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[poppabk]

I've said this before, anyone certain this will go through should be buying ATVI shares with everything they have.

Guaranteed 25% right guys?

If it goes through as is. I have my doubts that Bobby doesn't have a few more skeletons in the closet that might come up during due diligence.

 

[Punished Miku]

The honest argument to be made is that maybe it's a really bad idea to allow a company to get this big. We all know what the end result is and we have already seen it, these big companies are just going to bully everyone else with their size and tentacles.

The defense of free market etc doesn't work because these companies already grew up on a corrupt system and have a history of abusing the system.

I'm no commie but I'm also no fool. I don't want to replace the state as shit as it is by an all powerful company.

I'm 10x more worried about Amazon than anything related to MS. Government's weird sometimes.

 

[lostinblue]

Due to closet communists at FTC.

Still better than the years they were absent and Disney, Adobe and other mega corporations got to do everything they wanted rendering the market competition worse than it would otherwise.

What a nightmare Microsoft has gotten themselves into. If this deal doesn't go through they're going to lose billions of dollars for sure.

Even if it goes through it might just turn into a nightmare for them.

Activision is badly managed, and Microsoft is bad at managing.

It's like a drunkard buying a vineyard.

 

[Elder Legend]

Click bait article I am pretty sure for just views.

 

[AV]

They would have monopoly if their studio management wasn't so shitty.

We really need to ban this word until forum users sit down and work out what it means.

Microsoft could have every studio release a game next year and it's still not close to a Monopoly.

 

[M1chl]

On the face of console wars, better situation for workers does not matter. I see, Jason.

 

[Clear]

So if the Activision deal
Doesn’t go through they buy Ubisoft then?

No idea. I'm just saying what the current working theory of anti-competitive practice that blocking the sale serves.

It kinda makes sense once you start looking at the argument as being less about what the buyout does for the mothership (in this case MS), than about what it does to competition in the market which the targetted business operates.

 

[nominedomine]

I'm 10x more worried about Amazon than anything related to MS. Government's weird sometimes.

MS is just as bad, if not even worse due to the areas they operate and it also has a worst history than Amazon when it comes to bad practices.

Google, Amazon, MS, they should be kindly asked to break into multiple companies. Way too much power for any organization to have.

 

[Heisenberg007]

thoughts and prayers for fat Phil and lil Bobby in these trying times

By the way, where is Phil? It seems like he is completely gone, and I haven't heard anything from him since ... January. The guy can hardly stay away from the news and cameras for a couple of weeks.

I hope everything is fine with him.

 

[SJRB]

Ah, I see it's time to put on my "today I'm a merger and acquisitions expert" hat.

 

[ManaByte]

We really need to ban this word until forum users sit down and work out what it means.

Microsoft could have every studio release a game next year and it's still not close to a Monopoly.

People throw that word around like Twitter users throw around Nazi.

 

[Braag]

If it fails they will probably buy Ubisoft snd couple smaller studios instead. Especially considering Sony isn't done with acquisitions yet.

 

[SoloKingRobert]

 

[Elios83]

I think it's really unlikely that it won't be approved given that shareholders are going to profit from it and the regulators should fine with the multiplatform commitments Microsoft made, but it would be shocking indeed if it was rejected.

 

[Zeroing]

The honest argument to be made is that maybe it's a really bad idea to allow a company to get this big. We all know what the end result is and we have already seen it, these big companies are just going to bully everyone else with their size and tentacles in everything.

The defense of free market etc doesn't work because these companies already grew up on a corrupt system and have a history of abusing the system. We are already way past the time to break them down.

I'm no commie but I'm also no fool.

They got so big they cannot fail and yes we have plenty of examples of that type of bulling and forcing what they want into everything.
We do not need to be communists, all we need is a brain that works, the deal being approved or not, will not be a win for us consumers. We will still have COD every year.

If the deal does not get approved, donate the money, since in a year they can made even more money than that. This is me being a socialist. lol

 

[yurinka]

I think it's really unlikely that it won't be approved given that shareholders are going to profit from it and the regulators should fine with the multiplatform commitments Microsoft made, but it would be shocking indeed if it was rejected.

The shareholders already decided to sell the company, and MS even adding Activision Blizzard on top is far from being market leader or to have a huge market share in gaming or in any gaming area so there's nothing close to a possible monopoly. So unless someone goes batshit crazy they shouldn't have any issue with regulators. The acquisition should be completed with no issue.

