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Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?


  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
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feynoob

Banned
Should I say thankfully no? Or will Microsoft stop sending me money 🤑?
If you are not american, then don't insult our FTC.
Only we Americans do that to our governing bodies, while twerking for corporations.
American Flag Space GIF
 

reinking

Gold Member
I know people will disagree but no agency like the CMA or anyone else should have the power to stop such an acquisition after you got 38 other countries to let it go though.

And on top of that, to use the cloud gaming thing as an excuse is laughable at best and deep down we all know that.

Right now, I just want this thing to be over with (hopefully with the deal going through tho).

We'll see what happens next.
You do realize that even MS and ABK understood that they had to go through the CMA and gave them that power in the agreement. Only four of those thirty-eight countries matter when it comes to approving this acquisition and currently two of them are fighting to block it. Correction, one of them has blocked it.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
The desperation Microsoft is showing right now for this deal is something I have never seen before from a huge corporation. Did Nvidia go crazy like this and threatened the FTC and send execs to talk to Biden? It's actually embarrassing at this point for such a successful company to do all this.

You’re surprised they’re pushing hard to make this deal go through when you know they’ve got to pay billions of dollars to Activision in penalties?
 

Ansphn

Member
You’re surprised they’re pushing hard to make this deal go through when you know they’ve got to pay billions of dollars to Activision in penalties?
I know they will have to pay out 3 billion dollars but to go this far? At the end of the day, this is one of the biggest company in the world worth more than 2 trillion dollars with a reputation to uphold. They're looking weak and desperate with their move like they're going to shut down the whole company if this deal dont go through.
 
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foamdino

Member
Whatever your thoughts are with respect to the bid to buy ABK, it’s kinda absurd to rope in the Minecraft deal as ‘obscene’, especially now you have the benefit of hindsight as to how they’ve managed the IP.
It's nothing to do with how they managed the IP - I'm not party to the fine print of the deal that may have included "you must keep it multiplatform" as conditions of sale?

The fact that Microsoft was one of very few entities that could have paid that asking price - this act (in my opinion) was the start of this acquisition spree which is leading to fewer independent game devs and less choice overall. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, just saying how I see it.
 

dotnotbot

Member
I’m sure Jim Ryan is delighted that his boss has just come out and said cloud gaming isn’t a threat to the console business to the Financial Times of all publications,,,,

And? Sony only cared for console SLC, they never addmited cloud is an issue for them. But CMA is looking at a bigger picture.

You're behaving like what he said somehow contradicts Jim Ryan's stance.
 
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jm89

Member
I’m sure Jim Ryan is delighted that his boss has just come out and said cloud gaming isn’t a threat to the console business to the Financial Times of all publications,,,,
What does that change with the case though? CMA see cloud gaming as a separate market to console so his comments don't conflict, not only that they dropped console market concerns.

Besides cloud gaming concerns isn't just about Sony.
 
I’m sure Jim Ryan is delighted that his boss has just come out and said cloud gaming isn’t a threat to the console business to the Financial Times of all publications,,,,

That doesn't make a difference here. It's the CMA that's blocking the deal not Sony.
 
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dotnotbot

Member
Sony called CMA's decision about dropping console concerns irrational and I believe they never made a comment about them blocking this deal because of cloud later. There wasn't any "thanks, good job" statement from Sony cause they mainly care about content being taken away from PS and probably wanted to set a precedent in this area to block future acquistions of similar scale.

So behaving like CMA and Sony are still good friends plotting against Microsoft is silly. CMA ignored Sony's arguments in the end.
 
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ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
I’m sure Jim Ryan is delighted that his boss has just come out and said cloud gaming isn’t a threat to the console business to the Financial Times of all publications,,,,
CMA specifically blocked the deal on cloud grounds, dropping console arguments outright in preliminary findings. All this just to further strengthen it's future position specifically pointing to Crazy Brad and his fangirls to the fact, that it wasn't about MS vs Sony or taking off CoD from PS. It is also woth noting, while Sony is a cloud gaming provider, it's not a cloud infrastructure provider. Sony rents AWS and Gaikai for their business needs and PSN is running on third-party servers.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
So we're back on "cloud gaming is the bee's knees" and a "savior to gaming?"

I hope Amazon buys Activision so everyone on these "enthusiast" boards can unaninously agree that cloud gaming sucks again.

It's an odd excuse. I have never met someone who's been into cloud gaming. There cloud gaming services out there are also very limited.
 

feynoob

Banned
It's not, but do you really expect Activision to do any of this without being bought?
Boosteriod has Activision games on their system. GeForce had them before. But because GeForce was profiting from their business, a lot of developers left the service.
Most companies are looking after their products. They don't want other entities to profit from their products, while they get nothing.

Unless there is a decision like EU for MS, you won't see big boys allowing their games on cloud without the cash.
 

