Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard

Edmund

Active member
25 Apr 2023
149
333
Yep, but people will still blame Sony.

Some on twitter are hoping that MS buy Take2 instead and moneyhat every major 3rd party release for the next 10 years. There's about a dozen things that make that unlikely to happen, but they're coping right now.

MS can buy every publisher on earth but their fans will still not buy any games lmao.
 

Vertigo

Did you show the Darkness what Light can do?
26 Jun 2022
5,419
4,924
I just want to mention… I don’t follow anyone Xbox on Twitter. And all I get is Xbox astrotrufers in my suggested feed. It’s so goddamn irritating. This shit is rigged. There’s no fucking way there’s more Xbox dialogue on the internet when the PlayStation population globally blows Xbox out the water.

However today… I find the crying hilarious.
 

Bryank75

I don't get ulcers, I give 'em!
Founder
18 Jun 2022
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He is really down.


But Michael Pachter said....

But Hoeg said....

But the senators...

What a sweet sweet moment to be a PlayStation gamer.

delight GIF
 

Dabaus

Veteran
28 Jun 2022
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So now that we're passed this hurdle...Whats next? What mud will Microsoft sling sonys way now that theyve been blocked? More senators concerned about "high end marketshare?" DOJ investigation of "unfair practices" at the behest of Microsoft?

And whats sony do now? Do they continue to lay lowkey until the EU weighs in or do they just go pedal to the metal? Do they continue with the small acquisitions? Invest a few billion in key partners or put a whole ring on them?

Interesting times.
 

Eternal_Wings

Dein Nomos
24 Jun 2022
2,895
3,800
So now that we're passed this hurdle...Whats next? What mud will Microsoft sling sonys way now that theyve been blocked? More senators concerned about "high end marketshare?" DOJ investigation of "unfair practices" at the behest of Microsoft?

And whats sony do now? Do they continue to lay lowkey until the EU weighs in or do they just go pedal to the metal? Do they continue with the small acquisitions? Invest a few billion in key partners or put a whole ring on them?

Interesting times.
This was already revoked by Derek Strickland. This a myth which was born by Xbox shills and lobbying politicians.
 
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Johnic

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24 Mar 2023
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So now that we're passed this hurdle...Whats next? What mud will Microsoft sling sonys way now that theyve been blocked? More senators concerned about "high end marketshare?" DOJ investigation of "unfair practices" at the behest of Microsoft?

And whats sony do now? Do they continue to lay lowkey until the EU weighs in or do they just go pedal to the metal? Do they continue with the small acquisitions? Invest a few billion in key partners or put a whole ring on them?

Interesting times.
Sony has nothing to do with the regulators from now on. As far as regulators are concerned, PlayStation isn't in any danger from the acquisition.

Everything's about the cloud now and MS has a much bigger hurdle than Sony to fight against. They're now going against Google, Apple and Amazon. Companies that have much more money than Sony.

Everything moving forward will be about the cloud gaming and MS being the industry leader in that, will screw any of their major attempts up. Much like with everything else, they screwed themselves with their 'cloud;s the future and we're the best there" rhetoric.
 

Yurinka

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21 Jun 2022
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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.
Xbox cloud gaming is available in 28 countries, while PS cloud gaming is available in 30 countries.

The servers of Xcloud gaming are different and work totally differently than how the other Azure ones. They can't use Azure servers to stream Xbox Series or PS5 games. If Azure would be that helpful and would do it in another way then MS wouldn't be using the Sony cloud gaming patents.

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).
I think Google already shutted down Stadia when MS though that it was a good idea to trick the CMA to offer 10 years of CoD to cloud gaming platforms that nobody uses.

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.
Yes, it's true that as Phil said the gaming market where MS would get more benefited in terms of revenue, profitability, userbase and market share with the acquisition would be mobile.

Even if after the acquisition like in the other markets they wouldn't be market leaders and wouldn't have a big market share.

The CMA offered MS to acquire the company without the CoD part that could be sold to someone else, but MS rejected it.

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.
Yes, and MS wants to do the same in consoles too. Obviously Apple, Google, Nintendo and Sony don't like the idea.

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.
The Apple case very different, because Apple doesn't didn't buy any giant product to block it from being available in rival platforms. It's a separate topic: in the Apple trial they were asking Apple to allow other stores/paying methods not controlled by Apple on their platform.
 

Dabaus

Veteran
28 Jun 2022
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Sony has nothing to do with the regulators from now on. As far as regulators are concerned, PlayStation isn't in any danger from the acquisition.

Everything's about the cloud now and MS has a much bigger hurdle than Sony to fight against. They're now going against Google, Apple and Amazon. Companies that have much more money than Sony.

Everything moving forward will be about the cloud gaming and MS being the industry leader in that, will screw any of their major attempts up. Much like with everything else, they screwed themselves with their 'cloud;s the future and we're the best there" rhetoric.
Sony will still be involved in the ftc trial though. I do wonder if the EU kills it if MS even continues with trying though.
 

AshHunter216

Banned
8 Jan 2023
4,556
7,628
So now that we're passed this hurdle...Whats next? What mud will Microsoft sling sonys way now that theyve been blocked? More senators concerned about "high end marketshare?" DOJ investigation of "unfair practices" at the behest of Microsoft?

And whats sony do now? Do they continue to lay lowkey until the EU weighs in or do they just go pedal to the metal? Do they continue with the small acquisitions? Invest a few billion in key partners or put a whole ring on them?

Interesting times.
I think the EU are so chummy with MS that they approve the deal, but just one regulator (ie cma) saying no is enough to kill this deal. Interesting to see what the FTC does next given that they are against the deal as well and may have had a major morale boost after a fellow regulator decided to block.
 

Yurinka

Veteran
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21 Jun 2022
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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.
As I remember UK is almost 8% of the MS global gaming market according to this, even if I think the graph is wrong and the percent should be higher:
 

Dr Bass

The doctor is in
Founder
20 Jun 2022
2,036
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But Michael Pachter said....

But Hoeg said....

But the senators...

What a sweet sweet moment to be a PlayStation gamer.

delight GIF
Fixed it a bit for you. :p

I just don't think these Xbox people are "gamers" in the sense of wanting to play games. You just don't do it. You'd be ignoring the actual two platforms with regularly released high scoring games and exclusives in favor of what? A cultish brand? It just doesn't make any sense at this point to be an Xbox only "gamer."

But I do agree, definitely a sweet moment. The industry is better off for it by leaps and bounds.
 

FatKaz

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16 Jul 2022
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Other video gaming comapnies were also against this merger. And people kept saying Sony was alone. Smh

I am glad that this is blocked.

So many myths being dispelled.

The nonsense about sony being the one pushing for the high end console market defintion, to them being the only ones opposing the deal.

Good to know some other companies have shown some backbone.