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[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

From reading that it's the CMA who seem to not agree with Google's claim, but that maybe the EC agreed with Google.

Honestly it doesn't matter much if the EC has a change of opinion on this particular aspect; the CMA still have their stance on the acquisition and are favoring structural remedies despite believing MS would probably not leverage ABK IP to limit rival PC gaming competitors by tying Windows & xCloud distribution tightly (although there are historical precedents to validate the worry; MS did exactly this with Internet Explorer in the Wintel days).

And that is specifically towards PC operating systems, not OSes in general (which could theoretically be used as a segue to mean other competing gaming devices that just happen to run their own OSes). That Twitter account is inferring a lot from very little. And I don't think either regulatory body would be concerned about Windows because PC gaming is utterly dominated by Steam anyway. Unless Microsoft decided to withhold API access and technical support from Valve for maintaining Steam (thereby causing Steam to perform worst on Windows PCs for reasons outside of Valve's control), whatever they would want to do with ABK's IP for Windows gaming would probably fall under fair game. Plus, MS have financial incentives to keep the content available on other PC storefronts anyway, and Valve have been doing a lot of work to get better Windows compatibility in Linux.

All that said, PC is a very different market business-wise than console; MS can say they have no financial incentive to withhold ABK content from Sony or Nintendo, but they actually do. They don't "need" gaming revenue & profits the same way Sony & Nintendo do, and they have already argued hypothetical situations where COD is not on Sony platforms but Sony would still be "just fine". They know what a marketing and mindshare win they could have by tying COD to Game Pass for Day 1 releases; even if they offer the opportunity for Sony to put them in PS+ Day 1, Sony loses because of all the revenue left on the table, and the pressure created to then add even more 3P and 1P AAA games Day 1 to the service or else lose in a sub service battle they'd have been dragged into, therein also handing control of messaging and optics to Microsoft in the process. Which would help Microsoft gain mindshare, then market share, and potentially make way more in revenue while being able to sustain forfeited direct sales revenue with the strategy because of all the money the other parts of their business make.

Conclusions the CMA and potentially the EC have WRT MS's use of ABK assets with Windows & xCloud have little to no bearing on concerns relating to devices outside of that scope.

Lol the ol "persecution complex" fallback... It doesn't really work like everyone that pulls it out thinks that it does.
Anyway, this is derailing the thread.

A lot of people should be happy with the CMAs conclusions. They are going to kill this merger.

But I do wonder who the CMA would allow to buy acti should Microsoft do agree to spin them off?

Dunno. Does Microsoft have to sell it to another company so should they divest Activision? I don't see why they can't just have Activision act as its own company, or would there need to be additional steps done to enable that?

The issue I think comes up if MS sells Activision & COD to another company is that, said other company is now consolidating a rather notable slice of a publishing arm, and one of the biggest IP in the industry. And, that publisher would still have every incentive to enable the same bidding for exclusive access & content through marketing deals that seemingly spurred on (at least partially) this entire mess of an acquisition attempt in the first place.

I think there's a way for all sides to be satisfied in case of a divestiture. Let MS retain partial ownership of the divested portion, have the divested portion operate as its own corporation. Let MS, Sony & Nintendo purchase publishing licenses of Activision games for their own platforms; these also help enable funding of versions of the games for their platforms. That way, MS, Sony & Nintendo can do marketing with the games as they see fit, for their platforms only though. The divested company handles publishing on PC & mobile; MS gets a portion of that revenue through having partial ownership of the company.

The divested company can still obtain additional funding through other means, but Microsoft has a vested interest to fund PC & mobile development alongside Xbox versions of games. MS, Sony & Nintendo can option to fund development of certain other games, they can't block the others out of buying publishing rights (and funding versions) for their own consoles, though. And for all such, Activision still develop PC & mobile versions that they publish themselves. Impose content stipulations for anyone buying Day 1 rights into a sub service, such as inability to buy MTX & DLC content for live-service games or only getting Trails for single-player games (the rest of the game gets unlocked in timed intervals, as long as the user stays subbed to the service). Still gotta create a favorable environment for direct sales revenue after all, as an independent corporation.

How much of this can Microsoft actually argue in favor of, how much can they convince shareholders to OK it, and how much can they convince regulators to accept it as part of a structural remedy process is up in the air. And that's considering they care enough by this point to want the deal to go through, versus just walking away from it altogether.

