I won’t say they can stop it but rather that they carry a lot of weight in the matter. I believe Hoeg said something on the matter. All the other regulators approving will cause this to go to CAT assuming the CMA blocks and as Foss has said the SLC has been dismantled and therefore will not stand before CAT. Also i don’t see why the CMA will want to try to block when other jurisdictions are approving. I see no reason in going rogue.
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The UK market is either Xbox’s second highest market share at worst. At least in terms of major markets. It might even be closer than the US now.
But more relevant is Microsoft are the trading entity not xbox. Hence why they cannot proceed without regulatory clearance in this market.
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There are other markets that are closer than the UK for Xbox, we’ve even seen regulatory decisions from one, Brazil. What Dring said the other day about it being the most competitive market was very misleading like pretty much everything that Dring says.
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No…listen to what I asked…I asked to name a successful block from any regulator based off ideology or politics, there isn’t any example, the current FTC has tried and have failed repeatedly
So the answer is no, there’s never been a successful block of a merger based off politics or “big tech bad”
So I’ll ask again, since Brexit happened, since Trump, since Khan, which merger in any jurisdiction has been blocked because of politics?
None, so the idea that the ABK deal would get blocked because of politics has no basis or merit to it, its just a regurgitated talking point
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Last data we had from Brazil was showing PS4 massively outselling Xbox one by 2:1. Was far closer in uk . Brazil is also not a major market. Us and UK are only two markets that matter where Xbox is close to PlayStation.
Bingo, Dring has exposed himself for not having an ounce of credibility
There isn’t any reason, people make the assumption that because the FTC are unhinged that all regulators are even though Vestager flat out said “we look at the facts” and the latest report stated the EC threw Sony’s concerns about consoles in the trash where it belongs. Sony is no longer relevant as far as the EC is concerned
Some people think the CMA is pro Sony because of their provisional findings but then disregard being more open to behavioral remedies than 99% of their other phase 2 cases
Some throw out the talking point of “well its a formality and they’re going to block anyway” to which I say if that was the case why not prohibit in the deal in the provisional findings?
The only argument people have left is to throw out logic but I ask, when did the CMA previously throw out logic? Why did the CMA approve the MS Nuance deal in phase 1 a year ago?
Obvious answer: This is an unfamiliar market/industry and the CMA used Sony’s talking points because Sony offered them on a silver platter, but they gave MS to opportunity to explain how things work and how there wouldn’t be an SLC (which MS has been nailing)
Lets also not forget that in phase 1 the CMA brought up Game Pass as a concern but dropped it during their phase 2 findings.
Brazil said that Playstation was outselling them 2:1 worldwide. In Brazil Xbox has 68% of the market share and CADE made a point of recognizing that their market was unique where Xbox was the dominant player and dismissed concerns because of the worldwide gap.
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I would love a source for this, I know Xbox was dominant there during the 360 years but didn’t do as well during the Xbox One era, I definitely missed where they said Xbox currently has 68% of the market.
Forget about Sony. If the EU is already ignoring them, CMA should(will see) do the same. Maybe on the FTC side we get Sony still bothering everyone, but It wont matter anyway.
Was ChatGPT and I think we can settle that CAT absolutely can over-turn the CMA and make its own decision on the merger
That being said, it isn’t something fast, it isn’t like MS would take it up with CAT and they’d overturn the decision next week…
I don’t believe it’ll come to this because given precedence the CMA will be pragmatic, but regardless MS can absolutely get this deal done even in the absolute worse case scenario if they want to and are willing to spend time and $$ in court…that being said this would very likely extend past the June closing date
Unlikely worst case scenario, but it can be done
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didnt khan say she wanted to stop all big tech deals just because. sounds political to me if true
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Shes out of money and lawyers. Probably not stopping much, even mergers that need to be stopped.
How many did she succeed in blocking based off politics though? Not a single one, The idea here from certain people is that the CMA in particular would block for reasons such as
“They’re out for blood”
“They want to stick it to big tech”
“They want to make a name for themselves”
To which I’ve asked, when has any regulator successfully blocked a merger based solely off of one of the above reasons? There isn’t one
Any merger that’s actually been blocked has been because of legitimate anti-trust reasons …there’s no example of a merger being blocked because of some ridiculous notion like the above reasons, because its never happened and it isn’t going to happen with this deal either
Because Lina Khan is on a power trip and the FTC is unhinged, people got the notion that there’s a world wide regulator vendetta against big tech and mergers and that they all want to kill deals for the sake of it rather than actual anti-trust concerns.
Scrutinizing deals is fine and even expected, if a $70B deal wasn’t scrutinized with a microscope then regulators wouldn’t be doing their jobs, but scrutinizing and
“no anti-trust concerns here but we’re going to block anyway lulz”
Aren’t the same thing and this has actually never happened
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I was reading installbase forum and they agree with Foss that the CMA’s math error probably kills the SLC argument and even if the CMA veto’s this deal this error is absolutely a reason for an appeal to CAT.
But i think CMA will probably drop the SLC argument for console and focus on Cloud.
Just to be clear im not saying that they will try to stop it, just that if they wanted to they could probably come up with some BS
Obviously there is the CAT thing that MS can appeal to but it doesn’t sound as useful as regular court systems
The CMA looks at all mergers with a glass half empty mentality. If you look at their LinkedIn feed, most of their postings are about mergers which they think will harm the UK consumer, seldom any post where they say “we have allowed this merger to go through”.
I don’t think Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision will hurt the UK gamer or developer. Blocking the merger will hurt the UK gamer because it will just allow PlayStation to continue what they are doing.
I think the CMA will let it through because Microsoft would be the one organisation that could successfully point out any bad faith decisions and credibility of the CMA’s research.
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I agree that Sony are worried about a subscription based future. Playstation aren’t currently in a position to translate to a future where that is the market. The two or three first party high cost high sales games a year is doing well for them but if they have to pivot to a subscription service they would need more studios, they would probably have to cut development costs and they would need more dlc in their games and more successful multiplayer games that can be monetized. Not an easy transition
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It’s almost as if the deal was never about the console market but taking on Apple and Google for that sweet mobile money.
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