Yeah, like earlier, I suspect Company A is EA.
I wonder if one of the parties was Tencent, but I am not sure if it were willing to initiate such deal. We know that one of the parties was Facebook too and as with your list before, the last company is the biggest wildcard. Amazon maybe?
It also sounds like both Facebook and at least one other tech company was included. Guessing it was Amazon since ABK was aiming to leverage those talks to raise the price for MS, so inquiring about what a direct competitor (as far as MS’s vision goes) could offer would make sense there maybe.
You are talking about something entirely different…I am talking about Brad Smith explicitly confirming that the FTC cares about CoD availability when he says they know the FTC is gonna ask them questions about it in the blog post. Youa re wound up about the exclusivity angle, which isn’t relevant to the claims you are making in this thread wrt what the FTC cares about or not. Brad Smith says FTC cares about CoD, and he knows because they have been in talks already. I’ll take his word on the matter.
I never said they would 100% be forced to sign a consent decree. No need to include me in with Smith and Hoeg in a list of ppl you are eager to misrepresent. I said the FTC cares about CoD specifically being available to gamers and that if they want to they can absolutely require MS to sign a decree agreeing to the commitments they are making publicly in that regard. FTC has lots of power and it is crystal clear MS has no interest at all in fighting with Congress or regulators on this issue.
Do we know that? I haven’t seen that reported. Gotta source handy? I only knew of Facebook being cited specifically.
He mentioned COD and other popular franchises, because they are famous. But it was the same thing with Bethesda - they just did not post anything regarding TES in a blog post (because at that time they did not push Open Store policy). And even in the documents The Elder Scrolls was mentioned (I wonder if there are USA documents somewhere).
I just saw some article like this one
Specifically this line
Just connected the dots there, but it was probably EA.
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…you are still arguing an entirely different thing. I am referring to his confirming that the regulators care about CoD specifically being available on other platforms. Again, I take his word for it, not yours. /shrugs
Appreciate the link on the EA name drop btw! 
When the reading the document, it was crazy to read how many meetings they had and they literally were making billion level decisions there.
Yup. Read the whole thing already myself. Most of it is super boring but I suppose that’s why they got whole companies worth of lawyers to do the boring stuff. I do also wonder if Sony is Company D. Would be interesting if there was some way to tap into a timeline for the Sony-Bungie deal too and see if there is any revealing overlap there.
You said that FTC cares about COD thus Microsoft mentioned (so Microsoft will have to make concessions regarding that etc. etc.), I was just pointing out that MS mentioned TES also in the past and we know that TES6 will be exclusive so mentioning it does not make the matter bigger or smaller.
Funnily enough TES - now that I think about - is actually similar to COD in that regard - it has mainline games (Skyrim etc.) and also has online games too (TESO), with legacy like Anniversary editions and they still are availabe in PSN. (And if TES games were to be released every year, it would be as big as COD too).
We kinda tried to compile a list
And we think that Company E was Sony. Because Company E offered the future business dealings with ATVI and aside Microsoft, who else makes deals with ATVI while at the same time cannot offer better deal than Microsoft?
Regulators can be incredibly political, scrutinizing deals simply because they want to signal toughness. Generally, this deal would go through ASAP. But Lina Khan’s FTC may try to be different.
Luckily, Microsoft is well connected with DC and have avoided the ire of lawmakers. Remember the antitrust in tech hearings back in August 2020? Note how Microsoft wasn’t present. Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook and Pichai got grilled by congress but Nadella was nowhere to be found.
I think the FTC will realize this deal will be difficult to scrutinize without being too political and let it pass. Microsoft, being mostly an enterprise company, have positioned themselves well here. The talk about being the “third-largest gaming company”, making Xbox store changes, and keeping CoD multiplatform have taken away the easiest arguments the FTC could use.
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But it is natural no? The fundamental problem with all those companies is that they control a huge chunk (close to monopoly) of a consumer market and engage into various “bad” practices (that Microsoft was notorious for in 90s).