 

[Fredrik]

Maybe, I do suspect so and I am coming from a position where I would prefer them to divest A (been consistent on that)

Yeah, haven’t played a COD since the 360 launch, just chop it off. Go for the rest instead. I’ll be forever pissed if I don’t get any new Gamepass games through this circus.

 

[Topher]

I very much get that, sales don't lie in showing it has a pull. I just don't really see the actual feverish appeal that should dictate deciding on whether a merger is appropriate. The games industry is incredibly versatile, with the ability to have a one man dev team strike gold to a 200 strong team crash and burn. One game does not define the industry, yet apparently it does?

I dunno, I'm just old I guess and don't see the appeal of holding one title above all others. I mean, Nintendo hasn't had CoD for how long and is doing perfectly fine?

Because Nintendo isn't attracting the same type of gamer that are drawn to Call of Duty. We see that in the annual sports games that are mainstays on Xbox and PS annual best sellers lists but never make it on Nintendo's. That is why this is very much an Xbox vs PS dispute and Nintendo doesn't give a shit. For Xbox and PS, Call of Duty is crucial.

 

[reksveks]

Ah! Okay. Gotcha.

Yeah, Derek is pretty good but I just think legal documents and wording goes over most people's heads.

 

[jm89]

OT: honest question... how many keyboards do you burn through in a year?

I asked this question to senjutsu aswell,I'm convinced these 2 are using physics defying nuclear powered keyboards which lets them enter the 6th dimension

 

[reksveks]

This one is quite an interesting one cause I think the argument that this deal is going to have an impact on user's OS choice was rather weak. MacOS gaming isn't going to get worse cause of this deal and Windows isn't going to get more dominate.

The cloud OS space was always a bit more interesting and stronger, and that's where I thought it was good that EC was looking into Proton/Wine for Linux-based streaming services however creating behavioural remedies for that felt a bit hard.

Off to bed.

 

[gothmog]

Not making it out to be anything. What's with the hostility on here? I've not seen the divestment part discussed much. I was wondering what people were thinking.

I personally think that it will come down to tencent or take 2

It's been nothing but gaslighting recently so some of us are a bit defensive. Nothing personal. We all try to be slightly respectful around here.

Take 2 would be interesting. I was thinking Amazon. They had some success setting up some studios but I think they suffered by not having the leadership that could execute well. Lots of false starts and unreleased garbage. Buying a publisher might help them have some success as a third party. Especially since their hardware division is basically on a skeleton crew. They wouldn't be that interested in a console given where they are at.

 

[SneakersSO]

Yeah not 100% sure but I think the process will be MS pays out the 95 usd per share and then divest. ABK shareholders will be irrelevant to the process as their shares are getting completely bought out.

Shortening Activision to A.

Some of the interesting questions will be:
- around the $9-12bn cash that ABK have and how much goes with A, how much stays with MS (this will be related to the viability and selling of A but there isn't anything fix here afaik)
- how much would be MS taking a wash on selling A vs the 3bn fee. If you are going to be losing 3bn via cancelling vs losing 6bn (calculating of A as a business will be interesting) via selling A but getting to keep 3bn in cash, how does that impact your calculus?

Also fuck VAR and I am a VAR Supporter but incompetency all over the country today.

Divestment is a tricky sell, but not impossible for sure. First, ATVI and the shareholders would need to hold another vote on the deal itself in order for that to go through. I'm not quite sure if MS would be willing to divest CoD while still paying the $96 p/share that they are currently on the hook for.

As for the cost of dropping the deal, it only becomes about $3b in a few months, and is at that price point for a very short window until the current purchasing agreement nullifies (which happens either July or August) and a new purchasing agreement must be negotiated between ATVI and MS.

As for the larger business needs of Xbox, getting Blizzard & King would still be a very worthwhile get for MS, but i'm not sure that losing all of the teams that have worked on CoD or that would be needed to continuing the business of CoD (which basically is every studio Activision currently owns save for a handful that got rolled into Blizzard last year) is worth it.

Thinking of all the options MS has available to them, divesting CoD is probably the best one to go with if they still intend on ensuring they get something from this; it nets them a place to grow their PC GP userbase (Battle.net), nets them a stronger revenue stream for mobile, gives them a big collection of dormant gaming IP (although no real manpower to develop them, but they wouldn't have been able to use those teams to develop those IP anyway cause CoD would need that manpower), and gives them a solid stable of MP games they can now shift from AWS -> Azure.

