Don’t “settle” shit with the FTC to allow them to save face. They got demolished in court and continously embarrassed with failed appeals, wasting money and precious time for Microsoft.
Finish things up with the CMA and close the deal, like they’ve earned the right to do in the US.
Nice Azula reference.
So close to the last OT before we are done
CMA about to do the funniest thing
/s
What’s wrong with this is, the FTC should have been willing to speak and deal with MS and ABK during the entire investigation duration. Instead they were driven by folks with blinders on.
My settlement proposal to FTC “We close and you sod off.”
I think is that before they could have easily ignore MS request for a remedies meeting, now they are kinda force to ?!!
https://twitter.com/MActon93/status/1682107381411627008
Interesting thread from Michael. The FTC based the majority of their case on how it would damage Sony… er the gaming market. Now that Sony signed the 10-year deal, there is really nothing left.
I guess the best they can do is no gamepass price increase in the US for some time
Even other mega-publishers are pro MS/ABK.
Granted Ubisofts comments have a bit of prettying themselves up to maybe slide into Philly’s DM’s around the holiday’s energy. But i haven’t seen anyone but Sony actually verbally say they were against mergers as far as publishers go.
Dunno about Ubisoft but EA and T2 had a nice jump in market value when the FTC decision came through
If MS can buy ABK, then Ubi can sell itself to potential investors without problems. Mr Guillemot is ready to pack his gains.
it’s not surprising since they did to support or at least didn’t show concern to the deal before at some hearing (i dunno what hearing, but i know it’s not from ftc to get the PI)
Just realized something in the shower (yes I am thinking about the acquisition in the shower)… all of the people talking about hating the “consolidation of the industry” were quiet when, in the span of one year, SEGA merged with Sammy and Squaresoft merged with Enix. Spring of 2003 to Spring of 2004.
Especially when the Square-Enix merger represented a horizontal merger that affected one genre of game in particular. Two powerhouse brands in the form of Final Fantasy & Dragon Quest under one umbrella. If you were developer looking to develop for a powerhouse JRPG developer, you only had one choice. Now, if Squaresoft decided to exclusively develop for one platform (as they historically have in many cases), all of these JRPGs from both companies would now appear just on that platform.
Note how there were no calls for SEGA or Square to simply make better games. To increase their libraries organically.
Despite the shortcomings it was something that was necessary for the survival of both companies. It’s quite possible that a lot of these fanboys are too young to remember but that was a time where many massive and proud videogame companies shut down. Storied publishers like Acclaim and Midway who were wildly successful disappeared in that time.
And this is where I think the opposition to Microsoft’s moves here are rooted it: they don’t want to see the survival of Microsoft in the games industry.
Consolidation never bothered anyone until the games stopped coming to Playstation.
That’s where i do i best thinking 
Sports liscensing for gsmes was a bigger problem than consoldation ever has been. The fact that madden js the exclsuve nfl game and 2k died is a huge shame.
On the other era, they are already talking about Sony buying EA and T2, one of them is a game dev lol. They make excuses like Sony has more money than we think etc. like they on Microsoft’s level lol. Consolidation for me but not to thee, I guess consolidation is ok when it’s my favorite plastic.
I’ve made this point before. The typical Microsoft hater never wanted them in the gaming industry. Anyone who said they wanted Xbox to compete better was lying through their teeth.
And now their nightmare came true. MS is now an essential part of the gaming industry; they can’t leave. Unless you want the gaming industry to suffer.
Couldn’t care less about consolidation
Companies will continue to get bought, new companies will continue to emerge and often because of companies getting bought and those new companies emerging will want to get bought one day too and the cycle repeats
If Sony end up buying a publisher/dev I like I’m not gonna pretend it’s bad under some disingenuous excuse like consolidation, it will be because I don’t like their other games, their ecosystem sucks and don’t want to be forced into it
If people were honest about this shit discussions would be a lot simpler
“We just want to see Xbox compete” while they simultaneously mocked MS fabled “warchest” because they thought it would never get used
These fools have always been so transparent