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[Unknown Soldier]

No regulator is going to give Sony control of Fortnite and Unreal Engine.

If Epic puts themselves up for sale, they’d be snapped up by Tencent in a flash.

Regulators just gave Microsoft control of Call of Duty, Diablo, Warcraft, and whatever mobile shit King makes. And you think they wouldn't pass a sale of Epic without a second thought? There is no longer anything in gaming that is off limits to acquisition or merger.

But yes, Tencent would be the ones to acquire the rest of Epic. Tim Sweeney loves Tencent and would sell to them tomorrow if the price was right.

 

[The_Mike]

No regulator is going to give Sony control of Fortnite and Unreal Engine.

If Epic puts themselves up for sale, they’d be snapped up by Tencent in a flash.

Why not though?

Activision is way bigger than Epic.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

dont blame the CMA. they had no choice. either approve or this happens.

They deserve it

They've dishonered themselves and their family

and more important they've forced me to take an L

 

[Varteras]

They deserve it

They've dishonered themselves and their family

and more important they've forced me to take an L

Which is unusual because normally you just take the D

 

[feynoob]

Doing a 180 on our dinner plans eh

Sounds like something those scumbags at the CMA would do

I am sorry man, but phils money was too much.

 

[TheGodfather07]

lol at people thinking regulators would stop anything. its easy to get past them and corporations know it. microsoft can get whoever they want. sony can get whoever they can afford. regulators wont do jack shit. theyll go through the motions but nothing will be blocked in the end.

 

[feynoob]

In light of recent news, we managed to get a respond from Sony to MS.

 

[Sanepar]

Still not enough for fair and balanced competition with Sony

The regulators have given them the green light to acquire anyone and everyone so the sky's the limit!

They need to also acquire Take 2, EA, Rockstar, Ubisoft, CDPR, Embracer, Amazon Studios, and probably also Tencent just to be sure they can compete fairly with Sony

I will be honest i have a pc and series x.since regulators don't care anymore i don't too and expect they will acquire much more. At least cdpr and io on short time. Without cdpr sony will be left with larian and bioware wrpgs only.

 

[Demon2blades]

May as well argue that there’s no need to complain about the Bethesda purchase since other console makers could simply have bought them instead.

Nobody tried though did they I guess nobody felt the need to at the time the games were coming to all platforms I mean did Bethesda even offer Sony/Nintendo a shot at buying them out or was it straight to ms for the sale? not that any of them could outbid and in essence that's my point they have so much cash once they decided this is the route they want to go down with acquisitions nobody was/is going to be able to compete with them any more .... I dunno it's done now so that's that anyway .

 

[Varteras]

In light of recent news, we managed to get a respond from Sony to MS.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

Sony could buy Capcom with cash on hand alone, nevermind raising debt

Capcom market cap - $7.8 billion
Sony cash on hand - $13 billion

I agree. But even if they didn’t have enough cash, they would still be able to buy Capcom. Or a 30 billion dollar company like EA, T2, or Epic Games.

They'd have to buy out Tencent's 40% to get it. I think Tencent really wants that Fortnite IP so I could see there being a bidding war if Sony tried to go that way.

Just buying 80% of Sweeney’s shares would do.

Epic would be the hardest to get past regulators imo including EA and T2. The engine is too widely used by everyone.

I am also not sure if the 32bn private valuation is going to cause issues. Especially if Tencent wants to cause issues.

Actually don’t think Tencent even has a the ability to bid, seeing how Chinese companies aren’t exactly view kindly right now. That engine isn’t something USA wouldn’t want in the hands of a chinese company. Sweeney would probably get getting substantial amount of shares of Sony entice him.

I think Sony (PS) buying UE would set off some major red flags with regulators, more so than the entirety of ABK. Would be interesting to see if they could get away with it.

Wouldn’t make sense for Sony to make the engine restricted to PS5 or something of the nature, so I don‘t see the concern.

 

[Aguero9320]

Why not though?

Activision is way bigger than Epic.

The Unreal Engine mainly is what would get their attention. Nvidia and ARM has been brought up a lot, without any real relevance to Microsoft/ABK but anyone inside the gaming industry trying to buy Epic would be a much closer comparison.

