Poltz
Member
Prohibition is a block of the merger.
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Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)
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Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
That's exactly what the Zenimax and now this deal is. What else would you call it?
Banjo64
cumsessed
I didn’t realise wild threats were part of the stages of grief.
Jimmyisback
Banned
Mr.Phoenix
Member
You are kidding right?
MS would never make COD exclusive. They don't have to.
They just need to put it on gamepass. Here, you can pay $70 for COD on PlayStation and PC, or you can just pay $15 for gamepass and get it for free along with these other great games. Or even worse, buy COD on Xbox and get 1 year of gamepass ultimate free. MS owning COD is the equivalent of bringing a gun to a knife fight.
And I don't understand how people cant see what kinda war of attrition this starts. If one of the players is doing shit like that, the only way to compete with that is to go and buy Take 2. Say you manage to pull that off, then MS responds by buying Ubisoft. Then you have to respond by buying EA. In ten years, the biggest publishers and IPs would be under the umbrella of two companies.
Is that what you want?
That is a war that only MS can fight and win. They aren't trying to win by being the better platform, making the best games...etc. They are trying to win by default of simply being the biggest fish in the pond.
In MS HQ, make no mistake, there is a price on PlayStations head. At some point, a conversation like this was had..
N > Ok, Phil what do we need to win this?
P > Probably like $500B. In say over 5 years.
N > What??!!! How many games are you trying to make?
P > Who said anything about making games? leave the game-making to sony, we just need to buy everything else. So $500B, and our little PlayStation problem goes away.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Reread what he said. He is right, it hasn’t happened yet. They’re trying to make it happen, finally, after 20 years of their fans bellowing it, but the deal isn’t closed.
Mr.Phoenix
Member
I am speechless.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Ummm ... Lulu?
laynelane
Member
I thought we'd gone past the whole 'scorched earth' fantasy if the deal fails, but looks like Bobby was enough to bring it back in fashion.
Pelta88
Member
Spoken like someone who has absolutely zero understanding of the most basic business principles.
This has to be jest, right?
TheGodfather07
Member
I thought we'd gone past the whole 'scorched earth' fantasy if the deal fails, but looks like Bobby was enough to bring it back in fashion.
you just wait.. 3rd party publishers cant wait to side with microsoft and their small market share. they cant wait to murder their own ip by going xbox exclusive.
you can really tell who the teenagers are over here. they should go back to twitter with shit like that. much more suitable place for dumbass takes.
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Kilau
Gold Member
Revenge is very popular with shareholders I’m sure.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
This is the style fanbase they helped curate over the past decade on social media.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
The thing about them putting COD on Game Pass though is that it have to come with SOME kind of limitation. Otherwise MS are in a position where they can forfeit reliance on any direct sales revenue and push it on Game Pass for "free", and push Sony into either doing the same (leaving tons of revenue from direct sales on the table gone forever) or refusing to (potentially losing lots of market share in key markets directly because they don't put COD in PS+ Day 1).
That is basically predatory pricing in a sense; MS don't need the gaming revenue as a whole, so they can do without any of the direct sales revenue if it means gaining market share and getting huge sub growth. PlayStation exists partly because it's a self-sufficient subsidiary of Sony Corp, and contributes significantly to the company's bottom line with the business model they currently have. They can't maintain that business model if they put a 3P AAA as massive as COD in PS+ Day 1, thereby creating expectations for more such games (3P & 1P) in the service Day 1 and possibly training big parts of their customer base to not buy new games at launch or wait until they're in the service.
Because they can't necessarily count on significant enough sub growth or especially sub revenue growth to make up for the loss in direct sales revenue with such a move (or more importantly, surpass the revenue & profits of that model, which would be the main reason a company would want to change the business model in the first place), it would reduce PlayStation to being more of a liability on the rest of Sony Corp, and Sony isn't structured anywhere near the same way Microsoft is (in terms of where gaming is almost a non-factor for their revenue & profits).
Playing by that strategy would basically cause Sony to bleed out and see severely declining revenue. That's the consequence of a predatory pricing strategy.
I saw this one RE Pfizer
Competition and Markets Authority (Respondent) v Flynn Pharma Ltd and another (Appellants) - The Supreme Court
Case detailswww.supremecourt.uk
Completely different market with different factors & conditions (let alone macro socioeconomic influences).
