Speaking of which, apparently my letter to the Canadian Department of Justice (that is responsible for M&A scrutiny) is now being shared with Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
(for context I’m an Indie console game developer that migrated from the Oil and Gas industry, something the government wants to see more of as part of a transition from an old industry to a newer one)
It means the owner of the IP can’t dictate licensing arrangements for them in the cloud gaming market to their own benefit. Which was precisely the CMA’s concern. This means MS can’t do that for 15 years even if they wanted to. Which they don’t. But this provides the certainty the CMA want.
Why are you making posts like these? The CMA is not a non-fallible entity, and MS is working with them because they leadership believes in working wit regulators not because “the power” CMA holds.
Yeah, Ubisoft will definitely stop MS from doing what they want to do because of this licensing agreement ha ha…Its a complete load of nonsense and is only a “restriction” in wording.
That wouldn’t change no matter what Microsoft has been planning on leaving the gaming industry since they started in the 2000’s, people will say it before, during and after the ABK deal. Spending nearly 70B on the division that’s supposedly being shut down any minute seems a bit funny to me. Zenimax was a clear exclusive play and it’s starting to become pretty clear when Phil speaks actually listen to what he is saying or not saying.
I’m starting feel like ABK was never really a play for exclusives, I think they’re gonna use ABK to pump out live service games and be the money maker for things like Pentiment and the like. Xbox will continue to grow, they’ll buy more studios for just exclusives.
Nothing really changes with ABK even if they can’t have anything exclusive, if Microsoft weren’t buying ABK then none of this would matter as none of their games would be exclusive like the case now could be.
Never thought I’d see someone here take a victory lap for the CMA
I don’t know what you want - them to do illegal, outside of their working group framework to make a deal happen?
No one has won - it wasn’t a zero sum game.
MS have spent months looking at options. There is no viable legal option to take on the cma that isn’t disastrous for MS. People kept burying their heads pretending that the UK is like the USA but it isn’t. You can’t avoid the cma there is no battle with them that MS would profit from.
I think that most people seem to underestimate the harm coming from CMA New Deal.
They are working hard to normalize BYOG streamers paying for streaming rights to games that were already bought by their customers.
Not only that they are incentivising a fractured market where the consumer has to pay for a whole heap of services. I get that is ‘competition’ but maybe they should be asking themselves how pro consumer that has been for TV and film?
lol I don’t care about any of that, let’s just hope this new deal doesn’t harm U.K. consumers.
The FTC is done, why are we still talking about this. To refer to a statement you made about non-UK citizens not understanding the process, this is a reminder that, as a US citizen, you’re 100% wrong on this one. If you can find a case where FTC has outright won an appeal under Khan’s reign… or even more than three over the last decade I’d be surprised. Furthermore, Xbox could always close over any objections the FTC had the moment they lost their case, and for all your denying, we had clear evidence from reports that MS was prepared to do just that - this deal solidifies that there’s no need there go down that route once the CAT slapped CMA’s hands. This changes almost nothing about the overall value prop to Xbox.
Secondly, this is doing nothing but ensuring the deal gets done…. And come on Zappy, a deal like this doesn’t materialize overnight, be reasonable.
So in my understanding Microsoft gets revenue from usage from the IP? Is that from all licences from whoever licences the games? Also it seems like they sold it so I wonder how much they sold the rights for.
I don’t think it will because the end consumer won’t actually see anything different. They’ll still see the Xbox games on GPU via the Cloud in the same way as it is now. It just means that MS can’t screw Sony/Nintendo/anyone on terms.
Which is the point I guess.
The revenue that Xbox will generate without so much as breathing would absolutely disagree with all of you lol.
But sir, sir, MS doesnt want that 9 billion/yr (and rising) because…CLOUD GAMING!
Imagine the EU now reopening the deal lol
here we go again.
This circus will never end. I’m tired.
