I can't believe they did the right and sound thing. It's shocking but entirely welcome IMO. Great for gaming in general.
Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard
- Thread starter Darth Vader
- Start date
Good. Fuck Microsoft. They don't deserve and are not entitled to lead in every market segment. It's enough as it is.
It was obvious all of us that it was all posturing bullshit. I’m surprised regulators were able to catch it though. Well, UK regulators anyways.
D
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@Bryank75
Can we have another meme focused solely on the acquisition? Allow non-original memes so we can all have a great laugh.
Can we have another meme focused solely on the acquisition? Allow non-original memes so we can all have a great laugh.
OP
OP
The cream is not for his face.
It seems CMA understands gaming way better than the folks at ERA.
There is only one analysis you need to understand the gaming market in the last 25 years:
Why is it so hard for MS to understand this simple concept?
Why is it so hard for MS to understand this simple concept?
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Bobby's response.... so basically they want to bribe the UK to make them agree. He basically says that outright there.... they don't even try to hide their corruption.
No matter what cloud resources Sony has, they are limited to PlayStation, whereas Microsoft's cloud infrastructure is the entirety of Azure and serves MANY markets from their Xbox cloud gaming, hosting, databases and systems, to Office, to Windows, to custom solutions with other businesses etc. Sony's share in the cloud market is massively behind the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, and pretending otherwise is just hilarious.
You are also forgetting that it wasn't just cloud gaming under consideration here; mobile was also a factor, and interestingly we saw no self-driven concessions by Microsoft for 10-year deals to other mobile storefronts for COD content. You didn't even see them make COD offers to Luna (Amazon) or Stadia (Google; and yes MS could have made that offer well earlier in 2022 while Stadia was still alive, if they wanted their offerings to seem more genuine. After all, they had already made offers to Sony by that point, which Sony rejected. But I highly doubt Google would have rejected a 3-year COD offer for Stadia).
Not just cloud; mobile as well. Phil let the mask slip when he talked about that mobile storefront as a main reason they wanted to buy ABK. It's like laying all their pieces out to string together the clues.
They wanted Apple & Google to open up their storefronts, because they (Microsoft) themselves wanted to expand onto their storefronts without paying Apple or Google any money, and seemingly that also would have included a mobile gaming storefront of their own driven by ABK content.
Phil Spencer's put his foot in his mouth so much now, he should be wearing dentures.
Bobby's response.... so basically they want to bribe the UK to make them agree. He basically says that outright there.... they don't even try to hide their corruption.
Their appeal fail if it's based around questioning the CMA's process, because the CTA's decision to approve appeals does not base any of that on the investigative process of the CMA. It is not a judgement review on that, especially after a decision by the CMA has been made.
Some people are trying to bring up Apple's appeal win with the CTA as indication MS can win an appeal for ABK, but the Apple case was in regards to the investigative process itself, not a final decision after the investigation phase concluded, and did not involve a M&A.
Not gonna happen.
Bobby's response.... so basically they want to bribe the UK to make them agree. He basically says that outright there.... they don't even try to hide their corruption.
Isn't it crazy? An actual govt. agency that gets this particular market. I wish we could get some of that over here in the U.S.
This hate towards the UK is crazy from MS and ABK
1. It's xboxs second biggest market
2. It's one of the biggest gaming markets in europe. I swear i read a while back it overtook germany to be the biggest?
3. UK is a huge market for COD
4. One of Microsofts best studio is in the UK, Playground.
1. It's xboxs second biggest market
2. It's one of the biggest gaming markets in europe. I swear i read a while back it overtook germany to be the biggest?
3. UK is a huge market for COD
4. One of Microsofts best studio is in the UK, Playground.
This shit is so scary, MS and other big tech messing with AI need to be nuked out of existence.So I asked ChatGPT to write a poem, a haiku, and a rap song on this. This is what it came up with
POEM:
Microsoft and Activision
A merger that sparked great ambition
But CMA said, "Hold your horses!"