Maybe they're kickin' it in the Caribbean sipping on mojitos
drganon
Member
MasterCornholio
Member
I'm not an expert but I can imagine the market for pharmaceutical products is huge.
PaintTinJr
Member
Judging by some of the legal challenges the deal has had from shareholders I would expect the first order of business will be to address the level at which the board were going to be rewarded - at the expense of shareholders - from this deal, and so Bobby and Co might not be kept in place, or maybe even want to walk when their packages are adjusted to less excessive levels, so I suspect Sony might be discussing CoD marketing with different people at ATVI by then if the deal fails, like it currently seems.
MasterCornholio
Member
Speaking about shareholders would they have any say in whether or not this deal continues?
aries_71
Junior Member
Are you for real? No way Sony would allow GP on the PlayStation. Not in a million years.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
No you're right, it's a BIG market. But medications don't exist for recreational use (well, not legally). Very different pipelines for acquired resources, production of the products, distribution, how the product is made available for customers, safety requirements & regulations, QA testing, and more.
Plus IIRC the Pfizer case was not a M&A.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
If I'm correct, in case of divestiture, they will have to get the deal approved by shareholders again.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Wait so if the regulators push for divestiture and MS agrees, the shareholders can still call off the deal if they don't want to renegotiate due to the choice of divestiture?
That is painful for Microsoft if true. Very painful, in fact.
MasterCornholio
Member
If correct I don't see what that case has to do with this one. Don't see how that applies here.
That does make sense. A decision that big can't be handled by just one person (Phil Spencer for example). I guess it depends what shareholders really want. Truth is cutting out COD does reduce the value by alot. They might not want to drop 80 billion if they don't have COD.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Exactly, that's the point. Someone else brought up the Pfizer vs CMA case as an example of a M&A being blocked and successfully fought...but it was not a M&A in the first place
Also aside but, "notoriously fucking petty" might be my new favorite catchphrase.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Again, not 100% sure, but what I understand/recall is that MS will first have to agree (by signing off with shareholders) and then accept the divestiture deal by the CMA.
Activision will also have to get the sign-off from their shareholders. If either set of shareholders doesn't agree, the deal can't go through. It'd be like shareholders never agreed about the acquisition.
If anybody has more concrete information about this and I'm wrong about this, please correct me.
PaintTinJr
Member
Not at this point AFAIK - although
Heisenberg007
's point sounds correct - the majority voted for the deal and put it in the hands of the board IIRC. If the deal fails the shareholders might see it as a failing by Bobby and Co, because they proposed taking the deal - believing it would go through. So it would technically be Bobby and Co's failure. If shareholders still want to sell at that price they might seek out a CEO that has a track record of successfully selling in such scrutiny situations.
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DForce
NaughtyDog Defense Force
They could literally do this AFTER the acquisition. lol
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Is this the new anime supervillain group? Who's doing their theme song?
The "bigger fish" can't acquire Sony even if they wanted because Sony is classified as part of "protected industries" by the Japanese government. In other words, they're not going to let a non-Japanese company buy up something like Sony.
Also your take on MS/Nintendo having a mutual interest in Game Pass cloud on Switch is rather nonsensical. Nintendo would prefer native ports of MS 1P games to a new Switch over xCloud, because that means more money for Nintendo at the end of the day.
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3liteDragon
Member
A MS First party only GP would definitely work on PS & Nintendo in a similar fashion to EA Play & Ubisoft Plus (to prevent cannibalization of 3rd party revenues)
knocksky
Banned
The deal is dead. The CMA have pretty much nailed the coffin shut.
I would be shocked if Microsoft agree but divest acti. Even more shocked if the CMA pass it with behavioural remedies. I get the impression now that the platform holders won't be permitted to buy publishers, so I am expecting a lot of Indies like IOI for example etting hoovered up over the next few years.
I would be shocked if Microsoft agree but divest acti. Even more shocked if the CMA pass it with behavioural remedies. I get the impression now that the platform holders won't be permitted to buy publishers, so I am expecting a lot of Indies like IOI for example etting hoovered up over the next few years.
demigod
Member
What’s big bad microsoft going to do to sony? Go blow their buildings down?
