That $$$ wasn’t budgeted for beforehand. It wasn’t part of Xbox’s funding plans or anything like that. This deal was an opportunity too good to pass up at the price on the table, which is why MS is going for it. If it fell through they wouldn’t view that $$ as being budgeted to spend on something else. It could mean that they won’t be held up from other acquisitions in the near term though, since until ABK is done they presumably won’t do any others. But yeah, it won’t fail to go through.
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ok cos the percentages hoeg was giving was really confusing me, like saying it was 70/30 then saying Microsoft would almost definitely win the court case. Yeah, it confused me. Thanks man
I still believe that after ABK deal Microsoft will acquire more and it will be a publisher.
Just use percentage as “the % of possibility of it passing with flying colors”. The smaller percentage that means that Microsoft “might” need to provide some consessions.
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Yes, but he has never claimed them as definitive numbers, they are his opinion never presented as more than that. It doesn’t make much sense for someone to get wrapped up in them. What I was getting at is that his reason for presenting those numbers as they are is articulated in detail over hours of content and that context informs those estimates.
Secondly, the first bullet point and second are linked. 70% is his estimate that it passes without objection, 30% is that some concession needs to be made. Its not an accident that he says his percentages shifted while the consent decree possibility goes up.
People seem to want to be pedantic about trivial aspects and just gloss over the full context.
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yeah I doubt Microsoft will stop any time soon, I don’t know if they will buy big with take two or EA again until others enter at least though, it might put too much of a spot light on them
Ok that makes a lot more sense, I thought he was saying it was a 30% chance of it failing lol
Guys, remember that EU, UK and China will also look at this and even if the FTC says “GO MS, BUY TT2 AND YOU CAN MAKE EVEREYTHING EXCLUSIVE!!!” other regulators could say no and the deal could fell apart.
But Hoeg thinks US/EU regulators will probably the only ones looking closely at the deal, so lets wait and see if we hear more about other regulators in the coming months.
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He still isn’t doing any calculation. He isn’t applying Bayes’ Theorem or other forms of conditional probability or anything like that. That is all Proven was saying. Hoeg is just trying to remind everyone that things are in flux and the odds (whatever they actually are IRL) are in flux too. The number he lands on isn’t that important so much as his detailed analysis is. His gut instinct guesstimates are really only valuable in the sense of if he finds it likely, very likely, extremely likely, etc to happen or not. And in spite of having a number to pin to it, it is clear where he lands on that front.
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this is why I said I doubt it will happen until others enter at least, it will show they are not the only one buying and give them more lean way at least
EU is not concerned entertaiment in general. Their main concerns have always been infrastructure and messaging systems (for certain reasons).
That is what I just said. He is providing generalized analysis as a entertainment product on youtube. Providing a percentage is only being used to articulate to a layperson how he perceives it. It is easily digestible.
If someone asks me what the chances I wake up to go to work tomorrow is I’d tell you “eh 90/10”. I don’t need to bust out a calculator and graph paper to arrive at the number, its simply informed by experience and there is a non zero chance that I just decide to call off. That number can easily shift if my buddy calls tonight and tells me he is thinking about going to… I dunno, an arcade or something. There is no reason to overthink the numbers.
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Yeah I think MS is more than happy just having ABK games on the service day one and having the ability to promote their services with them and that is still ABSOLUTELY HUGE looking at the article you posted. Some are so fixated in the exclusivity part and are not seeing the entire forest.
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MIcrosoft does probably want to make everything aside from CoD exclusive though because it adds pressure towards sony to allow game pass on their platform. Microsoft’s dream senario within gaming is probably just to become a service at this point. Though I think they would accept a settlement on keeping most stuff multiplat but its hard to say
I am pretty sure he does not care about game availability in a sense that “you need to continue to release COD on Playstation”. It is all about “hey we won’t remove the games from the platform” like suddenly games (they have purchased) becoming not available for the players in PSN. Does he even know Overwatch or COD? Probably not.
These debates are old as hell and don’t want to engage into that anymore but I stick to my position that Microsoft won’t remove the released games from the store. They very term “available” is already flexible enough to tell you everything you need to know.
I think that could be the case in the future when everything is about subscription services, but right now the only thing MS cares is for the deal to go through without problems and if that means to let anything as it is in regards to games, then they will do it.
I mean, it depends on how unresonable the settlement is, if they had to keep every game from acquisitions within the last 10 years multiplat (this is a hypothetical settlement) I think they would go for the court case granted I think at worse it would be all activision games for x amount of years will have to stay multiplat and while I think Microsoft would prefer to have control, I think they would accept this settlement
Yeah, what do we think those hypothetical consents could look? Games staying multiplat? MS supporting other subscription services? (dont think they will ever want this haha) something to do with gamepass price? abandoning a part of ABK? (like, lets say King or something)
out of these I would say with the 1st one depends on the which games, if it all games from acquisitions within the last decade for 5 years or something I think Microsoft would go to court, if it was activision’s IPs for the next decade I would say Microsoft would accept it. The 2nd one, it depends, they sort of already do with NSO but more times than not I would imagine this going to court. I think Microsoft would gladly take a settlement refering to game pass price staying the same for the next decade or something with 0 complaints, abandoning part of activision…I think microsoft would go to court, escpecially if it is king (the only thing I could see Microsoft willingly abandoning is the MLG and even then I doubt they would)
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I bet it is neither of that (aside maybe price, but even that can be hard to prove). Imagine asking Microsoft to support other subscription services with releases of their new games lol. Netflix can then go and sue Disney and other content providers for removing content from its platform. Games also won’t stay multiplat (I saw people even saying something like all ABK games will be multiplatform which of course won’t happen).
FTC won’t be able to win their cases in the courts so they won’t make the unresonable demands to Microsoft. It is in their interests to settle it down outside the courts. They can ask for example Microsoft not to remove the games from online shops (Microsoft does not do that and stated as much already). Aside appealing to emotions, FTC does not have much leverage to use against Microsoft.
The regulatory body has issues with much more egregious Facebook and they longer the drag it, the worse it for them as with the rise of TikTok, Facebook can literally say that there is a competition.
Nah, 10 years of making multiplatform games is too much and nobody would agree to that.
Also won’t happen because 10 years is too long time for any business to agree to any kind of price fixing. Binding yourself legally to a fixed price is a crazy thing for any company. Not to mention for 10 years (basically 2 next USA adminstrations)
Well, even at the end Hoeg says “people shouldnt be super concerned about the deal”
Also, funny I saw this article when Hoeg posted the video 
To address the question whether an acquisition should be considered anticompetitive or “killer,” Limarzi argued that regulators should ask, “what does the world look like with and without the merger and are [the outcomes] substantially different from a competition perspective?”
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