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[Famipan]

All of this because MS wouldn’t feel content with just paying for exclusive time frame/DLC deals.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Money well spent. God bless America.

those boobs are fake.

 

[Ozriel]

Also, Microsoft is literally worth more then probably all Japanese video game companies out together. It’s also more profitable then all Japanese video game companies put together.

The scale is completely different. It’s ridiculous to compare say Sony buying Bungie with MS buying Activision.

These large Corpos absolutely need to be restrained. That $70billion which is mind boggling amount of money is less then 1 year of MS profit. Not revenue, profit.

People, stop shilling for Corpos, they aren’t your friends.

There’s no real logic in comparing the entirely of Microsoft - across Enterprise, Legal, Cloud etc with Japanese video games companies.

Nor is it a reasonable, good faith argument to take one position and argue that any opposing position is driven by ‘shilling’.

Xbox is dead last in console sales. Has an installed base marketshare less than half of their major rival. Has been consistently outsold for 2023 even in their strongest markets. And posts gaming revenues significantly less than their major rivals. These are the metrics regulators use when making decisions around the video game market, not whether Office and Azure are making billions in profit.

 

[Ozriel]

You either are playing dumb to not understand what's going on or your love for MS is clouding your judgment.
The $1 billion spent by Microsoft on this deal raises valid questions. If this deal is as legitimate as you claim, why did Microsoft need to shell out a whopping $1 BILLION? Let's be realistic about where that money likely went, and it didn't go to starving children in Africa. So let's push for real answers and transparency in this matter and stop this corpo defending bullshit.

And this is precisely why I keep saying you have absolutely no idea what you’re saying.

There’s nowhere it’s claimed that Microsoft spent $1bn on this deal. Absolutely nowhere. You made that up.

the FT article says MS entire legal, policy and influencing division takes about $1bn to run. How you’ve transformed that into “MS spent $1bn on the Activision deal” is a miracle.

 

[Unknown?]

Lol the only people crying are you guys because the deal went through.

Lots of people lobbied in this case including Sony which is another reason why Sony’s lobbying is relevant. MS proved their case and won. Now you guys can’t stop crying about it.

And to many gamers who own PCs or multi consoles it matters very little. Hell COD could have gone down hill the next couple of years anyway.

MS is taking a big risk here. All this means to the majority of players is that Sony can no longer buy or strong arm exclusive content for activision games.

F off with this strong arm shit. You fools are so clueless if you think this is anywhere near what Sony has been doing.

 

[Unknown?]

There’s no real logic in comparing the entirely of Microsoft - across Enterprise, Legal, Cloud etc with Japanese video games companies.

Nor is it a reasonable, good faith argument to take one position and argue that any opposing position is driven by ‘shilling’.

Xbox is dead last in console sales. Has an installed base marketshare less than half of their major rival. Has been consistently outsold for 2023 even in their strongest markets. And posts gaming revenues significantly less than their major rivals. These are the metrics regulators use when making decisions around the video game market, not whether Office and Azure are making billions in profit.

Oh poor poor Microsoft! I guess they should have just bought out all their competition for their other failed products to succeed. Windows Phone should have just bought 50% of all phone manufacturers.

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

My mind is mainly fed up with paid and unpaid Sony shills agitating against Xbox. If these people didn't exist, I could even see myself starting to like Sony products.

At least you're pretty upfront about your childish, petty fanboyism. We don't get enough of that transparency around here

 

[Dick Jones]

those boobs are fake.

 

[Ozriel]

Lobbying surges around the largest merger in videogame industry history - OpenSecrets News

Companies ramped up lobbying around Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard, the biggest gaming deal in history.

www.opensecrets.org

Turns out Sony, Microsoft AND Activision all engaged lobbyists around this deal.

Sony Interactive Entertainment reported lobbying Congress for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2022, spending $60,000 to influence policy. It spent an additional $240,000 in the first half of 2023 lobbying federal lawmakers, the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative in support of antitrust law enforcement, according to the company’s lobbying disclosures.

 

[Unknown?]

Lobbying surges around the largest merger in videogame industry history - OpenSecrets News

Companies ramped up lobbying around Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard, the biggest gaming deal in history.

www.opensecrets.org

Turns out Sony, Microsoft AND Activision all engaged lobbyists around this deal.

Cool, only one can afford to outspend the other. Lobbying should be illegal.

 

[Ozriel]

Cool, only one can afford to outspend the other.

Ah. So the fair thing to always do is to peg everything to the lowest number?

How does this make sense to you ?

Lobbying should be illegal.

That may yet worthwhile conversation to be had in the ‘Off Topic’ forum, since Lobbying covers pretty much everything, and practically every corporation and political group is involved across retail, AI, agriculture etc.
not co-opted into a video game discussion by aggrieved fans.

 

[Fabieter]

Cool, only one can afford to outspend the other. Lobbying should be illegal.

Absolutely.

