And as the bad guys they will be denied even more.
Seriously, among other things the european union was created because together is more stronger than everyone for themselves and so big companies can’t bully a single country.
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I was reading the merger remedies guideline and the general merger guideline and I will adjust some of my talking points on this.
I don’t think the marketshare argument would matter much. Even if CMA is forced to adjust their numbers, they have discretion to form the view that the unique advantage of MS having a strong IP library + ABK, Gamepass, consoles, and Azure is too anti-competitive, even if Xcloud is not in leading position. We saw the CMA use such discretion to arrive to the console SLC. I think what the marketshare argument can help with is to basically guarantee an remittal as there seems to be a procedural error.
I think Microsoft have two paths here in remital. Both paths beings with establishing that prohibition is disproportionate to the SLC, (cloud gaming market is the much smaller market), and CMA should pick the least restrictive option.
From there, the two pathes depend on the successful overturning of CMA’s belief that ABK games will go to cloud absent the merger in the foreseeable future.
First path: If ABK games going to cloud is overturned, the MS would suggest the remedy of either moving into Xcloud into its own service or not adding ABK games to Gamepass. In both case, ABK games will not be in Xcloud. The remedy would be a behavioral remedy for the foreseeable duration in which CMA sets in which ABK games will not appear on Gamepass + Xcloud or Xcloud. No market distortion. No monitoring nor circumvention risk. MS would also need to rip up / alter the contracts with the cloud gaming companies.
Second path: If that is not overturned, the MS should argue that the RCB of COD going to Nintendo Switch is irrationally and disproportionally dismissed (reading the CMA’s argument it is as it ignores over 10 years of evidence) and the procedural error of ignoring the RCB of Xbox games going on to other Cloud providers. MS should also set a pricing cap on Gamepass for X years and also unbundle XCloud from GPU.
In both paths, MS should argue for the RCB of COD appearing on Nintendo and the RCB of ABK games on Gamepass (more limited in path one), with a price fixed for 10 years (Would be necessary to ask for this in the EC remedy).
First path has the highest chance of success but the risk is that it’ll be incompatible with behavioral remedies required by the EC. Whether or not the EC will accept the new set of remedies is questionable.
Second path is more difficult as the CMA would have larger range of discretion to balance the RCB against the SLC. Having a set of EC behavioral remedies would help.
Having an EC approval is crucial for the remittal because the EC remedies would bring enforceable and monitored RCBs.
It is in the best interest for MS to ask for broader, longer EC remedies with tougher repercussions for the CMA to use.
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Not happening lol
I just wanted to add the SAMR cracked down on their big tech because their big tech was getting out of hand with anti-competitive behavior where it threatened innovation and consumer welfare.
And also, have no idea why you and Zappy treat the rationale behind these arguments as some sort of science lol, CMA plays by it’s own rules as does the appeal by the judicial review
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There are still rules that the CMA has to follow in their own guidelines. They’re required to be rational, factually correct, and their remedies proportionate.
Engaging the CMA using factual, rational arguments backed by evidence is the best shot at clearing the deal in remittal, even if that’s a long shot.
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The rules that they themselves define as they certainly aren’t following a well thought out rationale, so basically arguing on their terms really doesn’t matter. Which is why all the responses from MS lawyers aren’t based purely in the bounds of what the CMA considers necessary.
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True the back catalogue would have been nice but for $70 B you don’t much.
I’m doing my absolute best not to just give up on Xbox right now. I love the platform but man it feels like there’s no fun to be had & I’m now terrified MS will close it down without ABK. Hopefully Redfall & the showcase change that.
I often read this thread to see the more positive takes, just like yours 
.
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The ‘Xbox shutting down’ narrative due to the ABK situation needs to stop already.
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Xbox gaming and services revenue went up a few percentage points in spite of a games drought and supply restraints. On the other hand, Playstation’s software revenue went down in spite of record console sales.
Hardware is low profit margins, if not loss leading. Software and services are high profit margin businesses.
Stew on that for a bit.
