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FTC Seeks to Block Microsoft Corp’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard

Banjo64

Banjo64

cumsessed
Unknown? said:
That's true and they ruin the franchises that they gobble up.
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You’ve obviously never seen Disney’s Star Wars


tenor.gif
 
L

Lasha

Member
Neo_game said:
This is fantastic news. Personally I never understood why would a company spend 70 freaking billion $ to purchase another big company. I still can't wrap my head around it. If Microsoft has unlimited amount of money, resources why can't they challenge themselves to make a better game than COD. How about making Bungie great again ? They also have ID Software now. It is as if Microsoft has figured it out that GP can only work if they buy Actitivsion.
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Would you rather purchase land, develop the infrastructure, build houses, then market it hoping you could earn your investment+ a decent return on rent or would you rather buy a property in a mature estate with known returns? The number is irrelevant at the scale large corporations work at. Activision is a great and highly profitable so buying it makes sense.
 
Ass of Can Whooping

Ass of Can Whooping

Member
Pelta88 said:
I'm assuming here that the "Notifying Party" is Playstation. More importantly, they are saying outright that Exclusive strategy is dependent on bringing in more customers and that strategy, namely XBOX reaching a broader audience is implausible... Given that Microsoft has stated that GP will only bring in 15% and that cloud has slow adoption the following by the FTC becomes problematic.

107) The Notifying Party submits that Microsoft has strong incentives to continue making ZeniMax games available for rival consoles (and their related storefronts).105

(108) The Notifying Party explains that the profitability of a strategy to make ZeniMax games exclusive to the Xbox console would depend on a trade-off between: (i) the value of attracting new players to the Xbox ecosystem; and (ii) the lost income from the sale of ZeniMax games for rival consoles (through the related storefronts). In this regard, the Notifying Party forecasts that a significant share of ZeniMax games sales will occur on rival consoles over the life cycle of the newly released console generation. 106 Based on such a trade-off, the Notifying Party submits that a hypothetical console exclusivity strategy would be profitable only if it led to an increase in the number of Xbox users [forecast million] over the next five years, corresponding to an increase in Xbox shipments [forecast percentage] above the forecast level. 107

(109) In the Notifying Party’s view, it is implausible that Microsoft would achieve such results.

If sony is behind the scenes providing data, evidence, and market stratergies such as the above, Microsoft's lawyers have a fight on their hands to say the least. This suggests that Microsoft is willing to eat the costs from a brand which is unlikely to reach a broader audience just to hurt the competition.
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Microsoft is the notifying party
 
Tripolygon

Tripolygon

Banned
Pelta88 said:
I'm assuming here that the "Notifying Party" is Playstation. More importantly, they are saying outright that Exclusive strategy is dependent on bringing in more customers and that strategy, namely XBOX reaching a broader audience is implausible... Given that Microsoft has stated that GP will only bring in 15% and that cloud has slow adoption the following by the FTC becomes problematic.

107) The Notifying Party submits that Microsoft has strong incentives to continue making ZeniMax games available for rival consoles (and their related storefronts).105

(108) The Notifying Party explains that the profitability of a strategy to make ZeniMax games exclusive to the Xbox console would depend on a trade-off between: (i) the value of attracting new players to the Xbox ecosystem; and (ii) the lost income from the sale of ZeniMax games for rival consoles (through the related storefronts). In this regard, the Notifying Party forecasts that a significant share of ZeniMax games sales will occur on rival consoles over the life cycle of the newly released console generation. 106 Based on such a trade-off, the Notifying Party submits that a hypothetical console exclusivity strategy would be profitable only if it led to an increase in the number of Xbox users [forecast million] over the next five years, corresponding to an increase in Xbox shipments [forecast percentage] above the forecast level. 107

(109) In the Notifying Party’s view, it is implausible that Microsoft would achieve such results.

If sony is behind the scenes providing data, evidence, and market stratergies such as the above, Microsoft's lawyers have a fight on their hands to say the least. This suggests that Microsoft is willing to eat the costs from a brand which is unlikely to reach a broader audience just to hurt the competition.
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The notifying party is microsoft and its representatives.

Microsoft was making a case for why them buying Zenimax won't mean they would pull those games from PlayStation by saying doing so won't mean they gain a lot of customers so they have no incentive to make those games exclusive. This is now what the FTC is using to sue Microsoft because they "promised" not to do that with the Zenimax acquisition but went ahead and did it anyway.
 
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T

Three

Member
SaturnSaturn said:
if the FTC where to win the case then you would not see bigger companies acquiring any type of developers anymore, because it sets the precedence that exclusive content is bad and harmful for consumers.
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Wouldn't that be great?! Then MS can even stop pretending Amazon and Google are about to buy up the industry and they're just doing it preemptively.
 
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Tripolygon

Tripolygon

Banned
SaturnSaturn said:
if the FTC where to win the case then you would not see bigger companies acquiring any type of developers anymore, because it sets the precedence that exclusive content is bad and harmful for consumers.
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That's not how it works. This is a market changing acquisition so they have to scrutinize it. It does not mean Microsoft can't turn around and buy another studio, they just can't buy 2 massive publishers "easily".
 
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Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
DeepEnigma said:
I used to bang with Linux way, way back in the day. Have not really looked into how it's progressed recently.
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It's improved quite a bit... driver support is way, way better. Some companies are even shipping laptops with open source firmware instead of UEFI (coreboot/libreboot). Some distros even allow live upgrades, windows style (although backup recommended). Even nvidia is shipping open source kernel modules now to support their GPUs. We've got universal installers now, no more looking for a specific bundle for your distro (mostly).

