Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard

[AshHunter216]

Interesting Insights about latest CMA document. They interviewed 6 competitors about the ABK deal late last year and early this year. 3 were against the deal, 2 didn't care, and 1 was unsure. Someone also had a writeup about behavioral remedies and why cma don't like them. Some on the thread are looking for ways that MS can get off easy though and think an independent commission can monitor behavior so that the cma will let them off as easy as possible with this deal, seems like cope but I dunno.

 

[Bryank75]

Everything about this acquisition lately has made me remember something that HeisenbergFX4 on gaf once said. I still don't know if he's a legit insider but it sounds like he's submitted some verified info to the gaf mods before... he posted once that Phil Spencer had a party when Jim Ryan was named CEO of Playstation because they thought he was a weak executive. Then I look back to the one thing that Jim has said that has actually been kind of encapsulated the entire generation so far: "we're going to let the games do the talking". I wonder if Phil still feels that Jim is a weak executive.

He's not, he is a retired professional athlete who was a mod for Mike Ybarra years and years ago. He knows very little to do with current gaming.

He was part of our discord for a long time.

 

[Dabaus]

Anything interesting?

Hes actually said alot. Most of it pretty common sense stuff. One thing he said was that microsoft never expected the ftc to sue to block and that phil and his team are genuinely incompetent. Nothing shocking I guess. He speaks like he has inside sources at MS and bethesda and like i said, he got somethings right in the past before they were announced. Surely if he was bold face lying gaf moderation would step in? Or is that reserved only for xbox critics?

 

[AshHunter216]

Hes actually said alot. Most of it pretty common sense stuff. One thing he said was that microsoft never expected the ftc to sue to block and that phil and his team are genuinely incompetent. Nothing shocking I guess. He speaks like he has inside sources at MS and bethesda and like i said, he got somethings right in the past before they were announced. Surely if he was bold face lying gaf moderation would step in? Or is that reserved only for xbox critics?

I've seen some in the era thread argue that the closing date being so far out proves that they expected opposition, but imo, that isn't true. Even if the deal was going perfectly smoothly, it would take awhile due to the nature of government bureaucracy. I think some need to let go of the idea that there's some 4D chess going on here.

 

[Darth Vader]

Interesting Insights about latest CMA document. They interviewed 6 competitors about the ABK deal late last year and early this year. 3 were against the deal, 2 didn't care, and 1 was unsure. Someone also had a writeup about behavioral remedies and why cma don't like them. Some on the thread are looking for ways that MS can get off easy though and think an independent commission can monitor behavior so that the cma will let them off as easy as possible with this deal, seems like cope but I dunno.


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Thank you for sharing this.

I loved that that lad, after sharing all those bulled points, still thinks there's no issue with the deal

 

[Bryank75]

Interesting Insights about latest CMA document. They interviewed 6 competitors about the ABK deal late last year and early this year. 3 were against the deal, 2 didn't care, and 1 was unsure. Someone also had a writeup about behavioral remedies and why cma don't like them. Some on the thread are looking for ways that MS can get off easy though and think an independent commission can monitor behavior so that the cma will let them off as easy as possible with this deal, seems like cope but I dunno.


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Excellent collection of important points from the regulators and breakdown, I recommend everyone reads them.

 

[Bryank75]

Thank you for sharing this.

I loved that that lad, after sharing all those bulled points, still thinks there's no issue with the deal

Idas thinks there's no issue? You have a link? I'd love to read....

 

[Darth Vader]

Idas thinks there's no issue? You have a link? I'd love to read....

Final paragraph

https://icon-era.com/attachments/screenshot_20230216_084037_chrome-jpg.560/

 

[AshHunter216]

Final paragraph

https://icon-era.com/attachments/screenshot_20230216_084037_chrome-jpg.560/

That's from a different guy than Idas IIRC. The stuff about the CMA document is from Idas though.

 

[Darth Vader]

That's from a different guy than Idas IIRC. The stuff about the CMA document is from Idas though.

Ah. I was talking about the screenshots, wasn't sure if that was Idas or not. Cheers.

 

[AshHunter216]

Now that we know that there are 2 others beside Sony against the deal, there may be a chance that they end up going to the hearing next week as well.

 

[Darth Vader]

Now that we know that there are 2 others beside Sony against the deal, there may be a chance that they end up going to the hearing next week as well.

SONY BAD

 

[AshHunter216]

SONY BAD

I'm also wondering if the two that were OK with the deal would actually care enough to go to the hearing to defend MS. My guess is that those two are Nintendo and Valve; they're probably OK with it because it doesn't really affect their platforms much either way.

 

[Deleted member 417]

Surely if he was bold face lying gaf moderation would step in? Or is that reserved only for xbox critics?

The gaf team know very little. The Bethesda purchase was hinted at/speculated on 12 months before Microsoft bought them and the mods closed it down calling it fanboy dreaming.

 

[KiryuRealty]

I'm also wondering if the two that were OK with the deal would actually care enough to go to the hearing to defend MS. My guess is that those two are Nintendo and Valve; they're probably OK with it because it doesn't really affect their platforms much either way.

The thing is, if the two in support aren’t seen by the CMA as being true competition to MS in the console business, nothing they say is going to count for shit.

 

[AshHunter216]

Idas has another post with Microsoft's motion in the FTC subpoena situation. Microsoft seems to want information about Sony's third party deals to paint them as the real anticompetitive ones. They also want information related to VR.

 

[Deleted member 417]

Wanting information about VR because Microsoft argue it has put Sony ahead?

But Phil said in 2017 Vr was coming to the 1X, and then again in 2019 that it was coming to the Series X

 

[AshHunter216]

Wanting information about VR because Microsoft argue it has put Sony ahead?

But Phil said in 2017 Vr was coming to the 1X, and then again in 2019 that it was coming to the Series X

One person speculated that MS maybe thinks Sony are somehow 'cheating' to get ahead in the VR market.

One thing I'm surprised about is how the judge hasn't made any decisions about this stuff yet and made no progress last week.

Ultimately I think Sony will have to give some information, but maybe not as much as what Microsoft is asking for.

 

[Deleted member 417]

One person speculated that MS maybe thinks Sony are somehow 'cheating' to get ahead in the VR market.

One thing I'm surprised about is how the judge hasn't made any decisions about this stuff yet and made no progress last week.

Sony are 'cheating' to get ahead in the VR market, the 'cheat' they are using is to build a funking headset. If MS spent the 76 billion in developing VR, they would be able to compete. As it stands, every VR dev who wants to bring their games to the millions of console-VR players, does so by giving Sony default exclusives.

Microsoft pay 76 billion for exclusives from 3rd party devs, where as 3rd party devs pay Sony for the luxury of being on their platform

 

[AshHunter216]

I've also seen some argue that if the deal doesn't go through, MS could at least get regulators involved to stop Playstation from doing 3rd party exclusives/deals going forward. Though that may backfire, as there's proof MS makes those kind of deals as well, as does Nintendo.