Discussion NOA Vice President Steve Singer will testify on behalf of Nintendo for the FTC's lawsuit against the Microsoft-ABK merger

[Johna X]

Nintendo ordered to testify before FTC in Microsoft-Activision Merger case

FTC law judge orders Nintendo executive who negotiated the 10-year Call of Duty deal with Microsoft to testify in FTC's Activision merger lawsuit.

www.tweaktown.com

FTC Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell has denied Nintendo of America's motion to quash a subpoena for testimony, and ruled that Nintendo executive Steve Singer must testify before the FTC's Complaint Counsel in the agency's lawsuit against the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Steve Singer serves as Nintendo of America's vice president of publisher and developer relations, and had directly negotiated the terms of the 10-year Call of Duty licensing deal with Microsoft and Activision on the behalf of Nintendo.

The original report was a few weeks ago but now it's clear the denial failed and their will be a testimony... unless maybe Microsoft pulls out before then but that's looking unlikely. This is from a few days ago but seems to have mostly gone under the radar for now.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

I want to know all the juicy details about the CoD deal.

 

[Mango]

God this deal is still going on?

 

[Johna X]

God this deal is still going on?

It's a limping corpse at this point, this testify motion is from before the big CMA news. Before yesterday I'd say said testify-ing won't happen since the CMA has killed it in theory but based on Phil's interview yesterday it seems the (now inevitable imo) "Microsoft withdrawing buyout of ABK" headlines are a ways off, so they're gonna try to somehow win in the end anyway with the legal fights in the mean time still occuring

 

[Hailinel]

It's a limping corpse at this point, this testify motion is from before the big CMA news. Before yesterday I'd say said testify-ing won't happen since the CMA has killed it in theory but based on Phil's interview yesterday it seems the (now inevitable imo) "Microsoft withdrawing buyout of ABK" headlines are a ways off, so they're gonna try to somehow win in the end anyway with the legal fights in the mean time still occuring

Yeah, assuming that no other bodies reject it (and there's no guarantee that the European Commission won't, for example), it would still be contingent on the CMA appeal succeeding, which is no sure thing.

 

[Johna X]

Yeah, assuming that no other bodies reject it (and there's no guarantee that the European Commission, for example), it would still be contingent on the CMA appeal succeeding, which is no sure thing.

I mean I feel like the FTC questioning would happen before an appeal finishes, I just feel like they shouldn't even bother with that cause even if I was a big Microsoft fan who wanted the deal to succeed (I'm not necessarily though a few things, and I don't) I think it's just basically impossible for it to go through now

 

[meatbag]

God this deal is still going on?

Barring a couple of legal miracles, it's as good as dead, but the US FTC is a different agency from the UK CMA, and everyone still has to sort out the relevant court proceedings.

I want to know all the juicy details about the CoD deal.

Yup, it will be very enlightening.

I mean I feel like the FTC questioning would happen before an appeal finishes, I just feel like they shouldn't even bother with that cause even if I was a big Microsoft fan who wanted the deal to succeed (I'm not necessarily though a few things, and I don't) I think it's just basically impossible for it to go through now

MS has to fight for the appeal because CMA's ruling will affect way more than the ABK acquisition. And even if they walked away now they'd still have to pay 3 billion to Activision.

 

[Johna X]

Barring a couple of legal miracles, it's as good as dead, but the US FTC is a different agency from the UK CMA, and everyone still has to sort out the relevant court proceedings.


Yup, it will be very enlightening.


MS has to fight for the appeal because CMA's ruling will affect way more than the ABK acquisition. And even if they walked away now they'd still have to pay 3 billion to Activision.

Aren't they gonna have to pay more then 3 bil if they don't pull by July or something like that? Idk I feel like I've tripled my knowledge of how buyouts work legally over the last year and still know less then 50% of the actual process

But I recall hearing there's some July deadline thing

 

[meatbag]

Aren't they gonna have to pay more then 3 bil if they don't pull by July or something like that?

You're correct, I should amend my statement and say MS will have to pay at least 3 billion. Come July MS and ABK will have to draw up a new agreement for the purchase, and given how CoD and other ABK IPs have been established as highly important industry inputs during these proceedings, Activision is bound to ask for a higher price.

