Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard

[Eternal_Wings]

What’s all the doom and gloom about?
First nothing is decided. Second it’s all about an PI. The deal ist still blocked in the USA. Even if the judge denies the PI, the FTC can still appeal this decision. Them we have the fact that CMA is siding with the FTC and maybe in the future Canada + New Zealand. There is still a long way to go for Microsoft until they can but only “maybe” close the deal.
I tell if Microsoft still wins at the end, then Sony will be aggressive in a way we probably never could imagine. Sony already got their FPS/GaaS specialist. Also Firewalk and maybe Deviation Games, which could mark Sony’s future FPS trio.
All what Sony needs to do is buying Square Enix, Capcom and maybe some stakes in TakeTwo, Bandai and Konami if Microsoft should get Activision Blizzard approved after all. But who knows how things will turn out in a couple of months. Again nothing is lost.

 

[On Demand]

The decision is today or later on?

 

[Nhomnhom]

What’s all the doom and gloom about?
First nothing is decided. Second it’s all about an PI. The deal ist still blocked in the USA. Even if the judge denies the PI, the FTC can still appeal this decision. Them we have the fact that CMA is siding with the FTC and maybe in the future Canada + New Zealand. There is still a long way to go for Microsoft until they can but only “maybe” close the deal.
I tell if Microsoft still wins at the end, then Sony will be aggressive in a way we probably never could imagine. Sony already got their FPS/GaaS specialist. Also Firewalk and maybe Deviation Games, which could mark Sony’s future FPS trio.
All what Sony needs to do is buying Square Enix, Capcom and maybe some stakes in TakeTwo, Bandai and Konami if Microsoft should get Activision Blizzard approved after all. But who knows how things will turn out in a couple of months. Again nothing is lost.

My doom comes from the documents we saw. It's up to Sony now regardless of how this ABK deal goes.

Firewalk and Deviation are as relevant to this as Ninja Theory and Obsidian are.

The only thing Sony bought so far was Bungie and they promised to support Xbox going forward and already announced a game launching day one on Xbox while Bethesda never announced a single new game releasing for PlayStation after they were acquired.

 

[Swolf712]

The biggest issue about proving this will hurt consumers is that... we have no serious precedent for this. You can point to charts, market forecasts, patterns of behavior, everything, but that's being handwaved as speculation and not "real world dada". Nevermind that it's powered BY real world data.

Ironically, that "real world data" won't exist until the damage is already done and it's too late.

 

[Thunderstorm__]

Sony would be very dominant in the far future if they can triumph over a MS that is fervently buying the entire market.

 

[Cool hand luke]

Here we fucking go. Judge Corley calling bullshit on Microsoft saying cloud will never be a market. "DVDs don't exist anymore"

 

[Nhomnhom]

Judge already fell for the MS biggest bullshit that them buying ABK makes their game available for more people. As if there was anything stopping ABK from signing a deal with NVidia or other cloud providers or from MS to pay them to put their games on their cloud service.

By this failed logic MS buying up the entire market would be good.

 

[reziel]

Here we fucking go. Judge Corley calling bullshit on Microsoft saying cloud will never be a market. "DVDs don't exist anymore"

That was definitely unexpected.

 

[Nitro]

"They [Microsoft] are picking the winners and losers."

Fox in charge of the henhouse.

 

[BlueLyria]

Finally a good fucking argument

 

[BlueLyria]

"Would they lie"
Yeah? They did??

 

[Nhomnhom]

"Would they lie"
Yeah? They did??

Yea, they already did multiple times in public and in her court.

Yet the FTC is somehow unable to point that out, while MS clowns the FTC and their economist at every opportunity.

Not even the most basic facts are being taken into consideration.

 

[BlueLyria]

Yea, they already did multiple times in public and in her court.

The FTC is somehow unable to point that out, while MS clowns the FTC and their economist at every opportunity.

Like these past few days we heard they say that there was no economic incentive to foreclose Zenimax properties so they wouldn't do it and then that was shown to be false as they did it anyway?

 

[Dr Bass]

"Would they lie"
Yeah? They did??

"I'm sorry your honor, were you hitting the snooze during all of this?"

 

[Nhomnhom]

Like these past few days we heard they say that there was no economic incentive to foreclose Zenimax properties so they wouldn't do it and then that was shown to be false as they did it anyway?

They just said that Nadella doesn't like exclusives. Lmao.

 

[Cool hand luke]

Corley: How come there was no analysis done on the [Nintendo and cloud] deals
MS lawyer: brain-dead slob response

She's being eviscerated here.

 

[Swolf712]

Please say this was a "devil's advocate" question.

I need to know that we're dealing with a judge who at least gets that much.

 

[Danja1187]

This judge is incompetent but so is the FTC... In the end gamers are fucked.

What a mess

 

[MrRevocs1256]

The FTC's doing much better on cloud arguments than the console ones. Bringing up good points that MS conveniently offered no contracts on cloud for Google and Amazon.

 

[Puff]