Btw, this voting is only paperwork. Won't stop the company from being sold.

Its not to do with monopolism, what I understand the concern is about are so called "network effects" where tech-giants buy businesses in order to funnel revenue into their overall ecosystems to the detriment of competitors outside of those ecosystems. Essentially its about them being able to outcompete indirectly through the power of association, so for instance say Amazon bought a market leading product in whatever. They could then not only benefit from the purchase by selling it on their storefront, but they could kill all external competition to that certain product by featuring it prominently and advantageously on their storefront.

Its a pretty subtle difference and one that's only really caught political and regulatory attention since so much of the economy has become digital. With the pandemic really accelerating the process and spurring a bi-partisan interest in curtailing the powers of the tech-giants.

This shouldn't apply here. MS isn't the Amazon of gaming: Playstation and Nintendo have a bigger market share than MS on console, on PC Steam has a bigger market share than them and in mobile (even if adding ABK) they are a big fish in an ocean with tons of fishes and many of them bigger than them.

ABK is the biggest 3rd party in console, but have a very small userbase in console. As an example, CoD -most of their sales on PS- yearly games are bought by around 10% of the PS active userbase. Meaning 90% of that userbase doesn't buy them, so even if they went full exclusive wouldn't change the market too much. And even less if we consider Nintendo since the ABK is way smaller there.

Unless they take uninformed or highly biased decisions, regulators should allow the acquisition at least regarding the monopoly and market related topics.

 

[GHG]

Ah, I see it's time to put on my "today I'm a merger and acquisitions expert" hat.

Well it's about time he started writing for Bloomberg instead of The Progressive.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

I think it's really unlikely that it won't be approved given that shareholders are going to profit from it and the regulators should fine with the multiplatform commitments Microsoft made, but it would be shocking indeed if it was rejected.

Both parties would massively suffer if the deal fails. Microsoft would lose billions of dollars. Activision stock would plummet by 20 plus percent.

 

[V1LÆM]

if it fails they can just go buy take two, EA, or anyone else.

this place would explode if GTA was owned by MS

 

[nominedomine]

They got so big they cannot fail and yes we have plenty of examples of that type of bulling and forcing what they want into everything.
We do not need to be communists, all we need is a brain that works, the deal being approved or not, will not be a win for us consumers. We will still have COD every year.

If the deal does not get approved, donate the money, since in a year they can made even more money than that. This is me being a socialist. lol

We can even see it in the console market. Once Sega got rejected they were gone, once Sony fucked up they almost went broke, once MS fucked again and again and got rejected by most consumers the parent company just shows up with $80B for them to push things in the direction that they want.

 

[Punished Miku]

MS is just as bad, actually probably much worse due to the areas they operate and it also has a worst history than Amazon when it comes to bad practices.

Google, Amazon, MS, they should be kindly asked to break into multiple companies.

I'm aware they aren't saints, and it's fine to be super critical.

I just haven't seen any negative effects on gaming yet. A lot of the smaller studios they've bought seem like they're going to have free reign with increased funding and even increased flexibility of releases with a sub model making them less dependent on pure sales.

I think this kind of consolidation is going to happen in gaming without MS, and there's many worse actors doing the same thing. Amazon buys studios, Netflix does, Facebook does, Google does, Tencent does, Sony does. I'm not a corporate apologist but actually blocking this one seems odd to me. Most I've really seen raised is really BS associations with Activision management being toxic or workplace issues, all of which MS is probably better equipped to manage.

Like I said, it's not my hill to die on. I honestly would be happy if they spent 80 billion on other studios since I don't play many of these games anyway.

 

[remember_spinal]

if it fails they can just go buy take two, EA, or anyone else.

this place would explode if GTA was owned by MS

Thats not quite how it works. This deal falling through would mean even more scrutiny with the FTC

Its not like returning a vacuum at walmart and picking up another. The entire idea is to crack down on big tech companies consolidating, it means nothing if they let the next one go through

 

[Zeroing]

This deal has to go through, we are going to lose half of this forum to the betty ford clinic if it does not.

I am ready to do grief counseling. I am somewhat qualified.

 

[lh032]

meh who cares, i already expecred the deal to be approved in the end anyway, i already move on long ago.

 

[nominedomine]

I'm aware they aren't saints, and it's fine to be super critical.

I just haven't seen any negative effects on gaming yet. A lot of the smaller studios they've bought seem like they're going to have free reign with increased funding and even increased flexibility of releases with a sub model making them less dependent on pure sales.