Blocked by regulators' forces
Aaron Greenberg, feeling fine
Dreamed of gaming worlds to combine
Phil Spencer, with grand schemes in mind
Had plans to level up and grind
Lulu Cheng Meservey, on the case
Investigating with great pace
CMA stepped in, said "Not today!"
And the deal was halted, come what may
Now gamers wait with bated breath
What's next for Microsoft? What's left?
Will they try again, a different way?
Or leave it be, just for today?
HAIKU:
CMA's call,
Microsoft and Activision stall,
Gamer's dreams appall.
RAP SONG:
(Verse 1)
Yo, listen up, here's the news of the day,
Microsoft and Activision in dismay,
Thought they'd merge, make a gaming craze,
But CMA blocked them with their regulatory maze.
(Chorus)
Aaron Greenberg, Phil Spencer, feeling the heat,
Lulu Cheng Meservey, investigating the beat,
CMA said, "Hold up, not so fast!"
Put a halt to the deal, made it a thing of the past.
(Verse 2)
Greenberg had plans, Spencer had dreams,
But CMA said, "Not as easy as it seems,
We're here to regulate, keep things in check,
No merging giants, without a thorough check."
(Chorus)
Aaron Greenberg, Phil Spencer, feeling the heat,
Lulu Cheng Meservey, investigating the beat,
CMA said, "Hold up, not so fast!"
Put a halt to the deal, made it a thing of the past.
(Bridge)
Now gamers wait, with curious eyes,
What's next for Microsoft, what's the surprise?
Will they try again, find a different way?
Or accept the decision, and call it a day?
(Chorus)
Aaron Greenberg, Phil Spencer, feeling the heat,
Lulu Cheng Meservey, investigating the beat,
CMA said, "Hold up, not so fast!"
Put a halt to the deal, made it a thing of the past.
(Outro)
So here's the tale of Microsoft's big plan,
Blocked by CMA, ain't that a span?
But hey, don't fret, there's still much to see,
In the world of gaming, it's always a spree!
Sophy is the only AI I trust.
Truthfully, MS should've been broken up during their first anti-trust lawsuit regarding Netscape in the 80s. That precedent basically allowed big tech to become the de facto rulers of society and the subsequent social media companies that followed have done untold harm. What's funny is that you can tell how unnecessary of a deal this was for MS, cuz their stock is up because the rest of their trillion dollar company is just fine. They are still too big to fail, the CMA just stopped them from getting EVEN bigger. Yet Xbots are still crying.
Showing how desperate and pathetic they are once again. What a bunch of scumbag companies!
Yeah, I still see MS going after Certain Affinity, Avalanche Studios, and maybe if Embracer offers them up, IO Interactive and Crystal Dynamics. They should theoretically have zero issues acquiring those developers if they want to sell.
But it does cast serious implications on them purchasing almost any gaming publisher from here on out, at least for a really long time. The fact they factored Windows and Azure into their decision for cloud, and considering the content MS wanted to acquire for cloud growth happens to also be content made for the core console gaming market itself, presents a new complication for Microsoft.
Gonna take a little bit for me to wrap my head around a lot of these implications, still kind of processing the megaton of this decision. TBH Microsoft should have just agreed to the divestiture and work out a favorable divestiture scenario for themselves. Ego and greed got the better of them.
Yep, their stock is flying high and that's off both this news AND the fiscal results that weren't very good for Xbox. Although I think the real reason MS have been adamant for the deal isn't so much about Xbox, or even just cloud gaming, but to gain a big gaming client for Azure and hopefully attract more publishers to leveraging Azure & MS tools for their development pipelines, tying them to the hip of Azure, Office & Windows.
So the deal getting blocked kind of puts a dent into a growth sector for one of their main pillars. They probably also see the deal as valuable for their AI growth ambitions too, games would be an easy outlet for major demonstrations of refined AI technologies, with big revenue and profit margins, particularly if they could apply that tech into some of the most popular gaming products like COD.
Now it's very likely they won't get that chance whatsoever, at least with ABK. Time to hunker down with the XGS and Zenimax teams, they should be more than enough to compete anyway.
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