fiendcode
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Sony felt it was important enough to mislead regulators. Meanwhile actually losing Elder Scrolls and Doom entirely didn't even come up on their radar.
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News The UK regulator CMA has provisionally approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard
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ItWasMeantToBe19
Manakete
Ubisoft would have synergized much better with a console manufacturer by allowing Microsoft to feasibly make Assassin's Creed etc exclusive without regulatory hurdles and as much opportunity cost. Ubisoft's dev studios also synergize well with Microsoft's IPs. Todd has hinted that Fallout 5 won't release until 2038 (by hinting that they're making two games before Fallout 5 and since games take 5 years to make now...), which is a catastrophe for Microsoft. Ubisoft's teams could have been adapted to make Fallout 5 instead. No Blizzard studio has experience with that type of game. Ubisoft also was begging to be bought.
Much more investment in machine learning is obviously much more beneficial to Microsoft.
Buying Twitter to leverage it for promotional purposes and giving Microsoft a strong foothold in social media (and tons of near exclusive social media data to use for other businesses and machine learning) could have been very interesting as well.
Anyway, this company has 35k branches. Buying a company that doesn't synergize at all for $70B just seems like a huge mistake.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Manakete
I feel Sony is largely concerned about Microsoft gaining the right to eventually make Call of Duty exclusive in a hyper predatory pricing scheme in the future.
As again, this deal makes zero sense for Microsoft unless that's the actual plan. The mobile game store they proposed is one of the worst ideas from a major tech company in a long time and the mobile game store is their justification for the purchase.
fiendcode
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lmao, you think a twitter buy wouldn't have hit an immediate regulatory standstill!? That would've failed faster than Nvidia/ARM, I can't imagine an acquisition MS could attempt that that would've sent watchdogs into a heavier panic.
Ubisoft wouldn't face any regulatory scrutiny but would be a logistical nightmare, they're even larger by staff count than Activision Blizzard. And their valuation's collapsed in the past year as they've struggled in the market, they're only worth about as much as Sega now.
Both these would've been far poorer potential acquisitions than ABK.
From trial evidence we know Sony wasn't worried about losing access to any degree, their fear was purely losing marketing rights and exclusive MTX/benefits arising with that. They basically lied to regulators and FTC even had the evidence from executive emails.
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I'll put it in Dragon Ball Z terms for fun.
Bethesda was like the Saiyan Saga. Diehards live by it and it's crucial for setting the tempo.
ABK was like the Namek/Frieza Sagas. Extremely drawn out and tedious, but definitely worth it in the end.
What's Next? The Cell Saga aka The Sega Saga. Everyone's on board. Things get crazy. Goku (Phil Spencer) steps to the side to let Gohan (Sarah Bond) realize their potential and get it done.
when I say everyone's on board, I mean that no one will be too outraged because Microsoft's Sega proposal plan that leaked over summer during the FTC trial stated that if they bought Sega they would allow them to remain a multi platform publisher much like how when Sony bought Bungie.
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You know, I like it. On the other hand, I hope Nadella stops Phil before his Cell saga and the chaos it would bring.
BowserIsMyFather
Moblin
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I still can't remember playing a single Activision game in the last 25 years.
Ah well, at least Sony gets 10 years to establish the CoD Killer IP™.
Tee hee.
Ah well, at least Sony gets 10 years to establish the CoD Killer IP™.
Tee hee.
wakko
Cappy
What's wrong with that argument? The Xbox business has been (mostly) unprofitable for Microsoft for many decades. In terms of global marketshare, it is no secret that Europe is PlayStation territory and Nintendo has been dominating Japan.
As long as Xbox remains in third place (behind Sony and Nintendo), it'll be difficult to prove that any acquisitions are anti-competitive or monopolistic.
Microsoft's profits and influence in other sectors are irrelevant. We've seen many examples where large corporations (Google, Amazon) have made failed attempts at breaking into the game industry. See Google Stadia as a recent example of this.
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N 2 Deep
Moblin
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Pls no
I do think in 2 generations Nintendo will be more platform agnostic tho (likely for titles from Wii U era and prior, think Virtual Console for all platforms 2012 and earlier)
blue2425
Bob-omb
TLDR; The FTC/CMA did nothing but posture and waste taxpayer's money.
The CMA did the opposite. In the scneario the CMA feared where MS would dominate a large Cloud Market, the CMA has created a potential market-dominant Ticketmaster situation. Under the EU regulations, MS is compelled to liscense COD to multiple cloud service companies, some of them small, like Ubitus. Because MS has do to this under EU regulations, they are mostly likely going to charge a fee Ubitus can afford, which in turn will most likely be a similar small fee charged to any other cloud service in the EU. Under the CMA deal, Ubisoft is under no obligation to charge a low price for licensing COD and the most likely scenario is only major cloud players like MS, Nvidia and Amazon will ever pay Ubisoft for the licensing. The smaller cloud companies will be out of luck and will struggle to compete if COD is as important as the FTC/CMA would lead you to believe.
