One thing that is depressing as an Xbox fan is that all the politicization of this deal has made it way less likely for Xbox to buy anyone else. It feels like Xbox gained very few exclusives out of this deal. It’s just going to have to be that way for the foreseeable future. In that regard, I’d say Sony should be pretty happy about that. Silver lining is that if the deal goes through, then Xbox is absolutely in the gaming business for the long game. Pay close attention to “partnerships” those are basically future acquisitions that will potentially happen after the smoke clears from the Activision deal. All this as just a long way to say… Sega in 5 years.
I see it exactly the opposite. Everyone else after ABK will be so small they wont move the scales at all, and thus fly through without extensive review processes.
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AFAIK it was stated that the EU dismissed Sony’s concerns but that doesn’t equate to the console concerns overall
Then again MS already signed binding agreements with Nvidia and with Nintendo which may be why the EU dropped console concerns since MS is already locked in.
That being said Sony hasn’t signed any deal and it was reported that MS is no longer talking to Sony about it so Sony may the only one that doesn’t get the 10 year COD guarantee
Granted MS still won’t pull COD off Playstation but Sony is likely going to get the absolute worst terms ei lowest revenue split, no marketing, nothing but the bare minimum
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Nah, even Phil said they’re going to still acquire, they definitely won’t be buying an EA, Take 2 or Ubi but individual studios absolutely and maybe even smaller publishers like Paradox, CDPR and Sega aren’t ruled out
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I’ve seen so many arguments (not in here obviously) that the deal shouldn’t go through because we still haven’t seen the results of Microsoft’s acquisitions in the last few years, in other era I’ve seen this argument a lot, some people really believe they will be able to get close to Sony’s and Nintendo’s market share once they start releasing a lot of AAA games, sure I can see them selling closer to the PS6 if they launch their next Xbox with ES6 as the launch exclusive title but those sales wouldn’t be forever, people underestimate PS’s brand strength.
I think they’ll be able to acquire independent studios and maybe someone like CDPR but if the opportunity to get Capcom or Ubisoft shows up in the next few years they’ll likely not go for it, even if there’s no real reason for them to not go through after all the unprecedented scrutiny this deal is getting I think Microsoft is out of the publishers acquisitions for the foreseeable future but if it doesn’t go through it will be because of the dominant position the CMA claims COD would put Microsoft on in Cloud gaming, none of the same arguments can be used for Ubisoft, Capcom, Sega or CDPR so should this not go through there is no reason why Microsoft shouldn’t aim for a few of those since none of them own anything like COD.
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And if they are closer to Nintendo and Sony, isnt that just…competition? The best outcome would be that it does draw them all closer in sales and forces Sony to act more consumer friendly and invest more.
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This won’t stop Microsoft from purchasing anyone else. They’ve expected a lot of this. And they’ve been in the long game since they started purchasing development houses in 2017 - 2018? They are nt going anywhere regardless if the deal passes or not.
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Also I have no idea where this misconception of MS not expecting this or being caught off guard came from. Even going back to January 2022 they set a closing date for mid 2023 because they knew there’s a very good chance that the deal would get scrutinized
I’m sure they made the effort to move things along quicker but so far nothing has nor will happen that MS isn’t prepared for
MS can still buy pretty much anyone. Theres about 5 publishers who would trigger this level of scrutiny (not a block, scrutiny) no one else would.
They could buy any Japanese publisher and argue it on install base in Japan.
I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to point out that Microsoft will likely gain market share off the existing acquisitions that haven’t necessarily delivered much for Xbox yet, though I disagree with that as a reason to block the acqusition. Xbox has 23 studios - many of which aren’t really ready to pay off quite yet. New studios and teams take time to get started, smaller studios need time to grow and some studios had contractual obligations. Once all these teams are firing on all cylinders and hitting a more standard release schedule? And all available through game pass? Yeah, even without Activision i think we’ll see Microsoft gain a lot of ground in the coming years.
Is that a reason to block the deal? No, but it is something that should be considered by any regulatory body doing their job properly.
Xbox catching up in market share is seen as some sort of cardinal sin by certain other forums and some journalists lol.
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In my opinion, the reason EC dropped console concerns and only focused on cloud gaming was because Jim Ryan said “I don’t want a new COD deal instead I want to block your merger” The EC take it from the Brussell meeting on February 21 that Sony had been arguing against the deal through bad faith.
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I was lurking on the InstallBase Forum and while it’s no where near as bad as Neogaf, there are some people who are clearly huffing copium and want the deal blocked
One dude literally came up with a hunch aka a conspiracy theory that the FTC and CMA want to pressure the EC or some dumbshit like that
It’s OK if you don’t want the deal to go through for “reasons” but doing mental gymnastics and trying to will it into existence is pathetic
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I think it’s possible they’d dismiss any complaints Playstation had over the acceptability or effectiveness of the deal they had been offered for Call of Duty if they felt Sony was approaching this in bad faith - and it is possible that could tip things into Microsoft’s favour. But if it was based on the Jim Ryan quote I think they’d need more than a tweet alledging he said it.
Even if we entirely disregard Jims comment, you can look at everything else. Sony went from concerns that COD would be exclusive, to COD not being on PS+, to MS putting bugs in the last level of COD , anyone can tell Sony doesn’t want to work out a solution and want the deal blocked.
That’s more likely why Sony no longer has relevance here, because the EU (and likely the CMA) have seen through their bullshit now and that no deal is good enough for them
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It would be absolutely hilarious if Sony’s meddling made the EU side with Microsoft, I think the biggest eye opener for me was Sony saying they’d be fine with COD being divested, that leaves Activision on it’s own and in a weaker position if they have a few years of low selling COD games and low MTX spending which can always happen, they would be in a position where they would absolutely be forced to have to deal with Sony and Sony for sure knows this and thinks they’d get even more control over COD through more aggressive marketing deals, this is why I think it is very important that Microsoft doesn’t divest, either get it all or drop it and let ABK stay independent.
Strong words from a judge!
Other era is also full of those too, they tend to show up in the acquisition thread a few times a week, and it’s so obvious it’s always just PS fans who clearly just don’t want the deal to go through because they think it will be a threat to their favorite brand’s dominance, even if they don’t say it straight up the wording is always easy to see through, they pop up especially when bad news about the deal come up, some at least are honest and have said they hope the CMA blocks just because. I haven’t lurked Neogaf’s toxic wasteland in a long time for good reason! holy crap that place is serious garbage these days and I intend to stay the hell away from it, it might be worse than Gamefaqs tbh.
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This is my exact thought process as well. The only two publishers that I could see being an issue but still not be as long as the ABK deal is going would be EA and Take Two Interactive.
I’m hoping that if they don’t turn things around, Microsoft can acquire Ubisoft in a few years and as of now, has a market cap of under $3.1B USD. They would probably cost less than Bethesda did which wasn’t seen as a big deal whatsoever so I can’t imagine Ubisoft being an issue.
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Conspiracy theory
It was MS who pushed the gamers law suit to get the decision before FTC could
/S
I think every move they make after this will be looked at with increased scrutiny.
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