If i'm MS, I probably just save myself some time from trying to get behavioral remedies through and just go with divestment. They don't get exclusive CoD or full control of the CoD revenue stream, but at this point, even with behavioral remedies they weren't going to anyway.

 

[gothmog]

Divestment is a tricky sell, but not impossible for sure. First, ATVI and the shareholders would need to hold another vote on the deal itself in order for that to go through. I'm not quite sure if MS would be willing to divest CoD while still paying the $96 p/share that they are currently on the hook for.

As for the cost of dropping the deal, it only becomes about $3b in a few months, and is at that price point for a very short window until the current purchasing agreement nullifies (which happens either July or August) and a new purchasing agreement must be negotiated between ATVI and MS.

As for the larger business needs of Xbox, getting Blizzard & King would still be a very worthwhile get for MS, but i'm not sure that losing all of the teams that have worked on CoD or that would be needed to continuing the business of CoD (which basically is every studio Activision currently owns save for a handful that got rolled into Blizzard last year) is worth it.

Thinking of all the options MS has available to them, divesting CoD is probably the best one to go with if they still intend on ensuring they get something from this; it nets them a place to grow their PC GP userbase (Battle.net), nets them a stronger revenue stream for mobile, gives them a big collection of dormant gaming IP (although no real manpower to develop them, but they wouldn't have been able to use those teams to develop those IP anyway cause CoD would need that manpower), and gives them a solid stable of MP games they can now shift from AWS -> Azure.

If i'm MS, I probably just save myself some time from trying to get behavioral remedies through and just go with divestment. They don't get exclusive CoD or full control of the CoD revenue stream, but at this point, even with behavioral remedies they weren't going to anyway.

There's a lot more to divestment than just a vote. You need to have a full plan ready to be executed with a buyer or holding company ready to accept the divested parts. Many industries do this and most of the big horizontal and vertical consulting firms are familiar with the logistics. The oil and financial industries in particular deal with this almost constantly.

So divestiture isn't that scary of an avenue. Just a relatively new one for gaming.

 

[SneakersSO]

There's a lot more to divestment than just a vote. You need to have a full plan ready to be executed with a buyer or holding company ready to accept the divested parts. Many industries do this and most of the big horizontal and vertical consulting firms are familiar with the logistics. The oil and financial industries in particular deal with this almost constantly.

So divestiture isn't that scary of an avenue. Just a relatively new one for gaming.

Yup, it being a new arena for games is what I meant when I called it tricky, but its really not an unusual move; like you said, in markets that have already highly consolidated, its an easy avenue to get around regulators.

As for who would this buyer be, I doubt they are gonna find someone who wants to buy CoD and its associated studios from them. Far more likely scenario is a holding company gets created with MS getting some major stake in said holding company, and the holding company is given the money for the buy. But getting ATVI to agree to this is still probably the first major hurdle though. Nevermind getting through the shareholder vote; I have 0 insight to what sort of appetite to divestment Kotick and his board have.

It's been nothing but gaslighting recently so some of us are a bit defensive. Nothing personal. We all try to be slightly respectful around here.

Take 2 would be interesting. I was thinking Amazon. They had some success setting up some studios but I think they suffered by not having the leadership that could execute well. Lots of false starts and unreleased garbage. Buying a publisher might help them have some success as a third party. Especially since their hardware division is basically on a skeleton crew. They wouldn't be that interested in a console given where they are at.

Hmmm, Amazon as the potential buyer. Theres a touch of a conflict here. I factually know that one of the big caveats MS was looking forward to was the vertical integrations this deal would be, namely the boost to Azure it would provide (they were going to move all of ABK's MP titles that were being hosted in AWS over to Azure).

I'm not quite sure if Amazon would be willing to purchase CoD from MS without some sort of guarantee that CoD would remain on AWS. Thats a lot of studios for them to suddenly manage, and they have been historically terrible at studio and project management. Based on rumblings i've heard, I think its far more likely that Amazon just goes off and purchases Ubisoft instead - Amazon is highly invested in Tom Clancy properties, and Ubisoft owns full rights to the Tom Clancy name. It would also net them loads of film rights to Tom Clancy adjacent properties, like The Division, which is currently being developed for Netflix; i'm positive they'd want that within Amazon Prime Studios instead.

