For a country that wants to be the ‘Silicon Valley’ of Europe, this isn’t a good look.
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Who knew that Kotick wasn’t BS ing. like he said, silicon valley?. more like death valley for UK.
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Of course he was not. If you look at the growth projections of countries by IMF for the next 5 years. UK is in the bottom of the list. Almost all the world is showcasing negative growth barring India and China.
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Ironic considering they did Brexit lol.
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Not sure if CMA can even connect the dots how this can affect UK in the future. Also, if they block, they will be the only regulator (plus FTC) to do so. Being in ‘sync’ with the EU is what gives the confidence.
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I don’t think Brexit entirely has a negative effect on whether tech companies want to do business in the UK.
Apple want to open up a hub in London.
It’s all these politicians and regulatory bodies that will scare investment away with their “let’s punish tech agenda”.
This just negates any benefits from doing business in a post Brexit Britain.
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Even without Brexit the result would have been the same. The thing is Covid and War back to back has devastated the global economy
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Honestly this type of thing may be bigger than some realize in keeping the CMA from doing anything really stupid here, and it likely provides a much clearer path to possible appeal/overrule if they did decide to go stupid.
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“What Happened: A new report says Sony’s attempts to block a Microsoft subpoena to gain access to the company’s documents have not been entirely successful. As a result, Sony may be forced to reveal how much it pays to keep games off the Xbox Game Pass.”
“FTC Chief Administrative Judge D. Michael Chappell sided with Microsoft in the request, according to Kotaku.”
“The request from Microsoft centers on details of exclusivity agreements that Sony’s PlayStation gaming console has. Microsoft has accused Sony of paying “blocking rights” to keep some content off of the Xbox Game Pass.”
“The nature and extent of SIE’s (Sony Interactive Entertainment) content-licensing agreements are relevant to the Complaint’s allegations of exclusivity arrangements between video game console developers and video game developers and publishers,” Judge Chappell said.
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Brexit has been disastrous for the UK and frankly this deal would be done without it as EU are far more amenable to behavioural remedies. The CMA are still a hurdle inspite of the optimism. I wouldn’t assume they will fall behind the EU. They should. But I wouldn’t bet they will.
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This would honestly be the ultimate irony if the deal goes through and instead Sony gets unwanted attention as to potential abuse of their market position.
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“The software giant’s 10-year pledge to retain access to Call of Duty to Microsoft’s platform competitors, most notably Sony’s PlayStation, will likely form the basis of the remedy proposal that Microsoft intends to make to the EC, said one of the sources.”
“Microsoft has been engaged in remedy discussions with the EC, parallel to the agency’s market investigation, over the past several months, the first source said. The EC allows parties to formally submit remedies up until day 65 of its Phase II probe.”
“Microsoft will have until 2 March to submit remedies, although it still has the option to add 10 working days to the calendar, which would push the EC’s deadline to 16 March, according to a second source familiar with the transaction.”
“In December, Microsoft President Brad Smith said that it would offer equal access to Call of Duty to Sony, Nintendo [TYO: 7974] and Valve’s Steam for a period of 10 years. The ten-year pledge would mean parity on content, features, quality, playability as well as on pricing, said Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Rima Alaily in a statement.”
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Sony is being really hypocritical in their attempt to get this deal blocked. Also I don’t believe the bollocks about them losing so much money with this deal that they would be unable to invest in their own first party games.
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I don’t think anyone with more than a few brain cells believes them. 
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Lol I hope so.
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Well, there’s always the CMA… 
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FTSE 100 is like the Jurassic Park of stock markets, hardly any tech-companies in there, mainly energy and mining companies. To be fair, its not a true indicator of the UK since most of the companies in that index aren’t UK based.
But, even tech companies which have been created here aren’t doing well (see DarkTrace and Deliveroo). Our Government’s semi-conductor industry plans have been ‘coming soon’ for 2+ years now while the EU and US are offering all kinds of funding to companies to move there, so ARM won’t be the last UK tech-company to list in the US instead of the UK.
We sanctioned ourselves and our economy - even Russia is projected to beat our economy. Brexit was a foolish decision driven by ideology instead of reality, and sadly, Britain will feel the repercussions for decades to come.
On the bright side, we make the best Fish and Chips! 
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