According to Wikipedia Lost Odyssey sold over 104,000 and Blue dragon sold over 200,000 and Microsoft was willing to make LO a series based on that number. Note BD is listed as the 4the bestselling Xbox game. Just looking at the numbers Xbox games did pretty, to good in Japan during the OG Xbox and 360 eras and sold 1.6 million consoles before Don Matrick took over. Exclusives certainly had a strong impact then and would now. Fact Microsoft working on having full Japanese audio in Starfield and Elder Scrolls. Let’s not forget how big Blizzard is in China and Korea. I don’t think making existing titles exclusive in Japan might be big but developing new ones and also old IPs resurrected could be good. I think they would want to expand their footing in Japan and globally so I do think there will be acquisitions made to secure this. They seem to be grooming Sega and I do still see the idea of a handheld being revived from Sega under Xbox. A Game Gear Series X could be a possibility with Sega. In the end they may not go for Sega though I think the push has been strong from fans to go in that direction.
TBF I think you can argue that MS wants to buy T2 over anything else. Nobody asked about ABK and MS bought that.
Easy way to acquire take 2.
10 year deal for GTA to Sony and Nintendo, then greenlight RDR3. Sell streaming rights to Ubisoft. Pay… Check mate.
Even then I think the regulators would want someone different to Ubisoft. They might get away with Borderlands but I imagine regulators would still want all the 2K sports games staying multiplatform too (atleast for a similar 10 year deal).
After all this I think regulators would still argue Xbox would either own too big a share of the cloud and console market, or have the scope to in the future.
I don’t agree but I appreciate the detail and research in your post.
ABK and Take 2 were not in their leaked 2021 plans, but the circonstances about the ABK valuation due to the tepid atmosphere at ABK made the buyout attractive to ABK owners, the share had dropped violently and the company was under scrutiny of violent behaviour towards their employees. Moreover, COD yearly cadence is not sustainable and they knew it. MS was an escape exit to t sinking ship.
Take 2 has nothing of these problems.
UbiSoft can not become the recipient of all MS purchases, otherwise they will become a predominant cloud player that the regulators will want to avoid.
See the CMA has changed it’s approach to stage 2 investigations. From reading the release it looks like the approach will be similar to what happened in the ABK acquisition where the CMA will be more open on what they want and negotiate with the parties over concessions in a more open way:
https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1726633740925894971?t=Yp1-KVo6WodFFlczF3yoRA&s=19
Microsoft also has to adhere to the laws in the nations it operates under… you did watch the events of the CMA and FTC absurdity, no? It’s clear that these regulators have it out for Big Tech - the equivalent of blind firing in the regulatory sense, as not all Big Tech is the same here. So your original statement disregards the fact that we just watched those two regulators attempt to fabricate any and every angle to shut down the ABK merger - any of the big three third-party publishers are likely off-limits, or Microsoft is at least cautious enough not to pursue those.
! I think the only way we see a change between the big 3 are if:
- Another Tech giant rolls in E.g. Apple.
- Two of them decide to merge to make one giant publisher (EA & T2 are more likely).
- Tim Sweeney decides to retire and there’s a power struggle at Epic (Tencent owns 40%).
Maybe in another 5-10 years MS might consider it but no time soon (IMO).
I haven’t really seen any problems between the CMA and the FTC (we also know that Jim Ryan lobbied and went to the CMA meeting in person) + 33 countries approved without difficulty the repurchase. The FTC lost in federal court, the CMA got its concessions. I think the buyout was a success that didn’t require too many complications. Satya Nadella was certain that the takeover was going to happen. Obviously you cannot prove any kind of monopoly when Tencent is the world leader in terms of revenue, Sony sells 2-3x more Hardware and the Cloud market is hypothetical and does not yet exist.
You might want to educate yourself then because there sure is a whole lot of omission and reductionism there. The point stands and current legislation is in play to give FTC more merger-busting capabilities, especially since you disregard that whole “law” thing in your assessment.
This isn’t me saying “I don’t think they’ll ever get x”, this is me making a completely justified observation based on fact (from someone who did follow the events of the merger and saw the very real pressure the FTC/CMA applied, for which the CMA almost succeeded on).
There were very few concessions in reality Call of Duty must remain for at least 10 years on all platforms without advantages compared to other platforms (this was the initial deal) Judge Corley even encouraged Microsoft to make games exclusive outside of Call of Duty if all the rest of the ABK games became exclusive to the XBOX ecosystem the judge was in favor of this decision.
There were no concessions to be made with the FTC other than Call of Duty which was already a concession decided by Microsoft in the first place.