Take 2 is an interesting prospect though. At this point, given the objections being raised by a platform holder trying to buy CoD, its safe to say that any platform holder within the market trying to buy T2/GTA would also get shutdown, if not even harder, for the same points the CMA are outlining here. On the one hand, it would make T2 even more 'unbuyable' by the current console platform holders. And T2 would probably be able to secure the funding to make the purchase. I'm sure they wouldn't mind the bonus this would provide their revenue streams.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I asked this question to senjutsu aswell,I'm convinced these 2 are using physics defying nuclear powered keyboards which lets them enter the 6th dimension

 

[poppabk]

I feel it would make more sense to divest the CoD IP and keep the teams and create a new FPS franchise.

 

[SneakersSO]

I feel it would make more sense to divest the CoD IP and keep the teams and create a new FPS franchise.

The CMA has already said that the structural remedy that divests CoD must also divest all of the studios that are currently working on CoD. If MS presented divestment as a behavioral remedy where only the rights to CoD get divested but that its labor required to create CoD remains with MS/ATVI, they'd be soundly rejected by the CMA, based on what they've said.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Divestment is a tricky sell, but not impossible for sure. First, ATVI and the shareholders would need to hold another vote on the deal itself in order for that to go through. I'm not quite sure if MS would be willing to divest CoD while still paying the $96 p/share that they are currently on the hook for.

As for the cost of dropping the deal, it only becomes about $3b in a few months, and is at that price point for a very short window until the current purchasing agreement nullifies (which happens either July or August) and a new purchasing agreement must be negotiated between ATVI and MS.

As for the larger business needs of Xbox, getting Blizzard & King would still be a very worthwhile get for MS, but i'm not sure that losing all of the teams that have worked on CoD or that would be needed to continuing the business of CoD (which basically is every studio Activision currently owns save for a handful that got rolled into Blizzard last year) is worth it.

Thinking of all the options MS has available to them, divesting CoD is probably the best one to go with if they still intend on ensuring they get something from this; it nets them a place to grow their PC GP userbase (Battle.net), nets them a stronger revenue stream for mobile, gives them a big collection of dormant gaming IP (although no real manpower to develop them, but they wouldn't have been able to use those teams to develop those IP anyway cause CoD would need that manpower), and gives them a solid stable of MP games they can now shift from AWS -> Azure.

If i'm MS, I probably just save myself some time from trying to get behavioral remedies through and just go with divestment. They don't get exclusive CoD or full control of the CoD revenue stream, but at this point, even with behavioral remedies they weren't going to anyway.

They don't need to hold another vote for that

 

[DeepEnigma]

I feel it would make more sense to divest the CoD IP and keep the teams and create a new FPS franchise.

Financially?

 

[SneakersSO]

They don't need to hold another vote for that

Interesting! Okay, wasn't really aware of that. Makes sense though when I think about it - divestment would have to happen after the purchase has already been completed, and the shareholders have already agreed to said purchase. Divestment would be an agreement between the CMA and MS. Thanks!

 

[Poltz]

I feel it would make more sense to divest the CoD IP and keep the teams and create a new FPS franchise.

The IP is worth nothing without the teams to make it.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

I presume you’re referring to desktop / laptop OS market share. Windows have 74% market share in OS from what I’ve read.

PlayStation OS has 80+% market share in console OS but I doubt you’d consider that a monopoly.

Hey business genius, PS is in the position it is in today because consumers picked them over the competition. Is tesla a monopolist because it has the dominant share of EVs?

Like you are just saying shit to be argumentative.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I presume you’re referring to desktop / laptop OS market share. Windows have 74% market share in OS from what I’ve read.

PlayStation OS has 80+% market share in console OS but I doubt you’d consider that a monopoly.

It is a monopoly, but an "earned" monopoly. Sony wasn't cutting deals with retailers to not sell rival consoles, or forbidding 3P devs and pubs from making games for other consoles, or preventing customers from buying other systems. They offered a superior system with the more appealing games software lineup, better marketing, and better hardware & support for 3P devs and pubs, to gain that market share.

They competed fairly in the market and the market just happened to reward them with a majority market share. That's a big difference compared to how Microsoft got a lot of their Windows market share from older days. Regulators only care about monopolies if they're formed by a company buying their way to the top, rather than competing against competitors and the market choosing them over other offerings.

Hey business genius, PS is in the position it is in today because consumers picked them over the competition. Is tesla a monopolist because it has the dominant share of EVs?

Like you are just saying shit to be argumentative.

Yeah basically the same thing

 

[DeepEnigma]

Hey business genius, PS is in the position it is in today because consumers picked them over the competition. Is tesla a monopolist because it has the dominant share of EVs?

Like you are just saying shit to be argumentative.