Talk about opportunities to foreclose… They’d almost certainly be asked to divest Unreal - then it would be no problem.

 

[Topher]

I’m gone for a day and everybody is talking about food?

 

[SteelCurtain 59]

This acquisition is good for Xbox fans in several ways that don't depend on exclusivity, people need to stop with this nonsense that Xbox fans are happy because Playstation fans won't be able to play these games. Sure some of them are, but a similar proportion of Playstation fans cheer on exclusives too and it's better not to interact with those types of people on all sides.

1. This acquisition will bring many great games to Game Pass, past, present, and future.
2. This acquisition will be big in increasing Xbox's comparative market share, (won't pass or even catch up to Playstation obviously, but it will improve) meaning it will be harder for devs to avoid making Xbox games, and make it more expensive for Sony to buy exclusives (Yes Microsoft does this too and I don't like that, but objectively there will be less games missing Xbox which is good for Xbox gamers)
3. This acquisition may help getting some Activision published Xbox/360 games into the backwards compatible program, which is more games for Xbox gamers
4. This acquisition could potentially lead to revitalizations of series like Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, or other various popular Activision franchises (not saying this is super likely, but more likely than the basically 0% chance they currently have, Game Pass makes it easier to make small-mid size games and see if they can work)
5. For PC players this will lead to every Activision game coming to Steam
6. This will allow every Activision game to be able to be streamed and played on basically any device

The majority of Xbox fans are way more excited about things like the above rather than the games being exclusive. It will result in more games for Xbox gamers, and more games in Game Pass. I completely understand people who don't have Xbox's being mad about games potentially becoming exclusive, I would be in reverse too, and maybe I'm too optimistic about the state of humanity, but I don't think the people happy about this acquisition are happy that Playstation fans may lose access to the games, they're happy about the benefits they would get from the acquisition

 

[Oddvintagechap]

In light of recent news, we managed to get a respond from Sony to MS.

 

[feynoob]

I’m gone for a day and everybody is talking about food?

You know its hard to process information right?

 

[wolffy71]

The more I think about the more this acquisition, the less sense it makes from a gamepass angle.

All the big IPs brought in are monthly revenue generators. Warzone, WoW, and Overwatch. It's not about the value gamepass would get from them because there isn't one.

It's about cash flow. These games all bring in steady cash. All have big dev teams that need constant influx of cash for constant development and content.

Non of that makes any sense if you start pulling games from users.

What does gamepass gain from a free game being listed, nothing.

Diablo is the big one that probably helps GP. Stand alone COD is there but it's all about WZ.

In short there's zero chance any of these games go exclusive. It's mostly about revenue.

 

[feynoob]

As long Sony is willing to drop bloodborne on steam.

 

[Varteras]

The Unreal Engine mainly is what would get their attention. Nvidia and ARM has been brought up a lot, without any real relevance to Microsoft/ABK but anyone inside the gaming industry trying to buy Epic would be a much closer comparison.

Talk about opportunities to foreclose… They’d almost certainly be asked to divest Unreal - then it would be no problem.

I think the argument there would be that Unreal doesn't have to be used to make games. That there are many alternatives. Frostbite, Lumberyard, Unity, iD Tech (which Microsoft now owns), Snowdrop, Source, etc. Unreal is very popular, yes, but even if Sony was to foreclose Microsoft on it, it wouldn't prevent them from making games. Not even close.

 

[Yoboman]

Why not though?

Activision is way bigger than Epic.

Because of vertical competition concerns. Not only would Sony be buying Fortnite, they'd be buying the engine that a huge number of developers and publishers including direct competitors need access to. They'd also be buying a huge storefront on PC

Sony might have some winnable arguments there, particularly in lack of PC presence and not having their own middleware solution. But it would go through as much scrutiny as ABK

 

[Demon2blades]

The Unreal Engine mainly is what would get their attention. Nvidia and ARM has been brought up a lot, without any real relevance to Microsoft/ABK but anyone inside the gaming industry trying to buy Epic would be a much closer comparison.

Talk about opportunities to foreclose… They’d almost certainly be asked to divest Unreal - then it would be no problem.

10 year deal ..... Bosh


Jk.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

As long Sony is willing to drop bloodborne on steam.

