Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard

[Dabaus]

Tin foil hat theory:

Tom Warren is a tech journalist firmly in the xbox camp and spouts alot of their talking points for them. Florian Mueller is a paid for hire Microsoft shill hatchet man type. I think whats happening here is Florian has gone too far off the reservation by making such insane claims publicly. With Florian having such a close association with Microsoft, and ONLY Microsoft, hes potentially doing more damage to Microsoft relationship with the CMA and UK in general than doing any potential good to keep hope alive for the insane cult theyve created. Microsoft probably encouraged one of their shills to publicly denounce Florian as the insane conspiracy theorist that he is for plausibly deniability. Of course when you use shills to the extent MS does, its ALL plausibly deniability, but probably not so much with Florian.

 

[avenovah]

The shill civil war has begun

 

[Puff]

 

[AshHunter216]

A summary of Microsoft's official arguments against the CMA's decision that they sent to the CAT. This is not what the CAT is saying.

 

[Dabaus]

Trial or whatever it is starts May 30th. Do appeals usually begin so soon after an opinion?

 

[AshHunter216]

Looking at Microsoft's appeal arguments,

1. They argue that the cloud isn't a separate market, which imo is a hard sell because even the EU thinks it is.

2. They argue that the CMA didn't take the 10 year deals that MS made into account. I'm pretty sure they did and just didn't think they were good enough. They also argue that the cma miscalculated MS marketshare in the cloud market. Even if that were true, I would argue that it's not enough to change the ruling given the other advantages they have in the market.

3. MS argues that it's wrong to assume ABK would have put it's games on cloud services without the merger. Wasn't there some internal documents that the cma found that says that ABK were planning to do that? Someone let me know.

4. MS argues that they would have no incentive to make ABK games exclusive to their cloud service and that even if they did, it wouldn't have an effect on the market. You could look at the massive popularity and revenue driven by COD yearly to show that isn't true.

5. MS argues that the CMA didn't consider their remedies and that blocking the deal was too harsh a response. CMA mentioned the remedies several times and found them lacking. Is it unlawful to not like the proposed remedies? I wouldn't guess so. CMA also suggested divestiture, but MS dismissed that suggestion.


The CAT does give those interested in the proceedings an opportunity to give input, so I imagine an army of shills and companies with financial incentive to push this deal will be shouting at the CAT about how they should overturn the cma soon.

 

[Swift_Star]

Deal is still dead.

 

[gokuss4]

I looked into era thread and now they're confident that ms will defeat the cma

 

[BigMclargeHuge]

I looked into era thread and now they're confident that ms will defeat the cma

Most of the posters who haven't been banned yet in that thread are delusional idiots.

 

[Nitro]

Microsoft's financial incentive argument (4) is such a sham. They have demonstrated countless times in a myriad of ways they are prepared to embrace loss leading strategies to undermine PlayStation. They made the same deceitful argument with ZeniMax when they intended to cut out Sony from the beginning.

 

[AshHunter216]

Trial or whatever it is starts May 30th. Do appeals usually begin so soon after an opinion?

A case management conference is not the same thing as a trial.

 

[Dabaus]

A case management conference is not the same thing as a trial.

Whatever the term is it usually this quick after CMA gives its final opinion?

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

All of MS's objections basically boil down to being upset the CMA did not agree to their behavioral remedies, or decide in their favor. But do they really think a regulator like the CMA are interested in babysitting them on easily broken behavioral remedies over the next 10 years? Especially when Microsoft have a history of violating behavioral remedies and paying fines to regulatory bodies like the...European Commission ?

Maybe that's where the viewpoint of the deal being "procompetitive" comes from. Definitely a pro move to collect fines from a company you know has a history of breaking behavioral remedies . I kid, but only slightly. Jokes aside, I don't think MS have much an argument here for an appeal. Any idea how long it would take for CAT to even grant the appeal in the first place?

Honestly I only barely slightly care ATM, there's too much going on with actual gaming over the next few weeks.

 

[Old Gamer]

Yeah that's what I'm thinking. MS is so full of themselves though I don't even like the option of them being able to do it.

Their reputation is already garbage in tech circles, not sure they have much to lose in that regard. ;-)

It never was anything but garbage among the well informed.

 

[AshHunter216]

Most of the posters who haven't been banned yet in that thread are delusional idiots.

Does anyone level-headed even still go to that topic?

 

[AshHunter216]

Whatever the term is it usually this quick after CMA gives its final opinion?

No idea. I wouldn't worry too much though.

 

[Cool hand luke]

If that's it, Microsoft is fucked. The CMA preempted most of those arguments already. Claiming it's unlawful to not accept Microsoft's pathetic remedies, not understanding that the market definition doesn't need to rigidly align with other regulators or Microsoft's, claiming there are losses on foreclosure in a new market etc.

Laughable stuff

 

[Cool hand luke]

Does reee really think they can control the narrative? They're banning everyone who criticises Fuckwit Mueller.

 

[AshHunter216]

Does reee really think they can control the narrative? They're banning everyone who criticises Fuckwit Mueller.

I guess I was giving them too much credit by thinking he would be too out there and biased even for them.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Can the CMA or EU still block the Bungie acquisition? Is there a anyway we could help them with that somehow?