I think this kind of consolidation is going to happen in gaming without MS, and there's many worse actors doing the same thing. Amazon buys studios, Netflix does, Facebook does, Google does, Tencent does, Sony does. I'm not a corporate apologist but actually blocking this one seems odd to me. Most I've really seen raised is really BS associations with Activision management being toxic or workplace issues, all of which MS is probably better equipped to manage.

Like I said, it's not my hill to die on. I honestly would be happy if they spent 80 billion on other studios since I don't play many of these games anyway.

I've seen the negative effects long ago and I keep seeing them. MS was behind the first paywall on consoles, behind the initial push for microtransactions, tried to push things in a bizarre direction with the Xbox One (that thankfully got rejected), now they moved into consolidation and buying their way into a larger market share while attempting to change the business model of the console market to concentrate power in the hands of the platform holders.

MS tried everything so far except competing by being patient, taking care of their IPs and studios, taking honest risks with games or new game technologies like VR, etc. Their strategies are always backed up by size and deep pockets, they are always trying to do things the easy way (why wouldn't they right? They have all the money in the world and they are in a hurry to grow even more).

 

[Unknown?]

Little does that person know, big tech was government funded and the sole reason for their dominance. They don't want to lose their spying machines that help the avoid the 4th amendment.

 

[Zeroing]

Still better than the years they were absent and Disney, Adobe and other mega corporations got to do everything they wanted rendering the market competition worse than it would otherwise.

Even if it goes through it might just turn into a nightmare for them.

Activision is badly managed, and Microsoft is bad at managing.

It's like a drunkard buying a vineyard.

I am so pissed at Adobe... so I am going to rant about it, they did not implement any defense on user accounts so when Adobe got hacked my email, phone number etc was leaked to the dark side of the internet. They force you to use adobe cloud that makes your PC goes very slow, oh you want to cancel the sub while active, good luck, they do not even do return policies.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

Damn that lobbying power is impressive.

Wall Street knows how the talks have been going. So they expecting an L.

This is Microsoft’s doing. Behind the scenes they been throwing Amazon, Google, etc under the bus. “Look look, that’s monopolistic! now let me buy this thing for 70 billion.”

 

[Bernd Lauert]

For what it's worth, 17 out of 21 analysts on FactSet think the deal will go through. The article's headline is rather clickbaity.

 

[Konnor]

So if the Activision deal
Doesn’t go through they buy Ubisoft then?

That would be a major, and I mean MAJOR, downgrade

 

[Dick Jones]

Whatever happens Green Rats, remember the games will still come out on Xbox.

Phil is praying that Bobby Kotick doesn't sexual harass the FTC before they finish their report.

 

[Draugoth]

That would be a major, and I mean MAJOR, downgrade

Their IPs have a shit load of potential, but Ubisoft just doesnt know how to make fun games.

 

[Unknown?]

That would be a major, and I mean MAJOR, downgrade

Eh not really. Activision only has good IP they've acquired but have since killed off to focus on COD. Crash, Spyro, Tony Hawk were all sacrificed recently for more COD.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Eh not really. Activision only has good IP they've acquired but have since killed off to focus on COD. Crash, Spyro, Tony Hawk were all sacrificed recently for more COD.

I know we're on a core gaming forum, but the best part of Activision is actually King. They're printing money with those mobile games and Microsoft desparately needs to get into the mobile game business.

 

[Punished Miku]

I've seen the negative effects long ago and I keep seeing them. MS was behind the first paywall on consoles, behind the initial push for microtransactions, tried to push things in a bizarre direction with the Xbox One (that thankfully got rejected), now they moved into consolidation and buying their way into a larger MS while attempting to change the business model of the console market to concentrate power in the hand of the platform holders.

MS tried everything so far except competing by being patient, taking care of their IPs and studios, taking honest risks with games or new game technologies like VR, etc. Their strategies are always backed up by size and deep pockets, they are always trying to do thing the easy way (why wouldn't they right?).

I don't agree with that at all. The whole Xbox division was a risk. I'm not trying to argue the pros and cons of the entire history of Xbox. There are pros for sure that you're leaving out, and cons you are exaggerating.

I was more speaking about not seeing and negative effects with this recent trend of acquisitions.