So that no one will buy it?

 

[thebigmanjosh]

I think Sony (PS) buying UE would set off some major red flags with regulators, more so than the entirety of ABK. Would be interesting to see if they could get away with it.

It would probably fall under similar scrutiny as the nvidia/arm deal, so basically a no go. Sony acquiring Epic is a fanboy wet dream.

Much more likely Sony go for something like Capcom or Konami where there’s value across gaming, tv, and film. T2 is probably too expensive.

At this point, MS will probably acquire IO, CDPR, and Ubi before the end of this gen.

 

[feynoob]

So that no one will buy it?

You understimate PC bros.
They are masochistic and like to suffer alot.
This is game is right in the alley for them.

 

[DaGwaphics]

lol at people thinking regulators would stop anything. its easy to get past them and corporations know it. microsoft can get whoever they want. sony can get whoever they can afford. regulators wont do jack shit. theyll go through the motions but nothing will be blocked in the end.

I wouldn't say that. Plenty of things get blocked.

The question is what is the reality of the situation post merger, is there a legitimate risk the day after closing or are we talking about possible problems that maybe could happen in 10 years in one possible future if the wind blew just right?

I don't think any one particular publisher is really that important, those things can probably be finessed (depending on how much of the game publishing market is held by said company pre/post merger), so, I'll agree with you there. One of the big three buying another member of the big three, that's blocked. One of the big three purchasing major pieces of the supply chain (AMD, the GDDR6 manufactures, Unity, UE, or storefronts like Steam, etc.) that is likely all blocked.

 

[Topher]

You know its hard to process information right?

 

[feynoob]

Everyone here got hit by a nuke from the CMA. 3 days ago, we didnt expect this type of news to be dropped out of nowhere.

 

[Topher]

Everyone here got hit by a nuke from the CMA. 3 days ago, we didnt expect this type of news to be dropped out of nowhere.

I know.....I was here for it. Now folks are talking about dinner?

 

[In Cold Blood]

So they are no longer ignorant fools who don’t know shit and on Sony’s take trying to protect Sony?

Huh! Funny, that.

Flippy floppies on a boat bitch.

I said they had been hoodwinked by Sony and got shit wrong. They came out and admitted they got it wrong.
No floppy floppy on my end. 100% vindicated.

 

[Yoboman]

It would probably fall under similar scrutiny as the nvidia/arm deal, so basically a no go. Sony acquiring Epic is a fanboy wet dream.

Much more likely Sony go for something like Capcom or Konami where there’s value across gaming, tv, and film. T2 is probably too expensive.

At this point, MS will probably acquire IO, CDPR, and Ubi before the end of this gen.

Yay no more third party games

 

[feynoob]

I know.....I was here for it. Now folks are talking about dinner?

They seem to be hungry for some reason, but MS isnt allowing them to eat those foods, since they bought the resturent that was serving the food.

 

[The_Mike]

You understimate PC bros.
They are masochistic and like to suffer alot.
This is game is right in the alley for them.

And yet Returnal tanked and no one gave a shit about it.

 

[In Cold Blood]

They’ve been saying that for YEARS prior to Sony. Even Nintendo has said that years prior. I provided the links in this thread. Keep at it tho, champ!

It backfired on them. This whole thing backfired on them. Imagine Jim at the photocopier making copies of all the exclusive contract agreements they have made with third parties that he has to send to Phil after he got this news.

 

[ulantan]

It backfired on them. This whole thing backfired on them. Imagine Jim at the photocopier making copies of all the exclusive contract agreements they have made with third parties that he has to send to Phil after he got this news.

I can't wait for Phil's face when he finds Jim paid square money for ff16

 

[In Cold Blood]

They won't be after this. Timing is key. Regardless, if ya'll can be in favor of MS doing it, why the complete opposite reaction to Sony doing the same? (Funny thing is, that is likely not even going to happen.)