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This is a ridiculous concern to have, but Phil just said yesterday that the future of Xbox does not rely on the ABK deal. Also, Xbox has released and is releasing excellent games this year on top of doing their very well received Developer Direct. I’m not with the doom and gloom Xbox is doing all the stuff people want on top of releasing games.
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Seems like some missed the multiple memos the last two days that console warring and trolling/doomposting nonstop would result in action. Act accordingly.
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Yup, but to be fair, its really more on Xi trying to prevent prominent businessmen/businesses from threatening his power or influencing Chinese politics. That’s why Jack Ma was MIA lol
That’s what the western press all reported. In reality, Chinese Big Tech was getting out of hand, and Jack Ma challenging the government was the convenient trigger / excuse.
Which is true and I’ve already identified factually incorrect statements in the CMAs report that they used to base their entire decision on. Their cloud analysis contains worse errors than the console analysis.
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I would agree to that with every other regulator. I bet Microsoft could pull an answer out of a hat for each CMA concern they listed and when they got to the end of said list, the CMA would invent others. It’s ridiculous that a regulator can define the gaming market without Steam and Nintendo and handwave any correction to the contrary.
This isn’t like mispelling Nintendo on a legal document or confusing Lara Croft as a Playstation IP…honest, believable mistakes…this is blatantly wrong information from the CMA every step of the way (so wrong, I cannot seriously entertain its accidental multiple times) and for 18 months of research, interviews and public relations is embaressing and globally consequential.
As Foss said, if this was Lichtenstein…people would sigh and say “OK boomer” and the deal would close and maybe that gets straightened out afterwards, but this is affecting peoples jobs and teams who want to unionise and thats why its shitty.
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What you need to be looking at is this is beyond videogames.
A. We have a regulation body gross misrepresenting and plain not understanding what they are being asked to make a decision over to the point that their official statements of proof and facts of why they decided something are flat out wrong, not how it actually works, or not a accurate way to come up with that data.
B. Being allowed to invent facts and make statements/decisions over matters affecting the entire world if one country blocks it. Yet the basis of reasoning is on things that might happen 20 to 30 years down the road in a market that doesn’t exist in a market you inaccurately determined the size of and competitor market share in is grossly negligent and damning to businesses well beyond videogames.
C. Telling businesses that regardless of marketshare or relevance. If we feel even the smallest portion of your overall market is harmed we can block this entire deal because in the video games market we just did this by blocking this deal for the cloud gaming market which produces 1.5 billion dollars annually in a overall market that produces over 174 billion dollars annually.
The issue is not that the deal was blocked. As if the deal violates legal laws, violates antitrust then by all means block it as any regulating body should. However, the issue is they can’t make up facts, misrepresent facts, or come to conclusions using the wrong methodology and ignorance or lack of understanding is not a excuse. As if if you aren’t qualified don’t do the job and you shouldn’t make global decisions when you don’t understand how any of it works.
This directly brings into question every decision. As if they can’t understand something as simple as how to determine marketshare properly of the cloud computing market as spoiler (its not every gamepass ultimate user) or you don’t understand how in-app purchase revenue is distributed (cloud provider don’t get a cut because they aren’t part of the transaction. The transaction is done through steam, epic, etc storefront. The cloud provider isn’t selling anything other then the subscription) after over 9 months of work. Then proceed to release a document littered with data that just proves your own ignorance. Then it only brings into question how many other decisions did the CMA make that were wrong, uninformed or just plain inaccurate that affected people of not just the UK but the world and business community at large.
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Fair, and now Tencent is heading westward which now cause some alarm in western governments, interesting to see what regulators would do in a event where big gaming companies like ABK get bought by Tencent, net ease or whoever instead. Politics indeed.
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Any “action” taken as a result of this deal not going through won’t be from MS it would come the U.S. government and I seriously doubt it would come to that lol.
I’m not confident in that. I could absolutely see a future where Microsoft spins off XCloud as a separate service that gives you access to your digital Xbox/Game Pass library in the cloud. Essentially XCloud would be a console version of GeForce Now. Right now, XCloud is a beta service that is being subsidized by Game Pass Ultimate during it’s beta phase.
If Cloud continues to be an issue for Microsoft when it comes to future video game acquisitions, making XCloud a separate service is the end of the world.
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