The big transition right now is in video and audio systems, x11 is being replaced with wayland and pulseaudio with pipewire.

Oh and gaming on linux is a thing now.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Bitmap Frogs said:
But how can you resist the sexy curves of the luscious penguin?

Join la resistance.
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Haven't had trouble since got win10 honestly, but back then going from Windows to Ubuntu around 2005 was eye-opening. The performance, overall picture quality, ease of use was really shocking! Haven't tried it nor willing to due to my main apps like DaVinci Resolve/Skylum image apps aren't available there and not interested in Wine or similar apps to make them work = lose unnecessary performance.
 
The_Mike

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
PharaoTutAnchAmun said:
Noppe MS beat them on that. Its now just waiting for a price hike for Gamepass...
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Star Trek Reaction GIF


My brain after reading that comment.

I swear some of you guys. How do you make shit up like this.

These big corporations are living rent free in your head, brainwashed.

They laugh on people posting shit like this while collecting their money.
 
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Heisenberg007 said:
You're reading this completely wrong.
  • They called the exclusivity strategy "hypothetical." (which we know isn't hypothetical at all. It never was hypothetical, starting the very next day the acquisition closed).
  • "would happen if it led to an X% increase in GP and Xbox shipments above forecast level." Has MS changed their forecasts levels? No. That means they made the games exclusive without hitting the GP and Xbox shipment numbers they mentioned to regulators.
  • "It is implausible that MS will get those numbers" -- true, it was implausible, so why did they make those games exclusives if they didn't hit those numbers?
  • "Therefore, according to MS, they would not have the incentive to cease or limit Zenimax games on rival consoles." -- they said they don't have an incentive and therefore don't want to make those games exclusive. Yet they did exactly that the very next day.
It's clear as daylight that they lied. Their lie is proven by the fact that every regulatory body (FTC, EU, and CMA) has called out MS for these lies.

You're assuming those thousands of people are wrong, but you're right in interpreting it? Think again.
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Nope.

Microsoft didn't mislead EU over ZeniMax deal, watchdog says in response to US concerns

Microsoft didn't make any "commitments" to EU regulators not to release Xbox-exclusive content following its takeover of ZeniMax Media, the European Commission has said.

US enforcers yesterday suggested that the US tech giant had misled the regulator in 2021 and cited that as a reason to challenge its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

"The commission cleared the Microsoft/ZeniMax transaction unconditionally as it concluded that the transaction would not raise competition concerns," the EU watchdog said in an emailed statement.

The absence of competition concerns "did not rely on any statements made by Microsoft about the future distribution strategy concerning ZeniMax's games," said the commission, which itself has opened an in-depth probe into the Activision Blizzard deal and appears keen to clarify what happened in the previous acquisition.

The EU agency found that even if Microsoft were to restrict access to ZeniMax titles, it wouldn't have a significant impact on competition because rivals wouldn't be denied access to an "essential input," and other consoles would still have a "large array" of attractive content.
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Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Bo_Hazem said:
Haven't had trouble since got win10 honestly, but back then going from Windows to Ubuntu around 2005 was eye-opening. The performance, overall picture quality, ease of use was really shocking! Haven't tried it nor willing to due to my main apps like DaVinci Resolve/Skylum image apps aren't available there and not interested in Wine or similar apps to make them work = lose unnecessary performance.
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DaVinci is available :p
 
Solidus_T

Solidus_T

Member
apple_of_enlightenment said:
FTC is an American company. I was wondering if anyone has any idea about the economic dynamics/principles involved in FTC effectively protecting Sony, a Japanese company. Which appears to be what's going on here. (I posted this earlier but a mod deleted it by mistake I think.)
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It's truly amazing to me that people think the FTC is doing this to protect Sony. They released documents explaining their reasoning (MS lying about Zenimax games' exclusivity plays into it) and the documents are *in this thread* yet people still substitute the FTC, EU, and CMA for Sony. Does fanboyism really run that deep?
 
C

Cheezewizz

Banned
Swift_Star said:
Best in the business? They’re the eternally 3rd place, they lost the smartphone market and MacOS is way more valued than windows. AWS is bigger and better than Azure. What are you talking about?
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I believe he's talking about the most successful software company on earth, and the most financially stable tech company as well. Maybe that's what they were talking about.
 
Zok310

Zok310

Banned
FTC controls the timeline now, they can waste time fine tuning the argument cause at the end of the day MS have already announce TES6 as exclusive amongst others. How long do MS want to be in contention with the FTC. The Cma have a cover to block even if you remove the eu argument the ftc made there is still plenty of juicy reasons to block.
 
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Zok310 said:
And its a popular multi platform title that is no longer multiplat one that have sold millions on PS, one of the ftc argument is that ms have no problem with removing AAA titles from rivals after buying a pub, that argument still stands.
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The difference is that MS made no commitments prior that they will make future TES or Fallout franchise games multiplat.

They have explicitly done that with CoD, which is what the biggest point of contention from Sony was, the guaranteed availability of CoD.
 
K

Kvally

Banned
Zok310 said:
And its a popular multi platform title that is no longer multiplat one that have sold millions on PS, one of the ftc argument is that ms have no problem with removing AAA titles from rivals after buying a pub, that argument still stands.
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It's their game, and they never said they would put all their games on all systems. Sony and MS should be able to do whatever they want with the games they own. It happens. Spider-Man used to be a popular multiplatform title, but Sony has secured the rights to that. Do I agree with the way Sony and MS handle exclusives? Nope.
 
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