I don’t even think it’s Ubisoft using AWS. When you subscribe to a certain tier of U+ you get access to the games on Luna. Likely Ubisoft gives Amazon a cut of the sub based on usage in Luna.
Now Ubisoft controls the cloud gaming market with licensing rights to the most important cloud IP.
Grats, CMA.
lol
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Still think that there was an option to ring fence ABK. I think that was a viable way of ‘closing over’ the CMA,
You guys are way too jumpy about the process. I would personally just avoid ABK news until we are at the finish lines.
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Luna is Amazon cloud gaming, it runs on their cloud tech AWS. Either way Amazon will benefit. More people use Luna their cloud service grows.
Too many people are looking at this deal from an “exclusive” PoV
This was never about exclusives, it was about mobile, strengthening GP and the overall gargantuan revenue ABK brings in every year
Xbox has a crazy amount of studios pumping out exclusive games and im sure they will acquire more down the line to do the same, ABK just wasn’t one of them
But it will certainly help fund future exclusives and deals going forward and the impact of CoD being on GP isn’t something to be ignored
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Right but firstly they don’t have the ability to foreclose others….secondly they don’t own the IP themselves and thirdly they aren’t a platform holder with the incentive to use the cloud rights to squeeze others out of the future potential market.
From the CMA viewpoint this is better. Is it good for consumers? Maybe not. But in terms of avoiding a SLC as per their framework and approach to markets then this does it.
Well, that came out of nowhere. There are still a lot of question marks about this proposal, so hopefully someone gets the actual proposal and does a deep dive.
Honestly, I don’t even care. Just get this across the finish line so everyone can relax and move on. 
In fact, maybe the ring fencing option would have been better than this. Because that way the EU would have no need to look at it again. And if it comes down to the CMA v the EU I know who I don’t want to piss off.
That’s my worry, but because the EU were good with MS and were good with their deals, I can see them and MS working something out. I don’t think MS would forget how EC were great to deal with and they’ll understand why they are mad with them.
I honestly don’t see how you could do that. On a purely ground level business restructuring level it’s a nightmare. The legal and governance structures alone would be a mess before you even get into the business itself.
And that’s horrendous but then you reach the fact that the CMA block didn’t get removed by ringfencing and thus the only way would be offering that as a remedy, but that’s one the CMA simply can’t accept.
It was mooted by people who don’t really know what they are talking about, ringfencing sounds good but it wouldn’t have solved the regulatory impasse and probably would have taken a year or more to do.
I said earlier this would happen the moment the changed the deal significantly.
I think will also give the US FTC chance to fight back yet again.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this deal died because of all this.
MS should have taken the CMA to CAT and destroyed them.
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Of course Ubisoft can foreclose other cloud companies, they now own and control the most important gaming IPs for cloud. If someone blinks wrong in Yves direction he can withhold licences 
Yeah, all true and I agree. I simply don’t have any confidence or faith in the CMA to actually approve Microsoft’s offer and close the ABK acquisition. Until it actually happens and I read it, I simply believe that CMA is going to keep stalling and looking for excuses.
But we’ll see. We’ll know come October.
Right but this is potentially beyond that point. It’s down to political point scoring. MS have to my mind done all they can to keep the EU deal in tact but as noted that eu deal was global not just within the EU and now those remedies are different outside of the EU area…meaning that in theory the EU have every right to take umbrage and re-examine since the deal they agreed has necessarily changed as a result of the CMA.
And politically you now have a scenario where the CMA remedies are trumping EU ones….I’m struggling to see them letting that lie….
Ubisoft now owns the licences for cloud streaming, not the xcloud streaming technology.
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Doesn’t work like that. The deal will include fair market access under fair market value terms. For instance there will be an agreement for MS to licence the games back and indeed no regulator would allow this if the deal didn’t explicitly disallow for the sort of practices you’ve outlined.
I wonder what would happen if Sony ended up acquiring Ubisoft. Would be crazy if Sony somehow ended up with the ABK cloud streaming rights. Would be funny if MS just ended up buying Ubisoft too, I wonder what would happen in that scenario too. I know this isn’t the acquisition thread but this deal definitely makes any Ubisoft acquisition much more interesting possibly.
It was started to be mooted by some serious sources! It seemed a fantasy when patcher first pitched it, but by the time the FTC lost it appeared to be a serious option.
It would have become a question of is the CMA block legal under those circumstances.
I wasn’t implying that it doesn’t use AWS, just that Ubisoft isn’t concerned or involved with which cloud provider is used to provide services to Luna customers.
The fact that MS competitors are allowed to grow in the cloud streaming space is kind of what the CMA was going for.