 

[Unknown?]

Ah. So the fair thing to always do is to peg everything to the lowest number?

How does this make sense to you ?



That may yet worthwhile conversation to be had in the ‘Off Topic’ forum, since Lobbying covers pretty much everything, and practically every corporation and political group is involved across retail, AI, agriculture etc.
not co-opted into a video game discussion by aggrieved fans.

I'm just saying failure shouldn't be rewarded. I wouldn't want Ford to become the largest automaker by buying up parts suppliers and refusing to sell replacement parts for the competition. This is also how AT&T became a monopoly, just buying up competition.

 

[StereoVsn]

There’s no real logic in comparing the entirely of Microsoft - across Enterprise, Legal, Cloud etc with Japanese video games companies.

Nor is it a reasonable, good faith argument to take one position and argue that any opposing position is driven by ‘shilling’.

Xbox is dead last in console sales. Has an installed base marketshare less than half of their major rival. Has been consistently outsold for 2023 even in their strongest markets. And posts gaming revenues significantly less than their major rivals. These are the metrics regulators use when making decisions around the video game market, not whether Office and Azure are making billions in profit.

The logic is that $70 billion came from non gaming division. That’s basically attempting vertical integration sort of play. It’s ridiculous to try to separate MS gaming from rest of MS considering Xbox division is funded from profits in other parts of the company.

 

[Guerilla Munch]

People are actually defending and celebrating the fact that we've reached a point where multi trillion dollar companies are swallowing up multi billion dollar companies, as all wealth and power are consolidated into a literal handful of global megacorporations. Justified by the absolute man-child mindset of "heh heh this is bad for the videogame companies I don't like. Sony and Nintendo just got pwned."

 

[Ozriel]

The logic is that $70 billion came from non gaming division. That’s basically attempting vertical integration sort of play. It’s ridiculous to try to separate MS gaming from rest of MS considering Xbox division is funded from profits in other parts of the company.

And?
Sony throws in Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures movies into PS Plus Premium. There's cross-pollination of IP between Playstation, Sony Pictures and Sony Music. Nobody's fully siloed off.

Whether or not acquisitions pull funding from MS as a whole, you'd be hard pressed to claim comparing overall Microsoft revenue vs Playstation revenue is a sane and logical thing to do. It's worth noting that even Sony did not put this forward as an argument during the CMA, FTC or EU hearings.

 

[SABRE220]

It's funny that even if we don't get the cyberpunk sequel any time soon we can be happy with the knowledge that we contributed to actually living that dystopian future in a few decades. These corporations have gotten so huge they can literally influence governments on a world stage and have the defense and cyber security influence of nations under their thumbs. Imagine if Microsoft/amazon etc keep growing and acquiring like this for decades who is going to be able to stop or even control them?

 

[FoxMcChief]

those boobs are fake.

 

[midasmulligan]

“No officer, I wasn’t trying to bribe you, I was lobbying you.”

Can’t wait for my next speeding ticket to see how this works out

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

OMG the realization....

those bobba are as fake as calling Bethesda, Activision and Blizzard's games Xbox First Party games

()()

 

[Lucie Goosey]

Lobbying should be made illegal.

 

[anothertech]

Sad truth is life is a pay to win model. As fucking sleezebag tactics as it is.

This paper pushing mmo we call life is a Korean grinding game with mobile time wasting road blocks.

 

[StereoVsn]

And?
Sony throws in Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures movies into PS Plus Premium. There's cross-pollination of IP between Playstation, Sony Pictures and Sony Music. Nobody's fully siloed off.

Whether or not acquisitions pull funding from MS as a whole, you'd be hard pressed to claim comparing overall Microsoft revenue vs Playstation revenue is a sane and logical thing to do. It's worth noting that even Sony did not put this forward as an argument during the CMA, FTC or EU hearings.

I think the arguments should become relevant when you have very large companies involved.

 

[Raven77]

I keep saying this over and over in the Deal Watch thread. And I was laughed at over and over.

This is just how it works with big companies.

 

[freefornow]

F me Microsoft. What a pissant effort allocating 0.25% of your networth to lobbying. Do better!

 

[Edmund]

Can someone post this on Resetera and see how fast it takes for the mods to lock up the thread?

 

[Salty Popsicle]

Who cares? When MS is the bad guy call MS the bad guy. When Sony's the bad guy call Sony the bad guy. This MS/Sony being the bad guy is ok because others were the bad guy first is just absurd.

The funny thing is, there is no "bad guy" in pure market capitalism. Gaining market share and increasing the worth of your company is the end game.

 

[Topher]

The funny thing is, there is no "bad guy" in pure market capitalism. Gaining market share and increasing the worth of your company is the end game.

Matter of opinion. People can decide for themselves how ethical a corporation's actions are even if they are not illegal. Personally I don't care for corporations who effectively buy politicians or politicians that take corporate money. So I call them both "bad guys".