Bernardougf

Gold Member
The bigger picture of cloud gaming market?

No matter how much people try to spin this, blocking the deal on the basis of the cloud gaming is a pathetic decision.

Dismiss the console SLC, just based on MS predatory history and the precedent stablished in the bethesda acquisitiom, also was a pathetic decision, either way good that this deal is been blocked, for whatever reasom they choose to.
 

dotnotbot

Member
The bigger picture of cloud gaming market?

No matter how much people try to spin this, blocking the deal on the basis of the cloud gaming is a pathetic decision.

Yeah, what is highely likely to happen in the future. Prevention is better than cure as wise people say.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
The bigger picture of cloud gaming market?

No matter how much people try to spin this, blocking the deal on the basis of the cloud gaming is a pathetic decision.

No, you just don't like it, which is fine, but there is nothing "pathetic" about preventing a $2 trillion corporation from creating a stronghold in a nascent market that expected to have substantial growth in the future.
 

Gone

Banned
No, you just don't like it, which is fine, but there is nothing "pathetic" about preventing a $2 trillion corporation from creating a stronghold in a nascent market that expected to have substantial growth in the future.
Creating a stronghold by adding Activision games? There are literally thousands other games.

And Microsoft already gave the necessary remedies to address any concerns regarding those games in the future and a more sensible agency already agreed to said remedies.
 

Kilau

Gold Member
It's not, but do you really expect Activision to do any of this without being bought?
I only expect Activision to do what they think is best for themselves. Same for any company. They have a cloud deal but don’t seem interested in sub services out of fear of “brand dilution” which is funny coming from them with 20+ CoD games and 10+ guitar hero games.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Creating a stronghold by adding Activision games? There are literally thousands other games.

And Microsoft already gave the necessary remedies to address any concerns regarding those games in the future and a more sensible agency already agreed to said remedies.

You know damn well "thousands of other games" don't hold a candle to the Call of Duty franchise.

And yeah, that remedy makes those other cloud providers dependent on Microsoft if they want to keep Call of Duty. Exactly why the CMA said that doesn't work.
 

Gone

Banned
You know damn well "thousands of other games" don't hold a candle to the Call of Duty franchise.

And yeah, that remedy makes those other cloud providers dependent on Microsoft if they want to keep Call of Duty. Exactly why the CMA said that doesn't work.
And you know damn well that even 15 years from now, maybe at most 10% of CoD players will be playing on the cloud and not natively.

And those cloud providers wouldn't get CoD either way if the deal doesn't go through or they'll have to pay significant amount of money to get it. And they can always go get the thousands other games.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
Boosteriod has Activision games on their system. GeForce had them before. But because GeForce was profiting from their business, a lot of developers left the service.
Most companies are looking after their products. They don't want other entities to profit from their products, while they get nothing.

Unless there is a decision like EU for MS, you won't see big boys allowing their games on cloud without the cash.
Unfortunately the EU decision doesn't stop this from happening, it just allows the exact same thing to happen now for anyone that doesn't agree to sign a specific deal with Microsoft or meets their criteria and in the future will potentially happen to those that even did sign the deal.

I true remedy would be a fundamental change to software licensing law that puts the power in the consumer's hands, allowing them to run software they have 'bought' (licensed) on any compatible device whether it is situated on their desktop or in the cloud. Even that is problematic because MS could change their licensing of Windows to disallow people from using that in certain ways that stops cloud services using it.

The end game for most corporations is that software 'ownership' becomes a relic and the only way to access things will be by subscription. It's the gift and the curse of cloud services.

What is really needed (but won't) is for regulators to work together to define open standards using open source technologies and licensing agreements that puts the power back in the hands of licensees. The true test may be can a consumer (legally) operate their own private cloud to run the software they have licensed themselves, without being beholden to a company like Microsoft to do so. It's maybe a bit too much to ask, but let's not fill ourselves that the EUs acceptance of limited scope, limited time deals is doing anything but slightly prolonging this more closed future.
 

Topher

Gold Member
And you know damn well that even 15 years from now, maybe at most 10% of CoD players will be playing on the cloud and not natively.

And those cloud providers wouldn't get CoD either way if the deal doesn't go through or they'll have to pay significant amount of money to get it. And they can always go get the thousands other games.

lol....not going to argue with your made up numbers. If/when cloud gaming becomes a big thing then Activision Blizzard is going to want to sell their games on those services just like they sell games on local platforms. An independent ABK ensures they attempt to get the most platform coverage for their games just as they do now. That isn't necessarily the case with a Microsoft owned ABK. The larger problem, to me, is that in 10 years Microsoft will be able to pull Call of Duty off competing platforms, both in cloud and local, and no one will be able to do anything about it. I'm sure Xbox die-hards love that idea, but it sucks for gamers in general.
 
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