they've gone the other way and commited to more platforms.

 

This feel like protecting Sony more than competition - and the cloud stuff is just bonkers and nothing Activivision has is going to swing the pendulum decisively on that in any shape or form.

 

MS should back away and sign a $30bn CoD exclusivity contract with Acti for the next 15 years of content.

 

"MS have been very clear they are not about to make it exclusive anyway", hmm didn't they offer up the 10 year thing after getting a sniff approval might not sail through or were they just feeling friendly?

I'd imagine if it does go ahead they will half-arse CoD for non-MS platforms for the duration anyway.

[Uncle Mike]

The proposed remedies are amazing.

 

Allow it to go through, but then divest the Call of Duty portions

Allow it to go through, but then divest all of Activision

Allow it to go through, but then divest all of Activision and Blizzard

Block it.

 

and MS apparently don't want to be held to maintain COD parity by the regulator:

Quote

The regulator states that Microsoft has informed it of its commitments to keep Call of Duty on rival platforms such as PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, and says it would potentially consider this kind of remedy, but that it would prefer a structural solution such as removing Activision from the deal altogether as it requires less ongoing enforcement.

 

[Alex W.]

7 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

 

So having CoD is not essential to success in the market,

Yes, but it is essential to Sony’s market offering today, and competition issues are dealt with in the real world and not perfectly abstracted hypotheticals.

 

I’m not sure what the Nintendo argument is supposed to say. Nintendo was already squeezed out of the “standard console” market by MS and Sony. If Microsoft squeezes Sony out of that same market then I guess Sony and Nintendo have to fight over that sector? Which doesn’t sound like it would lead to a very large and varied market at all?

[rgraves]

From a MS pov, where's the value in agreeing to a 'you must release on this platform forever' deal - there has to be a time limit. I mean Acti could just stop now, theya re not currently tied to 'forever' so it would be madness to expect MS to agree to that. In that sense, them saying "we'll just take everything else and leave CoD behind" does seem cleaner. They could then always sign an exlcusive marketing deal on the CoD side as well anyway - here's £20bn, put it on GP day one thanks.

[rgraves]

7 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Yes, but it is essential to Sony’s market offering today,

I think that's where I disagree. I think it's important but I don't think it's essential. If MS had exclusive CoD tomorrow, I don't think Sony would suddenly drop out of the market or even drop behind them still. CMA's own data says 76% of players would stay with them right? I think they'd still be #1, but they'd be being pushed a lot harder...

[Uzi]

[MW_Jimmy]

Microsoft argued COD isn't that big of a franchise, so removing them from the deal should be fine, right. Should be all plain sailing from here!

 

It's blatantly obvious that there are only a handful of franchises that can truly shift consoles and online subscriptions - and Call of Duty is one of those. And there should be impetus for MS to compete in the FPS space with their massive amount of FPS IPs they currently have.

[Uzi]

Nintendo should just divest mario and zelda, they'll be fine! 

[carlospie]

I can't wait to play god of war and uncharted on my series X to tonight. 

[Alex W.]

22 minutes ago, rgraves said:

I think that's where I disagree. I think it's important but I don't think it's essential. If MS had exclusive CoD tomorrow, I don't think Sony would suddenly drop out of the market or even drop behind them still. CMA's own data says 76% of players would stay with them right? I think they'd still be #1, but they'd be being pushed a lot harder...

Right, we can argue on the degree of importance and whether losing 24% on this one game alone in ten years would be a big deal, which is the whole reason there’s a CMA investigation in to it. While I don’t see that it’s a foregone conclusion that merger = bad, it is pretty obvious to my why it’s large enough of an issue for the market to merit scrutiny.

[deerokus]

I guess I don't understand why a competition regulator is more concerned with making sure the market leader doesn't lose customers. Isn't that the opposite of their role?

[Uzi]

5 minutes ago, deerokus said:

I guess I don't understand why a competition regulator is more concerned with making sure the market leader doesn't lose customers. Isn't that the opposite of their role?

Their role is maintain competition not to protect companies (they aren't fan bois like us!!!). The market leader is clearly not dominant enough that this move would keep the market competitive

[layten]

This is all going to end up with something hilarious like CoD on Game Pass everywhere but the UK.  

[K]

One of the issues is that Microsoft as a whole absolutely dwarf Sony, but Sony is still ahead in the games market. What organisations like the CMA don't like to see is large firms like Microsoft using the power and the resources of the rest of the company to gain market share in one sector. They want the companies to compete with one another - i.e. for Microsoft to lure Sony customers over through the quality, price and availability of their service, rather than through buying up a hugely popular service provider and being in a position to deny access or charge preferential terms.

[Transient Curse]

TBH, I have been hoping that the deal won't go through for selfish reasons. 

 

If Microsoft are up for buying franchises to bung on Gamepass, I'd rather they looked elsewhere since COD isn't one I particularly care about.  

 

Good news if this is off, IMO.