 

[Johna X]

You're correct, I should amend my statement and say MS will have to pay at least 3 billion. Come July MS and ABK will have to draw up a new agreement for the purchase, and given how CoD and other ABK IPs have been established as highly important industry inputs during these proceedings, Activision is bound to ask for a higher price.

Well with that wouldn't it make sense to pull out before then seeing as the writing is on the wall?

 

[meatbag]

Well with that wouldn't it make sense to pull out before then seeing as the writing is on the wall?

No, because MS has a duty to exhaust all avenues to push the deal through. If they stop now, ABK could sue them for bailing out of their contract.

Furthermore, as I've mentioned before, CMA's ruling will have repercussions beyond the acquisition. It will effectively hinder MS' development efforts in general.

 

[Mekanos]

Gonna be hilarious when this ends with MS having wasted billions in paying out to Activision as well as all the money wasted on an appeal and other avenues and they have nothing to show for Xbox in the end. Just years of flailing and trying to make things stick, and for what?

All this because Bill Gates thought the PS2 would threaten MS's PC business back in 1999.

 

[Johna X]

Gonna be hilarious when this ends with MS having wasted billions in paying out to Activision as well as all the money wasted on an appeal and other avenues and they have nothing to show for Xbox in the end. Just years of flailing and trying to make things stick, and for what?

All this because Bill Gates thought the PS2 would threaten MS's PC business back in 1999.

I mean the idea of Nintendo vs Sony being it concerns me, not only cause of less competition but both are able to compete in seperate niches if needed (like rn to an extent) so an explicit sony challenger is good (wish nintendo had one as well but they at least feel less too big to fail like at least they've had notable flops, meanwhile even PS3 recovered a lot), so I'm glad Gates did that.

 

[Hailinel]

Gonna be hilarious when this ends with MS having wasted billions in paying out to Activision as well as all the money wasted on an appeal and other avenues and they have nothing to show for Xbox in the end. Just years of flailing and trying to make things stick, and for what?

All this because Bill Gates thought the PS2 would threaten MS's PC business back in 1999.

Elsewhere, I said Phil sounded like he's fitting himself for a golden parachute in that interview. You don't ask for $70 billion to be earmarked for a merger if you're not certain it'll succeed, so the end could be drawing near for him.

 

[Johna X]

Elsewhere, I said Phil sounded like he's fitting himself for a golden parachute in that interview. You don't ask for $70 billion to be earmarked for a merger if you're not certain it'll succeed, so the end could be drawing near for him.

I mean his presumed succesor (Sarah Bond) liked a tweet about how thinking he's leaving soon is silly, but i don't know who decides succesor in company politics, like if Phil wanted Bond to takeover does she just do it or is there a lot more chicanery involved?

 

[Hailinel]

I mean his presumed succesor (Sarah Bond) liked a tweet about how thinking he's leaving soon is silly, but i don't know who decides succesor in company politics, like if Phil wanted Bond to takeover does she just do it or is there a lot more chicanery involved?

I'm not even thinking about his potential successor. He spent years overseeing acquisitions to turn Microsoft's Xbox fortunes around. And now, just as the most expensive tech industry merger in history is on the verge of failure, Phil is going on a podcast and saying, straight up, that Xbox will never escape third place in the console market and all the quality software in the world won't change that.

 

[Hermii]

Elsewhere, I said Phil sounded like he's fitting himself for a golden parachute in that interview. You don't ask for $70 billion to be earmarked for a merger if you're not certain it'll succeed, so the end could be drawing near for him.

Was any higher up NVIDIA person fired when the arm merger failed?

 

[Hailinel]

Was any higher up NVIDIA person fired when the arm merger failed?

I don't know. Certainly, though, no executive involved in that deal is as public a face as Phil is as head of Xbox. And certainly no Nvidia executive came onto a podcast to offer a wide-ranging mea culpa.

 

[Terrell]

Make no mistake, ABK will extend the terms of the deal to permit the full length of the appeals process. They've got just as much invested in this passing as MS does.