Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard

[Darth Vader]

One thing to consider: There's this ongoing argument that "Microsoft needs this acquisition to compete". Sure, let's take a look.

Microsoft Game Studios + Bethesda have a total of 22 Studios. When acquiring ABK, they will be adding over 12 studios to that portfolio (Blizzard is spread into 5 teams, King has an unspecified amount of studios). That's at the very least 34 studios in total. For comparison, Playstation + Bungie have a total of 23 studios - Important to note that Sony has more support studios.

As for revenue, Xbox had $15.56 billion vs Playstation's $24.4 billion, in 2022. ABK had a total of $7.58 billion in revenue for 2022.

What this means is that Microsoft is already at parity in studios, and this acquisition will have the at ~38% more studios than Sony + around the same revenue overall.

This is what buying market share means.

 

[FatKaz]

In the end CMA will always be concerned about the UK market, the market share leader arguments won't work in the UK when it is very close.

 

[Puff]

 

[Darth Vader]

People seem to have conveniently glanced over this one argument, which Sony substantiated in their previous documents. Based on the redacted information, it seems like Microsoft's proposed deal would make CoD pretty much unaffordable. Here's what this new document says:

making Call of Duty available on multi-game subscription services (“MGS”) only on Game Pass or providing Call of Duty on PlayStation Plus at a commercially unviable price, thereby making it de facto exclusive.12

 

[Darth Vader]

Welp, I just took some time to review the Responses to provisional findings in CMA's website. Is this a bloody joke? These are the least professionally crafted letters I've ever read and include absolutely NOTHING to back them up. They are opinion pieces.



I wonder what "studios" produced these opinion pieces, ignoring the one that works directly with Microsoft on Minecraft.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

I don’t want to drop names but I can already imagine who that is

I remember his dumb tweets going around everytime he releases one of his shitty games no one plays. He's sucking Phil all day on twitter and then the shills spread his tweets and make threads about them.

See? Devs like GP, it's good for them

 

[AshHunter216]

ABK's response seems to insult the CMA a decent amount like Microsoft's did. It accuses them of cherry-picking internal documents to come to certain conclusions and brings up another unrelated case where they were "called out" for it. Maybe this behavior is normal for this type of legal setting, but I would think insulting the ones who you need to approve the deal is a bad idea.

 

[AshHunter216]

Welp, I just took some time to review the Responses to provisional findings in CMA's website. Is this a bloody joke? These are the least professionally crafted letters I've ever read and include absolutely NOTHING to back them up. They are opinion pieces.



I wonder what "studios" produced these opinion pieces, ignoring the one that works directly with Microsoft on Minecraft.

That's actually a decent point. The devs haven't really come with hard numbers, just opinions.

 

[Swift_Star]

After all I read, I'm confident the deal will either be blocked or ABK will be forced to sell CoD.

 

[FatKaz]

That's actually a decent point. The devs haven't really come with hard numbers, just opinions.

Similar to all the public that sent message to the CMA saying "oh we want games on gamepass", nothing really to really provide any arguments against the CMA or to alleviate their concerns.

CMA should not be taking any of this seriously. Nothing over the last few weeks has really undermined what CMA have said, even the cloud provider deals are all BYOG providers, nothing comparable to what sony are doing with ps plus premium or amazon are doing with luna.

 

[Eternal_Wings]

There is no way this guys are this dumb. The replies hilarious!

 

[AshHunter216]

There is no way this guys are this dumb. The replies hilarious!

We all know where Jez stands on this. Dude blames Playstation for all that's wrong in the world.

 

[adamsapple]

A 7th company was the only one who commented against, a SCEA or something

 

[Swift_Star]

A 7th company was the only one who commented against, a SCEA or something

these six companies include 3 irrelevant indie studios and one that it's very close with MS and have worked with them for years.
So it means absolutely nothing, since MS is paying them. lmao

 

[adamsapple]

these six companies include 3 irrelevant indie studios and one that it's very close with MS and have worked with them for years.
So it means absolutely nothing, since MS is paying them. lmao

I wonder how quick you'll turn against the CMA and EU if the deal gets approved, lol.

 

[Swift_Star]

I wonder how quick you'll turn against the CMA and EU if the deal gets approved, lol.

Why would I turn against anything? I'm powerless to fight against any of this lmao.
If it goes through without any concessions (highly unlikely), MS will run ABK and CoD into the ground, anyways.

 

[daniel5043]

People seem to have conveniently glanced over this one argument, which Sony substantiated in their previous documents. Based on the redacted information, it seems like Microsoft's proposed deal would make CoD pretty much unaffordable. Here's what this new document says:

No they saw them and already decided they don't believe it. Most of them thinks it's a conspiracy.

 

[adamsapple]

Why would I turn against anything? I'm powerless to fight against any of this lmao.
If it goes through without any concessions (highly unlikely), MS will run ABK and CoD into the ground, anyways.

The immediacy at which you were quick to throw those 6 companies under the bus as irrelevant or being bribed is telling me that anyone whose 'for' the deal is bad in your book, so it's an easy conclusion to come to

 

[Swift_Star]

The immediacy at which you were quick to throw those 6 companies under the bus as irrelevant or being bribed is telling me that anyone whose 'for' the deal is bad in your book, so it's an easy conclusion to come to

But they are irrelevant lmfao. It's like Insomniac or Santa Monica saying the deal should be blocked LMFAO

 

[daniel5043]

Welp, I just took some time to review the Responses to provisional findings in CMA's website. Is this a bloody joke? These are the least professionally crafted letters I've ever read and include absolutely NOTHING to back them up. They are opinion pieces.



I wonder what "studios" produced these opinion pieces, ignoring the one that works directly with Microsoft on Minecraft.

Why do they nearly all sound like support studios