Again, she just can come and say “no” if that were to happen she still need to present reasons and arguments for that and Microsoft can/ will do the same. As hoeg says, at worst there will be some kind of concessions or it will take longer.
Sorry for grammar. Im on mobile 
Exactly, she cant just block this deal just because she does not like it. Microsoft has a lot of ways to play this game so, lets just wait for the FTC’s review.
It’s not her way or the highway 
Yeah I get it. People are overlooking how some numbers can be twisted to tell whatever story someone wants though, especially someone that talented.
Trust me, MS knew from the very beginning they would get the FTC on the case. I’m not worried one bit, just hear Tim Schaeffer when he talked about MS legal team, and how they wanted to know everything and everyone during acquisitions. They know their work.
I understand feeling anxious about this, is a big deal that will benefit all of us who are in microsofts “ecosystem” (trust me, I REALLY REALLY REEEEALY want Blizzard as its prime again) but at the end of the day, we and anyone out there know nothing about what will happen and how this things proceed.
What I do know is that hoeg law, the only gaming lawer that openly talks with us, fully believes this acquisition will go through even with all of the FTC and DOJ have stated. Maybe (BIG MAYBE) not without concessions or faster than we want, so I decide to trusts his words and wait for the resulst 
PD: Bad grammar due to texting on phones
Really irritating to see the media (not surprised :/) and people arging in bad faith.
Like this Tom henderson dude seemgly compared this deal with the one between arm and nvidia…and even someone like ME knew at the time, that deal was bad for that industry.
And thats another point. I saw the video of a guy called “stephen lukas” (or luke something I dont remember :v) he knows about M&A and he stated in that video when a deal of that magnitude happens regulators and politicians normally know what angle to takle in order for said deal to be cancelled.
So far, aside from sony fanboys, I’ve yet to see what could potentially one said against this acquisition (and no, Lina Khan just doesnt likung big tech is not one) I havent seen that many politicians eyeing this acquisition either.
PD: hope you are recovering well, Ddraig protects you!
If anyone should be worried about the Watchful Eye, it’s SONY. They’re ahead of Microsoft in gaming revenue after all.
I mean, I would certainly hope the United States would favor an American company acquiring another American company, as opposed to Tencent, right?
I don’t get the worry. If Microsoft was already #1 in gaming revenue, then I’d be sweatin’ bullets.
There’s another thing people need to remember. It’s just video games.
The stuff the FTC tends to block are shit that matters. Semiconducters in every product we use, missile development, food conglomerates, hunting and survival stores. Shit that can quite literally mean the difference between life and death.
If Xbox raises the price of games, you go to one of the 5 other viable platforms. That’s not to make any promises the FTC won’t challenge but in the grand scheme of the world, video games is low on the totem pole.
Thank you ! I’m getting better thanks to the power of oppais
The things is even though she wants to change the legislation associated with how the FTC examines acquisitions, she is very likely not to get that through till after this acquisition is completed so she will have to follow the current guidelines. If she oversteps and blocks it on shaky ground, Microsoft can take the whole thing to court where the decision would be in the hands of a judge and not the FTC
Just saw EA announced they have 180M monthly active users, ABK has nearly 400M…
It’s ABSOLUTELY a great thing that legislators are cracking down on big tech, finally. Should have been doing that decades ago. Not just big tech, any company that is the market leader for a long while should be on that list as well… To me buying a 70B publisher isn’t all that different from locking up timed exclusives left right and center in the sense that both lessen the competition. Because of Sony being the market leader for decades straight they can get exclusives for 10m whereas that would cost MS at least 100m or more and because Xboxs install base is half of Sonys they can’t recoup that 100m loss, so how can you compete? Only way through acquisitions.
I hope the legislators ARE strict but also fair. Because in no universe is the AB deal even remotely a monopoly/vastly reduces competition since even with this they’re not even in the top 2 and the amount of publishers/studios out there is enormous. Not in a world where they approved Disney buying Fox. Now that’s a stain on the legislators imo. Not only does that vastly reduces competition in the film industry but it gives Disney like 30-40% of the market. In terms of valuable content it’s s even higher. That’s almost the equivalent of MS buying Steam AND Sony. And they were the market leader before they bought Fox. It’s just ridiculous. It would be the biggest joke if they block the AB deal and let the Disney one slide. That would prove they don’t care about monopolies, antitrust and just want to make a name for themselves.
Lets not forget that companies basically rule whatever happens in America(because of the whole lobbying thing)
So if she actually managed to somehow stop this acquisition or even change how the examination works, it would probably be changed or stopped before she actually accomplishes. Like you said, it would probably just go to a judge and then another if needed until it was approved.
Anyway, its not gonna be needed, Microsoft isnt gonna have any kind of issue specially considering how Bobby has fucked up the company. Microsoft suddenly being this saviour that will change how the company works and will fix its issues is what the goverment needed.
I can’t take credit for this one since I saw it on Twitter. Someone suggested a Guitar Hero live service game that consistently get new content every quarter. That could be absolute 
If Drum Master could be played with controller, then I think Guitar Hero would work with a controller as well.
Because with GamePass there’s a good chance that somebody wouldn’t buy a “Starter set” that came with a guitar so they’d have to make due with a controller.
Saw this at the OtherPlace.
Somebody there said he’s kind of reliable with Blizzard stuff and the new Blizzard game is:
Not sure if anyone here would find this interesting but he is pretty connected with Blizzard stuff, specifically WoW. He goes on about what he heard about the game
- Social MMO style
- Ghibli style (I believe this is art style and if so, is super interesting)
- More Valheim then Rust
He speculates a lot for most of it, but these points are what he heard prior to the announcement by Blizzard. Def interesting designs
Studio Ghibli art style would look incredible
holy hell looking at some Sierra titles i had no idea they were involved with fucking half life and time shift and in 2014 they were revived by activision as a indie publisher their last title released was king’s quest epilogue in 2016 for ps4 and xbox one
Figured this should be psoted here before someone makes a thread dedicated to it. The ‘Adam Ruins Everything’ guy had a rant about the ABK deal. He makes coherent points that sound good…until you try connecting them with other recent events whereupon his entire suite of claims falls apart thread by thread.
One of his arguments is that MS can afford to lose $$$ on Game Pass indefinitely to crush competition. This presumes GP is losing Xbox money hand over fist, which we know is not the case at all. It also presumes Sony cannot form a competing service, which they are in the process of doing right now. He also claims Sony can’t afford to release games day 1 into their service like Xbox does, but he evidently didn’t get the memo that Sony is moving to a GaaS business model for their internal portfolio and such games thrive on subscription services or as F2P games to drive player counts up.
He also asserts that the acquisition will lead to ‘worse conditions for workers’ becasue he thinks MS is just copying Amazon’s strategy. Of course, conditions for these devs will be much better in the real world, not worse. And there might be some limited layoffs of business support teams since MS won’t need them all after the deal goes through, but that happens all the time anyhow.
Frankly his rant is kinda cringe tbh.