That’s exactly what the CMAs argument is in favor of the consumer. They have chosen, don’t try and force through hostile means buying up the industry in your favor at the expense of rivals and the consumer. Do better on your own accord. Like your rivals did.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

Hey business genius, PS is in the position it is in today because consumers picked them over the competition. Is tesla a monopolist because it has the dominant share of EVs?

Like you are just saying shit to be argumentative.

I’m not trying to be argumentative, you just don’t seem to understand what a monopoly is.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

It is a monopoly, but an "earned" monopoly. Sony wasn't cutting deals with retailers to not sell rival consoles, or forbidding 3P devs and pubs from making games for other consoles, or preventing customers from buying other systems. They offered a superior system with the more appealing games software lineup, better marketing, and better hardware & support for 3P devs and pubs, to gain that market share.

They competed fairly in the market and the market just happened to reward them with a majority market share. That's a big difference compared to how Microsoft got a lot of their Windows market share from older days. Regulators only care about monopolies if they're formed by a company buying their way to the top, rather than competing against competitors and the market choosing them over other offerings.



Yeah basically the same thing

So Sony have a monopoly now? Jesus Christ lol

 

[Mibu no ookami]

From reading that it's the CMA who seem to not agree with Google's claim, but that maybe the EC agreed with Google.

Honestly it doesn't matter much if the EC has a change of opinion on this particular aspect; the CMA still have their stance on the acquisition and are favoring structural remedies despite believing MS would probably not leverage ABK IP to limit rival PC gaming competitors by tying Windows & xCloud distribution tightly (although there are historical precedents to validate the worry; MS did exactly this with Internet Explorer in the Wintel days).

And that is specifically towards PC operating systems, not OSes in general (which could theoretically be used as a segue to mean other competing gaming devices that just happen to run their own OSes). That Twitter account is inferring a lot from very little. And I don't think either regulatory body would be concerned about Windows because PC gaming is utterly dominated by Steam anyway. Unless Microsoft decided to withhold API access and technical support from Valve for maintaining Steam (thereby causing Steam to perform worst on Windows PCs for reasons outside of Valve's control), whatever they would want to do with ABK's IP for Windows gaming would probably fall under fair game. Plus, MS have financial incentives to keep the content available on other PC storefronts anyway, and Valve have been doing a lot of work to get better Windows compatibility in Linux.

All that said, PC is a very different market business-wise than console; MS can say they have no financial incentive to withhold ABK content from Sony or Nintendo, but they actually do. They don't "need" gaming revenue & profits the same way Sony & Nintendo do, and they have already argued hypothetical situations where COD is not on Sony platforms but Sony would still be "just fine". They know what a marketing and mindshare win they could have by tying COD to Game Pass for Day 1 releases; even if they offer the opportunity for Sony to put them in PS+ Day 1, Sony loses because of all the revenue left on the table, and the pressure created to then add even more 3P and 1P AAA games Day 1 to the service or else lose in a sub service battle they'd have been dragged into, therein also handing control of messaging and optics to Microsoft in the process. Which would help Microsoft gain mindshare, then market share, and potentially make way more in revenue while being able to sustain forfeited direct sales revenue with the strategy because of all the money the other parts of their business make.

Conclusions the CMA and potentially the EC have WRT MS's use of ABK assets with Windows & xCloud have little to no bearing on concerns relating to devices outside of that scope.



Dunno. Does Microsoft have to sell it to another company so should they divest Activision? I don't see why they can't just have Activision act as its own company, or would there need to be additional steps done to enable that?

The issue I think comes up if MS sells Activision & COD to another company is that, said other company is now consolidating a rather notable slice of a publishing arm, and one of the biggest IP in the industry. And, that publisher would still have every incentive to enable the same bidding for exclusive access & content through marketing deals that seemingly spurred on (at least partially) this entire mess of an acquisition attempt in the first place.

I think there's a way for all sides to be satisfied in case of a divestiture. Let MS retain partial ownership of the divested portion, have the divested portion operate as its own corporation. Let MS, Sony & Nintendo purchase publishing licenses of Activision games for their own platforms; these also help enable funding of versions of the games for their platforms. That way, MS, Sony & Nintendo can do marketing with the games as they see fit, for their platforms only though. The divested company handles publishing on PC & mobile; MS gets a portion of that revenue through having partial ownership of the company.

