Foss ia going off right now in twitter
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If this kind of backward thinking can fly with the CAT, then I think the UK has some major problems to deal with regarding oversight, because what you’re saying is absolutely lunacy.
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One can clearly see that out of the big 3… Only Microsoft releases there games on the competing platform which is atleast visible on this chart
Both Sony and Nintendo release games on there platform only
Not talking about PC here
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You can just say they’re building a case off of bad-faith arguments… because that’s all it is, there’s no logic, there’s no due diligence from the data we’ve seen publicly. Shall I go on?
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LOL I completely agree, it is severly flawed and required some serious mental ginastic to get into this. I would like to believe that is not the case and in the end CMA will use logic as it is, you know logic. Otherwise I will believe the CMA is formed by 13 ys paiting with crayon on serious documents.
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Microsoft could harm competition in the market that the CMA made up.
If they put PlayStation out of business, who will compete with Xbox?
But one or two or even 4 publishers wouldn’t do that.
Realistically. If Microsoft wanted to foreclose PlayStation, they would need to buy and make -exclusive:
- Activision Blizzard
- Take Two Interactive
- EA
- Epic Games
- Ubisoft
- SEGA
- Capcom
- Bandai Namco
- Warner Bros Interactive
- Marvel Games
This is a very unlikely scenario. Microsoft shouldn’t even need to guarantee access to COD and are no where near being able to harm PlayStation.
If anything, PlayStation is harming themselves with their refusal to adapt.
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Worth a shot. MS should tell the CMA the Snozzwangers and Viscious Canids will eat their oompa loompa employees if the deal is blocked.
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I wonder if negative media coverage could play a role in getting the CMA to wake up. That said, the gaming media is next to nearly silent. They’re watching a circus and have nothing to say about it.
Legacy gaming media has been showing how useless they are.
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LOL the CMA oompa loompas working hard to stop the deal!
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I think their logical argument for competition lessening effects works in MANY cases. Because in a NORMAL case - massive company acquiring someone in a vertical obviously presents a potential competition issue downstream. For the very reason that supply of whatever is potentially lessened reducing the competitive position of other market players and with the ability to foreclose or increase the price it means that there is less chance for competition to regulate the market and keep prices down and protect consumers.
As a theory that works.
The PROBLEM here is that Microsoft are one of the largest companies in the world buying ABK and obviously applying that theory leads to a conclusion that they could foreclose or raise prices or reduce supply lessening competition. But the unusual scenario is that Sony are much smaller but the dominant market player and even more unusually Microsoft even with their huge resources are unable to simply ‘buy away’ Sony’s advantage. Which means that the way the CMA usually examines these sorts of deals falls apart. Because all the conditions they look for are there EXCEPT the fact that even if MS foreclosed, reduced supply or raised prices they wouldn’t lessen Sony’s ability to compete to an extent that would disadvantage consumers or create a distorted market. At least not in a foreseeable way. But this is where the problem lies. The CMA simply are struggling with their framework to rationalise this. Its pretty unusual I guess. Won’t be many industries or situations where the biggest company is way behind the market leader and able to pull off huge deals…mostly they will see the bigger players or market leaders do this…
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I mean, this whole process has been overly politicized & publicized. My brain cell count has taken quite a hit from reading documents & takes regarding this deal.
We should all strive for a fair & just system of enforcement, what we’re seeing is the opposite. No impartial regulatory body should resort to using misleading data to form an argument for or against a merger, it shows that the body can’t be trusted if their intent is to flub numbers to make their case against a deal. Shame on these people, they’re turning the regulatory process into a mockery.
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Indeed, however I still think we are dealing with legal stuff, there are principle that need to be followed and CMA, as some ppl try to imply, is not a supreme institution that is not ruled by anything that can simply come up with a new logic, like " for us T&T = F and that is it for today", because if so this is the path to obscurity and power abuse. There is arguing in bad faith as ppl pointed here, that is a serious thing and can be punished. Of course, we are living in crazy times, but I still believe CMA will be reasonable at the end, and if MS needs to appeal that the process will be judged by responsible ppl. Guess Im asking too much, given the craziness we are living in, LOL.
Just fyi, I don’t think any deal has being decided to the detriment of the merging parties when majority of the market participants favor the deal.
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I’d be amazed if it had tbh. The problem is the CMA think Sony IS the market…and nobody else seems to matter…
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The problem isn’t that the CMA thinks that Sony is the market, it’s that they made the choice to use Sony’s arguments as a crutch for blocking the deal and in doing so, they have to ignore all the obvious rebuttals as to why it’s complete nonsense. What we are seeing is a regulatory body going rogue and getting caught using misleading data to support their preemptive conclusion.
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I’m referring to the cloud aspect of Luna, but not the Luna subscription service as the CMA dropped any concerns on MGS. MS likely doesn’t even have to offer COD to PS+ now but are sticking with it since they offered well before the provisional findings came out
I think it’s the other way round. Sony parroted the usual CMA language to make their argument and the CMA found it easy to map onto their case.
This is going through…there is simply no logical way the CMA can argue against the deal, so the only alternative is blocking out of ideology which would be a disaster for the CMA who, according to Sarah Cardell, want to be a global leader in regulations. Yeah considering that the FTC is burning to the ground right now, good luck with that
I know there’s a myth going around that the CMA is some Godlike entity but the entire point of the CAT is that they can quash SLC concerns that are irrational, even if it goes back to the CMA…what happens when both the console and cloud, their 2 SLC get quashed ? They would no longer have a basis for blocking (hell they don’t even have one right now)
Like I’ve said before, these decisions have consequences (as the FTC is finding out right now)
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For me it is crazy the situation of this deal. Look at the FTC, 99% of ppl are certain they will loose in court against MS and still they keep spending public money on these things to the point they needed to ask more money to investigate actually important things that can indeed harm consumers, because they spent all their budget in a nonsense crusade. I mean, I’m not even live in USA or UK, but these guys are playing with tax payers trying an insane and nonsense overregulation in video games while they open their legs to water, energy, medical monopolies and other critical stuff that indeed affect our lives. For me, it is just crazy LOL.
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