The CMA has gone into the Cloud Gaming market (which is currently a non-existent market, we have no figures on this market.) So I don’t think that buying Take Two would propel Microsoft into a state of monopoly on a market which does not does not exist and at worst the concessions will be the same guarantee GTA and Rockstar games for 10 years on all media with content parity and provide cloud gaming rights to another publisher.
Moreover, the CMA says so in the Tweet posted above (it will be more open to negotiating concessions rather than blocking a buyout)
I’m well aware of what the United States’ Federal Court stated towards the FTC’s defense under the guidelines of their powers at the moment. Nothing you provided has done anything to disprove that another purchase of the now-largest publisher would raise red flags, worse than the ABK ordeal. Furthermore, you seem to misunderstand what a monopoly is: in this case exclusives have nothing at all to do with the discussion, it’s about the proprietorship of all the IP and the cash flow that results (ie it almost all goes to Microsoft), and the potential influence on the market that will have. Attempting to snatch up the next-largest publisher right after ABK is absolutely a concern for a monopoly.
Furthermore, your point about concessions sure as hell disregards all of the activities that led up to said concessions, and the months in which many analysts said the deal was on the ropes… but yeah, there totally weren’t red flags being bandied about during the proceedings, never mind the Big Tech crusade that we have both regulators on record for 
The biggest Western publisher is EA, then it’s Apple with mobile but mobile is considered video games, Take Two are 3rd and there are other global publishers above Tencent, Sony, Neatease and even Nintendo is bigger than Take Two. If we take Take Two in the global publishers they are behind Tencent, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Nintendo, Neatese and EA they are therefore in 8th position of those that I know there are perhaps other publishers which are growing quickly like Nexon.
I don’t really want to drag up the last two years of ABK again but if you refer to most/any of the documentation it was comparing Xbox to other console manufacturers such as Sony and Nintendo (the console market), now that they have surpassed both in revenue the regulators will bring this up in every aspect. The other market was PC but as the market leader (Valve) had no concerns it didn’t cause them any concerns either.
Although Google & Apple were raised it was in reference how they currently have a duopoly which King might allow them to try compete with.
The other argument was this ‘cloud market’ which they not only factor in now but the future too e.g. if they allow further acquisitions will they potentially cause a monopoly on the cloud market in 10 years.
EA, Take-Two or Epic would have further implications to the markets they were reviewing (Console, PC and Cloud). If they were buying just a mobile publisher then sure they will compare them against other mobile publishers like Apple and Google (which likely wouldn’t be an issue).
What your suggesting (Take-Two) would impact the console, cloud and PC markets which they have already raised concerns with. They wouldn’t necessarily care if Tencent (which isn’t in the console market) is generating more revenue, or Apple/Google for that matter.
Microsoft didn’t say that they don’t consider Sony and Nintendo to be their rivals and that the console market is not their priority? I’m almost certain they said their current real rival is Tencent and maybe tomorrow it will be Netflix, Disney, Apple, Amazon or other…
That’s the thing it doesn’t matter what Microsoft say their markets are or who their competitors are, it’s their job to say what they need to in order to pass the deal for the shareholders.
Microsoft also indicated that the cloud market isn’t a thing but the EU, CMA and FTC all disagreed.
It matters how the regulators perceive the market(s) - the gaming industry isn’t just one market it’s multiple.
All of the regulators considered Sony as Xbox’s biggest competitor even if Microsoft consider their competitors to be much larger. Why do you think all of their presentations to the regulators were directly comparing themselves to Sony and Nintendo instead of Apple, Google and Tencent? Because that’s how the regulators perceive it.
PS: I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. You are right in saying that there are definitely companies with a bigger share of the gaming industry. What I’m saying is that regulators don’t view it in that manner (the whole industry) but the individual markets (which Xbox is now technically leading in many areas).
Well even if we consider that Microsoft are the competitors of Sony and Nintendo what I see is that Microsoft only holds 2% of the Japanese market and 20% of the European market compared to 80% for Sony and these figures probably do not have changed even with the acquisition of ABK. You must also take into account that Microsoft are the last to arrive on the console market and arriving when competitors were one or more generations ahead is a real handicap. the general public calls a game console Playstation or Nintendo. The Cloud market does not exist and it may never exist, we cannot be sure that it works and if it did work Microsoft would simply have to make concessions. when in revenue generated Microsoft will overtake Sony for the first time in their existence. They can therefore afford to exceed Sony in terms of revenue by several billion without it posing a monopoly problem. You are in a monopoly when you hold 70% of the market or more.
And you’ve just listed the two markets that have nothing to do with the CMA or the FTC… the UK and US, respectively, are the only countries those regulators have purview over. It doesn’t matter to those two what their market share is outside of the countries they hold regulation over (obviously as we’ve seen in the ABK merger cases).