The divested company can still obtain additional funding through other means, but Microsoft has a vested interest to fund PC & mobile development alongside Xbox versions of games. MS, Sony & Nintendo can option to fund development of certain other games, they can't block the others out of buying publishing rights (and funding versions) for their own consoles, though. And for all such, Activision still develop PC & mobile versions that they publish themselves. Impose content stipulations for anyone buying Day 1 rights into a sub service, such as inability to buy MTX & DLC content for live-service games or only getting Trails for single-player games (the rest of the game gets unlocked in timed intervals, as long as the user stays subbed to the service). Still gotta create a favorable environment for direct sales revenue after all, as an independent corporation.

How much of this can Microsoft actually argue in favor of, how much can they convince shareholders to OK it, and how much can they convince regulators to accept it as part of a structural remedy process is up in the air. And that's considering they care enough by this point to want the deal to go through, versus just walking away from it altogether.

This isn't how divestment works.

 

[demigod]

I'm not putting Microsoft on a pedestal... I'm refusing to put Sony on a pedestal. For me, no company is worthy of that. If Microsoft were to start throwing fits like this trying to block things Sony were trying to accomplish i would be just as critical of Microsoft. Both have the means to accomplish their goals without trying to screw the other over. If Sony announced tomorrow they are in talks to purchase Capcom i wouldn't bat an eye because i am a grown man with money and i can buy whatever system i want/need to. I didn't cry when Street Fighter went PS4 exclusive. I've been playing videogames since the days of Atari and long ago realized you actually CAN enjoy more than one console at a time.

Did you bitch at microsoft when they wanted nvidia’s deal blocked?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Divestment is a tricky sell, but not impossible for sure. First, ATVI and the shareholders would need to hold another vote on the deal itself in order for that to go through. I'm not quite sure if MS would be willing to divest CoD while still paying the $96 p/share that they are currently on the hook for.

As for the cost of dropping the deal, it only becomes about $3b in a few months, and is at that price point for a very short window until the current purchasing agreement nullifies (which happens either July or August) and a new purchasing agreement must be negotiated between ATVI and MS.

As for the larger business needs of Xbox, getting Blizzard & King would still be a very worthwhile get for MS, but i'm not sure that losing all of the teams that have worked on CoD or that would be needed to continuing the business of CoD (which basically is every studio Activision currently owns save for a handful that got rolled into Blizzard last year) is worth it.

Thinking of all the options MS has available to them, divesting CoD is probably the best one to go with if they still intend on ensuring they get something from this; it nets them a place to grow their PC GP userbase (Battle.net), nets them a stronger revenue stream for mobile, gives them a big collection of dormant gaming IP (although no real manpower to develop them, but they wouldn't have been able to use those teams to develop those IP anyway cause CoD would need that manpower), and gives them a solid stable of MP games they can now shift from AWS -> Azure.

If i'm MS, I probably just save myself some time from trying to get behavioral remedies through and just go with divestment. They don't get exclusive CoD or full control of the CoD revenue stream, but at this point, even with behavioral remedies they weren't going to anyway.

I think paying 70 billion for BK (less the profit from selling CoD) is way too high a price for Microsoft.

There's no guarantee that you're going to get a significantly large bidder, especially given the state of the economy. Almost certainly able to get more money from a nontraditional actor than a game company.

Really big question to how much CoD and related studios are worth out of 70 billion.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Alright then where’s my Bleeding Edge game on PlayStation ?

You sure you want something even people on Xbox didn't want?

This isn't how divestment works.

Not saying it is, but if it's something MS can work out with regulators as part of the process in some way, it would be interesting to see them try doing so.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

You sure you want something even people on Xbox didn't want?



Not saying it is, but if it's something MS can work out with regulators as part of the process in some way, it would be interesting to see them try doing so.

That's why I said it doesn't work like that.

While they might accept a partial divestment from COD and COD related business stood up as an independent company, they wouldn't let Microsoft maintain an investment in said company and I'm sure Microsoft would rather sell than just let COD and related business walk away for nothing, only for them to be bought by another company.

 

[Poltz]

I think paying 70 billion for BK (less the profit from selling CoD) is way too high a price for Microsoft.

There's no guarantee that you're going to get a significantly large bidder, especially given the state of the economy. Almost certainly able to get more money from a nontraditional actor than a game company.

Really big question to how much CoD and related studios are worth out of 70 billion.

Regarding divesture. Microsoft have a redacted valuation of a standalone Activision in the provisional findings.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Regarding divesture. Microsoft have a redacted valuation of a standalone Activision in the provisional findings.

