I must say all those Xbox fanboy tears are delicious. But when you think about it, the deal is more than shady. $70 billion is a huge sum even for MS. They definitely use their money from outside gaming to buy the gaming market and bully everybody. That's the perfect example of a deal which probably should be rejected because it could harm consumers on the long run.
Who seriously believe they just won't make everything exclusive over time and try to kill competition, then increase prices more and more. Aren't monopolies what they're building everywhere they can ? Look no further than Windows and Office, and how they removed the competition.
Not that they're very successful right now in gaming if massive layoffs are anything to go for, but still... That's typically the kind of deals CMA wants to reject. And it has nothing to do with Sony or Google, it's all about protecting consumers and competition on the long run.
All those idiotic Gamepass cheerleaders don't understand they're shooting themselves in the foot on the long run anyway. If it's successful (which it probably won't be according to missed MS target GP numbers and recent layoffs), GP games quality would obviously go down (though it's already pretty low actually) and prices would gradually go up, like on any subscription model ever. Or do they think MS are their friend and they won't have to pay for a huge MS profit coming directly from their pockets ? MS is losing tons of money on $1 GP subscriptions right now, it won't last forever.
I actually think the deal being rejected could be the best news for MS too. It would give them a much less expensive exit door from gaming. GP numbers are bad, layoffs are coming... Only way all this GP thing would have worked was if it was taking off to like 100 million+ subs. Clearly it's not happening, we'd already see the first signs and there are none, people still prefer PlayStation no matter what... Basically it's unlikely GP will ever be profitable for MS, and that was their last try to gain footing in that market. I doubt they're still in gaming market in 5 years. MS cares about huge profits, and it's clear now they won't be there ever. You could see them starting to cut their losses now (hence the layoffs). It would be extremely costly to move on if the deal goes through though, I'm not even sure somebody would buy them Actibliz for half the sum they paid now... Nasdaq lost around 40 % since MS bought Actibliz, and it was already a massive overpay at the time... They're probably looking at a $30 billion+ loss if they resell Actibliz. I kinda doubt they'll fight that much to make that bad deal go through...