 

[Umbasaborne]

I say this as an xbox fan, i hope it does, we dont need large publishers to be exclusive to one console, goes for bethesda, and it also goes for square enix and sony

 

[SuperSaiyanWithDreads]

That would be a major, and I mean MAJOR, downgrade

Well no shit

 

[nominedomine]

I don't agree with that at all. The whole Xbox division was a risk. I'm not trying to argue the pros and cons of the entire history of Xbox. There are pros for sure that you're leaving out, and cons you are exaggerating.

I was more speaking about not seeing and negative effects with this recent trend of acquisitions.

What was the risk? MS arriving late to the party and using their size and deep pocket to get a piece of the pie?

Ironically the only risk as that they were so focused on it that they became somehow anti gaming on PC during that time and completely missed the boat on the PC market and allowed Steam to spawn there.

There would be no space for Steam to get so big if MS wasn't so concerned about going after Sony.

 

[Punished Miku]

What was the risk? MS arriving late to the party and using their size and deep pocket to get a piece of the pie?

That's the history of Sony as well. Not sure what chip on your shoulder you have regarding Xbox in particular. Like I said though, I'm not interested in debating the entire history of Xbox. Feel how you want about it.

 

[Konnor]

Eh not really. Activision only has good IP they've acquired but have since killed off to focus on COD. Crash, Spyro, Tony Hawk were all sacrificed recently for more COD.

And Ubisoft only has snoozefest open world games that are all using the same damn terrible recipe.

 

[nominedomine]

That's the history of Sony as well. Not sure what chip on your shoulder you have regarding Xbox in particular. Like I said though, I'm not interested in debating the entire history of Xbox. Feel how you want about it.

So? Break up Sony too for all I care, the other arms of the company hold them back more than anything, we see it all the time. But it make sense to start from the top and the top is MS, Google, Amazon and I guess Apple too (but is the one I care the least about).

We just saw it now with Sony holding on on releasing VRR for 2 years because they couldn't get it on their TVs.

 

[Zeroing]

We can even see it in the console market. Once Sega got rejected they were gone, once Sony fucked up they almost went broke, once MS fucked again and again and got rejected by most consumers the parent company just shows up with $80B for them to push things in the direction that they want.

Exactly, they will be around no matter what, they should be the ones taking the most risks because no matter what they will still be around.
If people want be stupid and defend a big Corporation pinning it as the underdog, go ahead... I just think this is all ridiculous.

 

[Unknown?]

If it doesn't go through

And Ubisoft only has snoozefest open world games that are all using the same damn terrible recipe.

Yeah they're both shit. Activision has consistently been in the ranks of EA but now people only care because it's possible they might go exclusive.

 

[prinz_valium]

I hope it fails

 

[nominedomine]

Exactly, they will be around no matter what, they should be the ones taking the most risks because no matter what they will still be around.
If people want be stupid and defend a big Corporation pinning it as the underdog, go ahead... I just think this is all ridiculous.

I forgot to mention Nintendo but they were in the ropes multiple times and had to reinvent their hardware, trust in their capacity of developing great games, look for opportunities in new markets, etc.

What innovations has Xbox brought to gaming in 20 years on that level? Microtransactions? Paywalls? Achievements? Gamepass? No thanks.

 

[FrankWza]

By the way, where is Phil? It seems like he is completely gone, and I haven't heard anything from him since ... January. The guy can hardly stay away from the news and cameras for a couple of weeks.

I hope everything is fine with him.

There’s a good chance they told him to lay low while the deal was starting to be put under more intense review and the ftc rumblings started.

 

[nominedomine]

If it doesn't go through

Yeah they're both shit. Activision has consistently been in the ranks of EA but now people only care because it's possible they might go exclusive.

Blizzard is completely fucked up at this point and Activision seems to be unable to do anything but CoD. They still make a ton of money so there is that, if people want to get excited about them joining Xbox good for them.

 

[Punished Miku]

There’s a good chance they told him to lay low while the deal was starting to be put under more intense review and the ftc rumblings started.

Makes sense. Last time he spoke he was in a lot of back and forth public comments about Call of Duty being on multiple systems, etc.

 

[FingerBang]

I can’t believe Grubb was banned as a source here but this attention whore is still allowed.

Hey partner, I hate this chap as the next guy, but let's not confuse an accredited journalist with sources, no matter how he creepy he looks, to someone who looks at you and whispers "I'll make you pee out of your butthole..."

 

[Bernd Lauert]

What innovations has Xbox brought to gaming in 20 years on that level? Microtransactions? Paywalls? Achievements? Gamepass? No thanks.

Is this a joke post? Xbox literally brought proper online gaming to consoles and changed console gaming forever.