If you look at a breakdown of earnings, the "Activision" portion is roughly 50%. If you are talking about Call of Duty only, that's harder to estimate, but assuming it's 75% of Activision would mean the CoD property alone would probably be worth around $30B

https://www.investopedia.com/how-activision-blizzard-makes-money-4799286

 

[Mibu no ookami]

If you look at a breakdown of earnings, the "Activision" portion is roughly 50%. If you are talking about Call of Duty only, that's harder to estimate, but assuming it's 75% of Activision would mean the CoD property alone would probably be worth around $30B

https://www.investopedia.com/how-activision-blizzard-makes-money-4799286

Becomes more difficult when you consider nearly every Activision studio has acted as a support studio for COD.

There is potential that Microsoft would still be interested in BK or ABK less COD, but it would really be interesting to see what value there is in Activision without COD if the CMA refers to any studio that has worked on COD as part of the COD business.

You have studios like Toys for Bob who made the Crash games who Activision had working on COD.

You lose them, you have to find a new dev to make Crash.

 

[Poltz]

If you look at a breakdown of earnings, the "Activision" portion is roughly 50%. If you are talking about Call of Duty only, that's harder to estimate, but assuming it's 75% of Activision would mean the CoD property alone would probably be worth around $30B

https://www.investopedia.com/how-activision-blizzard-makes-money-4799286

From the SEC filing we know ABK was in talks with Microsoft and 5 other entities (companies A,C,D,E & individual B) for sale so it’s not impossible tbh.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

I’m not trying to be argumentative, you just don’t seem to understand what a monopoly is.

Ok self proclaimed business genius - since according to you one here understands - explain how Playstation is a monopoly.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

Ok self proclaimed business genius - since according to you one here understands - explain how Playstation is a monopoly.

They’re not, was the point I was making. Seriously, what are you so upset about?

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

They can't negotiate good faith deals if they don't have control over Activision... there are lots of multiplayer/multiplatform games within the Acti stable that make a TON of money and make sense to keep on multiple platforms. Just like Minecraft. Fallout 76. Yes, Microsoft would have added some single player experience type exclusives to their console but would have kept other multiplatform games open especially where it made financial sense. COD. Diablo. Maybe even WoW on both consoles. Now Sony will be lucky if they get anything at all if this deal goes through and if other publishers are willing to work deals with them when Sony has openly shown they dont care about anyone but themselves. There is no reality where Microsoft was getting outbid on something it REALLY wanted. You don't think Sony was "winning" these bids due to pre-existing positive relationships forged during previous generations? They are throwing all of that positivity down the drain right now and it might get even worse as we get closer to final decisions here in a few months.

This is like reading a bad revenge porn Steven Universe fanfic.

 

[Three]

I presume you’re referring to desktop / laptop OS market share. Windows have 74% market share in OS from what I’ve read.

PlayStation OS has 80+% market share in console OS but I doubt you’d consider that a monopoly.

Why on earth would this even matter, even if it were somehow correct? It's not like you can buy the OS and install it elsewhere, or install alternative OS on your consoles.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Apple your post disappeared because I willed it

 

[MasterCornholio]

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[Hero of Spielberg]

Why on earth would this even matter, even if it were somehow correct? It's not like you can buy the OS and install it elsewhere, or install alternative OS on your consoles.

Context was, someone suggested that MS was using money made from their other monopolies to fund this attempt at creating a new monopoly via the acquisition. I asked what MS monopolies they were?

The person I responded to with a weird obsession about me being a ‘business genius’ claimed Windows had a monopoly on Laptop / desktop. I said PS have a larger market share on OS on consoles, so if Windows was a monopoly on dedktop / mobile it would make PS a monopoly on consoles.

Neither are monopolies, people on this thread just seem to think everything is a monopoly.

 

[Three]

claimed Windows had a monopoly on Laptop / desktop. I said PS have a larger market share on OS on consoles, so if Windows was a monopoly on dedktop / mobile it would make PS a monopoly on consoles.

This is what doesn't make sense though. Why would you refute the fact that Windows has a monopoly on desktop/laptop OS with a "Playstation OS" monopoly on consoles. Doesn't make sense. You don't buy or even have an OS choice on your consoles. Your 80% figure is just completely made up too.

 

[Helghan]

If it's really mainly about mobile then why are so many people, even Microsoft potentially, against the idea of divesting COD & Activision out from the rest?