Yoboman
Member
aries_71
Junior Member
But that wouldn’t be Gamepass, it would be something that doesn’t exist.
aries_71
Junior Member
There‘s close to a dozen gaffers posting this on a daily basis since the last month. WWI artillery barrages were softer. The deal better be dead, because if not, NeoGAF is going to collapse.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Topher
Gold Member
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
This is like a 1% chance scenario if even that. Even if Kotick wanted to do this, the board of directors and shareholders would probably go against him. ABK would need serious incentives to choose MS over Sony for future marketing deals or exclusivity if the deal fails, primarily financial ones.
And do you really think they're going to accept $1 billion from MS for a marketing deal when they were about about get $69 billion for a (potentially) failed acquisition? No, they'll be asking for far more than $1 billion. In theory this would increase the cost for Sony as well, but if ABK actually want that money from marketing deals, and they're asking too much from MS, they may have to take whatever Sony's willing to give them.
ABK doesn't actually have as much power or leverage over Sony if this deal fails as some people think.
How do we know Xbox is profitable? MS never share profit figures from the division on its own, just the revenue. And if it is profitable, it's not as profitable as PlayStation is for Sony, let alone Switch is for Nintendo.
Also please stop this ridiculous fanfic of Apple or some other non-Japanese big tech company buying Sony. More than enough people've told you why that won't happen. And
at thinking Sony & Nintendo are stuck in the stone age on a business model that actually works when we can see their results regularly. It's MS trying to push a new model that is having clear negative impacts on their gaming revenue and sales. And the idea MS are the only ones with content on multiple platforms is BS. Sony has games on PC and mobile. Nintendo has games on mobile. I can see Sony maybe reintroducing PS cloud gaming to TVs at a future date when they deem it worth doing so. MS's strategy is not novel in that regard aside from potentially cannibalizing their own core platforms in doing so.
That part IS novel, but not in a good way.
Yeah. This is also why I think even if they pull out from consoles as a "traditional" platform holder, they aren't going to shutter Xbox. They could splinter off Game Pass & xCloud from the Xbox division, keep Xbox Publishing as software-only with the studios, and move the hardware team into the Surface division. That and shift Xbox into a NUC mini-PC gaming brand.
Goodness gracious
. I didn't think MS were in a position they could get pegged on both ends but here we are. Maybe R reksveks has more info on that front. I was under the impression that even with divestiture MS still has to pay the agreed-upon $95/share price. Which I can see MS shareholders potentially being against, but ABK shareholders probably not caring; they're still getting their money as agreed to.
That's why I'm thinking if MS go with divestiture they're going to fight hard to still retain partial ownership of the divested assets, and rather they operate as an independent company vs. selling them to another publisher. Both of which are things I feel they should be able to get through divestiture, IMHO. Guess we'll see how it goes.
Banjo64
cumsessed
As
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
said earlier, and especially after all of this, there’s no way Sony allow it now until Xbox leave the traditional console market.Which was actually what
Methos#1975
said originally, so carry on lads
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mansoor1980
Gold Member
dont believe what these guys say , they do care about their own eco system dominating the industry
Topher
Gold Member
Because Microsoft does care about console sales. Was just few months ago CEO Nadella Satya was bragging about Xbox Series outselling PlayStation 5 for three straight quarters in the US.
Snake29
RSI Employee of the Year
That means that Jim is right all along, and that MS just want to get control over one of the biggest franchises.
And tbh, i still think Jim is right about this and they know more then the parts of this whole drama we see in public.
thismeinteil
Member
I forgot another big one, too. Bragging about how they're nowhere near done buying studios/pubs even before this was finalized. Kinda shows their intent was to, in fact, buy up the market.
3liteDragon
Member
UK regulator deals blow to Microsoft’s $75bn Activision deal - Financial Times
www.ft.com
Article was posted on the 8th but this part's new I think.
Subscribe to read | Financial Times
News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication
www.ft.com
TheGodfather07
Member
If anything this whole fiasco has showed us, is that what Microsoft say to the public and how they really feel is completely different.
gothmog
Gold Member
Because they're lying and the three biggest regulators in the world have called them on it. When someone asks you to trust them on their word in a business deal you know that's a red flag.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
knocksky
Banned
Surely you are not trying to say that Xbox fanboys are somehow worse than Sony fanboys? I'm not saying it is the other way around or anything.
But fuck me how can one group of demented imbeciles be somehow better than the other group of demented imbeciles??
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