The funny or sad thing is, the EU regulations were so well done that it was extremely likely that MS would implement the EU requirements on a global scale and in turn provide a competitive future in a cloud gaming growth environment. It would be difficult to charge Nvdia one price for EU operations and one price for outside of EU operations. But the CMA's non-sensical "concession" neutered that, now that Ubisoft will have control of pricing outside of the EU. There is a reason that the EU was concerned about the new CMA deal and is mulling whether they should rereview thier concessions. They probaly won't since as a whole the EU will still be fine, but its undeniable that the CMA hurt the good that the EU did.
From everything I have seen from court documents, things like putting COD on Nintendo/PS and etc was something MS intended to do day one. The only concessions MS made was the ones the EU regulators made MS do. In the CMA's percieved cloud future the EU regulations are the most effective ones, not the CMA. If your not in the EU, as a consumer in the Cloud Dominant timeline you got screwed over by the CMA.
Fortunately, the CMA's scenario is very unlikely to occur given that cloud is most likely not the future and MS via the leaks have dropped Xcloud investing to a nominal amount. All the CMA concessions does is allow the CMA to pat themselves on the back and try to spin this like they did something and pretend the CAT wasn't going to tear them a new one much like the US courts did to the FTC.
JazzPotatoes
Koopa
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Under the terms of the EU agreement, MS can license games to cloud providers for consumers who already bought a license to those games.
Again, a fee to play a game over the cloud today you already paid for.
The Ubisoft deal is fundamentally different: it covers being able to stream a game via subscription without first necessarily having to buy the game first.
This is a fundamentally different proposition for consumers, and one which allows licensing arrangements to exist entirely separate from Microsoft's storefront: they still have to negotiate to be able to offer those games for subscription streaming, same as anyone else.
You keep conflating streaming a game you have already bought a license for, and subscription -based streaming.
Nvidia can still charge whatever they want to allow gamers to play games they own over GeForce Now. Ubisoft is able to negotiate entirely separate deals with platforms like Luna to allow gamers to pay a subscription and play these games as well
This is demonstrably not true, given the CMA asked for additional concessions, and got them.
No you didn't. This is a continued conflation of different cloud proposals and platforms, as opposed to recognizing the simple fact that the CMA concessions address subscription cloud gaming in a way the EC concessions did not.
As Internet speeds continue to get faster and faster, and latencies get smaller and smaller, cloud gaming is absolutely going to take off as a platform. GeForce Now already shows you can have zero discernible difference between native gaming and cloud gaming. Once Internet speeds regularly reach the hundreds of megabits per second, spending hundreds of dollars to have a gaming box sit under the TV is going to have the same value proposition as a blu ray player or cd player.
The CAT does not tear the CMA a new one: it has the ability to send cases back to the CMA for additional review. But this has barely ever been done at all, because by and large the CMA are very good at their job.
blue2425
Bob-omb
Yes, you are right I may be conflating what the EU is doing. I am going to have to sit and reread through both the CMA and EU later, as I am still skeptical the EU would express the potential need for a review if the impact of the CMA's decisions was neglible on theirs. Nevertheless, assuming its not an issue I still see it from the perspective of the one thing I agreed with FTC with regards to these concessions, in that its just picking the Winners and Losers. I only see Ubisoft, MS, and MAYBE Luna as benefitting form this. In other words only 2-3 major players would benefit from this. If any of the other smaller cloud companies or a new one wants to create a Sub service, they would still have to negotiate with Ubisoft and would be expected to pay a price similar to what MS and Luna would pay. I feel like there were better ways to go about it.
And yes, cloud gaming is growing, that is undeniable. I am saying that the CMA's belief that cloud gaming will be very dominant in the near future AND that COD is an IP that essential for most cloud gaming services is an unlikely scenario.
In regards to the CAT, yes the CAT would send it back, but the CMA would have to make a decision based on what the CAT reccommends. What we know from the first meeting (typing off top of my head so hope Im not messing timelines and info up) is that the CMA didn't have the experts they needed and claimed they needed more time to gather thier witnesses and wanted to delay the CAT trial until much later. The CMA were denied this by the CAT. At that point in time it did not look like they had any interest in any type of deal with MS. There was also concerns that the CMA calculations for MS cloud dominance potential were incorrect, much like how they were incorrect with thier console calculations. After that first CAT meeting the CMA sent for another extension of time request and was denied by the CAT. So, from my persepctive, the CMA wanting more time to get more staff, more time for witnesses, potential incorrect cloud calculations, and MS own documents showing they have dropped thier Xcloud investing, does not look like it would have fared well for the CMA if they went before the CAT in a timely manner. If the CAT, kicked it back indicating to reevaluate the merger with correct math, if the math didn't support thier position of divesture, then the CMA would have to dropped the issue. The CMA can't completely ignore the CAT and can not come to a conclusion without documentaton, this is shown very clearly when the CMA dropped the console side because the math didn't support them. So yea, I do think they would have been torn a new one and why the Ubisoft deal seemed to come not long after the first CAT meeting. I believe if the CMA was confident in thier original position, they would have stuck with it through the CAT and not negotiated with MS.
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