Xbox should still acquire Asobo, platinum, certain affinity, ioi, eidos and crystal in the meantime.
Also work out a deal for all games by eidos and crystal under embracer to be exclusive.
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MS has more than enough studios already really. I love to see SEGA be on gamepass but at the end of the day MS needs to do better with the studios it already got and learn again how to promote and push a console.
Its looks like MS will have to do it the hard way by making games and good PR. They need to start with the PR pretty soon and not give SONY any more advantage, even before the joke that was the CMA verdict, its been a bad few months
MS really now needs to come out fighting, not just with any appeal but now really needs to have some good PR and maybe look at a price cut promotion to drive sales and get some hardware sales back.
It also be nice, to see the BC team do some stuff, MS needs to use them too.
And what is to stop the CMA blocking all those deals on the same basis of the ABK deal now they have a template for it?
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Drop it. Work out a deal with ea to publish Titanfall 3. Ez plz. Make that your main fps.
CMA blocked because the Call of Duty and Blizzard games are valuable multiplayer games. CDPROJECTRED doesn’t release games that do blizzard numbers, they made a game that got people to move on from PS3 to PS4 or Xbox 360 to Xbox One with Witcher 3. Microsoft could use something that wows audiences with their Series X consoles, Starfield could do that but we haven’t seen enough gameplay.
Was any of that in the cmas statement or just what makes sense.
My assumption is that ABK is a problem because it is large enough to give them a considerable boost in cloud, a smaller acquisition is not going to give them a considerable boost.
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Yeh but the problem is there is no real math or way to predict a boost regardless of who’s bought.
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There’s a pretty big difference between the largest publisher in the industry with the largest IP in the industry and… Sega though.
If Microsoft doesnt fight for this, they are accepting the risk of the CMA using the cloud argument for any other acquisition.
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There is
But that doesn’t mean the CMA wont use the same arguments, even if they are illogical
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if they are using it against on a -+5bi acquisition when they used it before on 70bi acquisition, sounds very funny that probably CMA with already ruined reputation will ruin even more lol.
Square Enix is officially off the list.
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So I’m thinking he went for a hot take joke and really just didn’t think it through.
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Meh. He just wiffed on a joke, it doesn’t even make sense. This would make sense if the game was available on Xbox and he was saying “Hey buy our game, we won’t block you”.
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Even if he was trying to make a joke it isn’t professional for someone who is the Senior Social Media Manager for Square Enix. Since his tweet is only going to fuel console wars.
My problem is that regulators(CMA/FTC) are after big tech acquisitions. If the CMA are willing to block a $300m deal for a GIF selling company that is hardly going to move the needle or make any money what’s to stop them from doing the same for a studio of a similar cost?
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Actually I agreed with them blocking the Giphy purchase / requiring availability on competing platforms, because for that particular market Giphy has a much bigger role and few major well known competitors for other platforms to use. That really wasn’t about purchase price.
This one though doesn’t make sense. While valuable, there are significant alternatives and there are provisions to provide to other platforms, so it really doesn’t make much sense for them to block.
Console wars are a market in & of themselves.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a few fanboys read that tweet & hit the pre-order button on the next Final Fantasy ‘just because’.
It’s unfortunate but that’s also how the market works. Sony (& now Square) knows this all too well.
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Buy SEGA and Asbo and lets move on . Spend some of the cash on pushing the Xbox and look to add another line to the likes of RARE.
We"ve played nice and got nowhere , time to send the troops into war, even if that means crunch peroids ro get Hellblade 2 and Avowed out this year .
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