I'm not saying Sony shouldn't be allowed to, I'm saying they won't be allowed to.
I would be fine if Sony bought Square and Ubi and made their games exclusive.
In my eyes the more exclusive content on both console the better. Infact, I would rather Sony buy them than Amazon or Apple.
I want each console to have its own flair. It would be awesome if there was 50% exclusive and 50% multiplat game ratio on the console.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Stop that take 2 nonsense. Even if sony wanted too and could it would get blocked.
Kinda funny that some of these fanboys loved yelling MARKET LEADER, TOTAL DOMINATION XBOX NO GAMES, NOBODY WANTS AN XBOX....
Well that shit has consequences you know.

Or my favourite "we just want xbox to compete". Turns out they really didn't.

 

[C2brixx]

Why not though?

Activision is way bigger than Epic.

You'd think a Competition and Markets regulator would want to foster more competition in a given market vs giving the market leader an even greater advantage.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

I'm not saying Sony shouldn't be allowed to, I'm saying they won't be allowed to.

Of course they would. Being a market leader isn't a reason to block an acquisition.

 

[Banjo64]

Of course they would. Being a market leader isn't a reason to block an acquisition.

Boy’s on a mission to get his goodboy points - just sit back and enjoy the babbling.

And you’re speaking to a man with no floppy floppy who’s 100% vindicated. I think he knows more than everyone here about M&As.

 

[XesqueVara]

Tencent acquiring Epic would give the CCP control of pratically AAA gaming development, shit would start being political.
Doubt that Epic will be acquired in the future.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

They seem to be hungry for some reason, but MS isnt allowing them to eat those foods, since they bought the resturent that was serving the food.

They actually bought the entire chain, just to make sure no PlayStation gamers would be allowed to eat McDonald's again for the rest of their lives (after a 10 meals grace period)

Now it sounds like they are going to also buy Burger King, Wendy's, Carl's Jr/Hardee's, White Castle, Sonic, and Taco Bell too

Why Taco Bell? Why the hell not at this point?

 

[PaintTinJr]

Everyone here got hit by a nuke from the CMA. 3 days ago, we didnt expect this type of news to be dropped out of nowhere.

Any chance you can highlight the parts you consider to be the "nuke"? as I feel like I've missed what everyone else has been reading and took a completely different view from the 17 page document.

Given how vague the financial modelling was, that was amended and the document's request for further feedback of the amended figures, I fully expect another attempt supplied - before the deadline - to model Microsoft's ability to withdraw CoD from PlayStation over 5years and make a financial success of doing so.

 

[feynoob]

Any chance you can highlight the parts you consider to be the "nuke"? as I feel like I've missed what everyone else has been reading and took a completely different view from the 17 page document.

Given how vague the financial modelling was, that was amended and the document's request for further feedback of the amended figures, I fully expect another attempt supplied - before the deadline - to model Microsoft's ability to withdraw CoD from PlayStation over 5years and make a financial success of doing so.

It went from harming the competition to no impact and trusting MS words to not remove the game from ps.
Complete 180 degree.

 

[Yoboman]

You'd think a Competition and Markets regulator would want to foster more competition in a given market vs giving the market leader an even greater advantage.

They are a regulator they don't foster competition lol

 

[Sanepar]

It backfired on them. This whole thing backfired on them. Imagine Jim at the photocopier making copies of all the exclusive contract agreements they have made with third parties that he has to send to Phil after he got this news.

Sony will have what they did with Sega. They fucked Sega. Ms will fuck them. It is just a matter of time.

 

[feynoob]

And yet Returnal tanked and no one gave a shit about it.

Returnal is niche, bloodborne isnt.
Think bloodborne like DS games.

 

[feynoob]

Why Taco Bell? Why the hell not at this point?

diarrhea. Even MS is afraid of them.

 

[The_Mike]

Returnal is niche, bloodborne isnt.
Think bloodborne like DS games.

Bloodborne/dark soul games are also niche.

They are just a very loud minority.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Sony will have what they did with Sega. They fucked Sega. Ms will fuck them. It is just a matter of time.

 

[PaintTinJr]

It went from harming the competition to no impact and trusting MS words to not remove the game from ps.
Complete 180 degree.

Did it? I read the word "maybe" in there. I never read anything equal to what you paraphrased, hence why I was asking for exact "nuke" quotes so I could understand why everyone thinks it is passing now, automatically with the CMA.

I can only guess I've missed something, because everyone else is saying it is a slam dunk here.