- Like Amazon also sells the cheap knock offs of the products in their own store
- Google is ranking their own apps better than the competitor’s while controlling Google Play
- Apple was collecting the data from the competitors (like Spotify), while controlling the App Store
- Facebook is too open with their shenanigans regarding privacy and those political issues on their platform
We can throw in duopoly of Google and Apple in mobile devices (iOS, Android), and duopoly of Facebook and Apple in communications (Facebook, Whatsapp, iMessage).
And Microsoft does what? They essentially don’t control Windows and their main dealings are with the businesses.
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There has never been any indication whatsoever that the FTC cared about TES being exclusive. That is a whole other beast compared to CoD and, again, we don’t have to guess here. Brad Smith’s words speak for themselves.
Recall that the guidelines the FTC will be using have not been written yet. Note, btw, that they did not commit to making all the same changes to the Xbox store on console as they do for other app storefronts. In fact, they specifically argue they don’t need to do all of those items on Xbox.
The whole ‘we will be #3’ thing ain’t a very strong argument btw. It might not even be true as it stands even today, and is less likely to be true in 2023. Satya essentially admits as much in one of his interviews where he concedes that really the deal is about the Metaverse stuff anyhow. No matter though, all the most likely versions of ‘market’ and ‘competition’ seem like they have strong arguments MS can make in their favor provided games like CoD remain multiplat, which MS has committed to doing. FTC will be giving it very intense scrutiny regardless.
Congress is another angle folks should pay attention to here since as I noted the legislation guiding the FTC’s approach isn’t done yet. Fortunately for MS, the bill’s main sponsor has been talking to MS and is extremely encouraged and seems happy with what he has heard wrt areas he was concerned about (including the availability of certain titles on other platforms).
MS also is very helpful for the US intel community in areas around cyber security. While all the other companies lock their ecosystems down, MS is opening theirs up. Congress loves that. Satya really has done a great job reforming the company’s image and it’s been paying off big time already and will going forward too.
It is kinda crazy how Satya fixed the image of Microsoft and Phil is also a good guy in a high position who plays games.
Yup Phil has done wonders within gaming circles to the same end. The combo of them is really potent wrt corporate image. Compared to Balmer and Mattrick/Myerson…this is better to say the least, lol.
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Yeah, I agree with you — I just worded it a bit clumsy. What I tried to say: Microsoft has avoided regulators because of their deep political connections and their enterprise focus. Was using the congressional hearings as an example for the latter not the former.
The 30% take (the most important change) will stay the same but I believe they are making changes to the Xbox Store. In his adapting to regulation article, Brad Smith says:
“Nonetheless, we recognize that we will need to adapt our business model even for the store on the Xbox console. Beginning today, we will move forward to apply Principles 1 through 7 to the store on the Xbox console. We’re committed to closing the gap on the remaining principles over time.”
It appears they want to signal Xbox store changes… while still keeping the most important one: the 30% cut lol.
Agreed. Good analysis here!
Is this true? I assumed it will would be judged according to current guidelines as new ones won’t be written in time…
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I wouldn’t be shocked if Take Two wanted to merge with ABK, GTA being made by King on mobile would be huge. I think Take Two knew it probably wasn’t going to happen and bought that other mobile company.
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Naturally. I mean they stated specifically that consoles should be the exception (at least for the time being as I won’t be surprised that on a long enough timeline, consoles will become just a generic devices with the games coming from the service). They want to put Game Pass on other platforms like Google Store or App Store, without paying 30% cut (and without platform holders’ roadblocks). That’s why I have never been into “good guy Phil” or “good guy Microsoft” there. Microsoft know how to make money, but after 90s era they changed their tune and became good guys (kinda).
Now EA owning CoD and Battlefield would be a monopoly on military shooter genres wouldn’t it?
I mean they also have MoH