Bloomberg: Sony Tells UK to Force Microsoft Call of Duty Sale or Veto $69 Billion Activision Deal

[Satoru]

Just out of curiosity, if Microsoft sells CoD, the IP, but keeps all of the studios and tech, wouldn't they retain most of the sales numbers? Like a Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons type rebrand.

They wouldn't be allowed to do that under behavioural remedies for the acquisition. If they are forced to divest, even if it's only CoD, it's been established that it would be everything related to the franchise, including studio(s).

 

[Zzero]

They wouldn't be allowed to do that under behavioural remedies for the acquisition. If they are forced to divest, even if it's only CoD, it's been established that it would be everything related to the franchise, including studio(s).

Where was that established? And what is "related to CoD" in regards to, for instance, Toys for Bob.

 

[Satoru]

Where was that established? And what is "related to CoD" in regards to, for instance, Toys for Bob.

It's in the summary of provisional findings document in the CMA website.

As for the other question, precisely. Divesting CoD will be a time consuming and draining process. It may involve multiple studios being divested under a new entity

 

[KiryuRealty]

It's in the summary of provisional findings document in the CMA website.

As for the other question, precisely. Divesting CoD will be a time consuming and draining process. It may involve multiple studios being divested under a new entity

Since Activision has basically made every dev team they own into COD support studios, they'd basically be divesting all ability Activision has to make new games, leaving MS just owning the back catalog and IP as far as the Activision portion of Activision Blizzard King.

 

[Yurinka]

Just out of curiosity, if Microsoft sells CoD, the IP, but keeps all of the studios and tech, wouldn't they retain most of the sales numbers? Like a Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons type rebrand.

As I remember the CMA also mentioned that for them the acquisition could be ok if MS divests the CoD IP and the related dev teams. It would be the whole CoD package. Since basically almost all Activision studios are involved in CoD, selling them and the CoD IP MS would get only Bilzzard, King and the non CoD Activision IPs.

MS already said that they don't want this solution and that they want to buy the whole package instead, and that putting CoD for 10 years in a couple patforms where people isn't interested to play CoD (Switch and GeForce Now) should be enough.

Phil Spencer also said before that that the acquisition was more about King than about CoD, and that they don't want to make CoD exclusive but instead to bring it to more platforms, but very likely was his typical PR bullshit quotes with void promises.

 

[MScarpa]

This is so ridiculous at this point. Buy it all MS l,and run this shit into the ground for all I care. Shits exhausting

 

[Kokoloko]

If the deals goes through, I dont ever wanna hear about PS’s 3rd party exclusive deals. PS is free to take all they want Without any scrutiny.

MS took away Bethesda games from PS and Nintendo, they will take Activision games too.

 

[Kokoloko]

What else do you expect from them at this point? They’re on MS pocket.

Bloomberg, Forbes heads… they probably all get on the Lolita express with Bill Gates to Epstein Island. MS is a dirtbag company, made by dirtbags and now run by passive aggressive weasels.

 

[Kokoloko]

Quite inflammatory, how they phrased the headline.... 'tells'?

I don't think Sony told any regulator what to do, they simply outlined their position and how it would hurt them.

Bloomberg should really change that headline.

They are trying there best to make Sony look bad, so there Boss MS can get the deal