Because they thought they could have it all. And honestly keeping complete parity for 10 years is already a nice unnecessary gesture.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

This is what doesn't make sense though. Why would you refute the fact that Windows has a monopoly on desktop/laptop OS with a "Playstation OS" monopoly on consoles. Doesn't make sense. You don't buy or even have an OS choice on your consoles.

It was just a comment about respective market shares, it doesn’t matter that it’s an OS … in the console case it is more just an indication of hardware share, as you said you can’t install an OS anyway.


MS don’t have a monopoly on laptop / desktop anymore than PS have a monopoly on console sales. Both have strong market share, but there continues to be competition in both markets.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Sony can't afford to. You really don't think if Sony was as flush with cash they wouldn't be out there buying up EVERYTHING they could get away with? I think if Sony actually had the financial ability to do what they want it could be WAY worse than what we've seen with Microsoft. Microsoft might be bullish at times, but Sony are downright arrogant. I'd much rather live in a world where Microsoft buys up some devs/pubs but still continues to provide affordable value for its consumers. If things were flipped and Sony no longer had competition we would all be buying $700 consoles and $100 games right now if they had their way.

I see this pop up all the time but no, Sony isn't like Microsoft. Back with the PS1 they could have acquired WAY more publishers than just Psygnosis, and outright buy many devs. They did not. Yes, they acquired some studios like Naughty Dog, but only after already working with them near-exclusively for years. They purchased shares in Squaresoft, but because they already had a good thing going with FF VII - IX. They could have bought Namco, Capcom, Konami, Square, Enix, Ubisoft, Activision (back then), EA etc. but did not do so.

The reason why is because they learned from Nintendo and Sega, after having worked with both, and since acquisitions weren't in those companies' DNA for gaming, Sony didn't go that route, either. They obviously had the sheer money to do so, but didn't, partly because they'd of gotten dismantled by regulators even worst than Microsoft is right now over ABK. So this whataboutism of Sony going after giant publishers is just noise.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I see this pop up all the time but no, Sony isn't like Microsoft. Back with the PS1 they could have acquired WAY more publishers than just Psygnosis, and outright buy many devs. They did not. Yes, they acquired some studios like Naughty Dog, but only after already working with them near-exclusively for years. They purchased shares in Squaresoft, but because they already had a good thing going with FF VII - IX. They could have bought Namco, Capcom, Konami, Square, Enix, Ubisoft, Activision (back then), EA etc. but did not do so.

The reason why is because they learned from Nintendo and Sega, after having worked with both, and since acquisitions weren't in those companies' DNA for gaming, Sony didn't go that route, either. They obviously had the sheer money to do so, but didn't, partly because they'd of gotten dismantled by regulators even worst than Microsoft is right now over ABK. So this whataboutism of Sony going after giant publishers is just noise.

Sony also knows that acquisitions often fail, for various reasons. And they’ve had a few fail. Sometimes the market for the games they make just changes and becomes untenable.

So they are a lot more selective with whom they acquire, generally only those they have long-standing working relationships with.

Massive acquisitions often are a big bust. Hard to integrate into culture of parent company. The old management leaves. New management isn’t quite competent in handling such a huge business.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Sony also knows that acquisitions often fail, for various reasons. And they’ve had a few fail. Sometimes the market for the games they make just changes and becomes untenable.

So they are a lot more selective with whom they acquire, generally only those they have long-standing working relationships with.

Massive acquisitions often are a big bust. Hard to integrate into culture of parent company. The old management leaves. New management isn’t quite competent in handling such a huge business.

Absolutely. And that's going to prove to be such a hurdle for Microsoft to resolve, IF they even manage to snag up ABK. They have one of the worst, most toxic workplace cultures in gaming ever seen, and how exactly is Microsoft intending to help fix that? Just getting rid of Kotick won't be enough, there are some who were responsible definitely still at the company just keeping a low profile and hoping time forgets everything.

Microsoft have their own issues with workplace culture, at least in some departments. Not to the scale of ABK, and they ironically just shut down an entire unit where one of the most infamous examples sprang up from (the Hololens unit), but at companies as large as Microsoft there's a lot of bureaucratic yellow tape involved that probably ties up and stalls efficiency in workplace restructurings. IBM were so infamous of that being a problem they had to completely isolate their PC team and leave them out of the rest of company more or less so that they could actually get things done in a timely fashion.

And I'd say Microsoft of today is quite bigger than IBM was in the '80s.

Because they thought they could have it all. And honestly keeping complete parity for 10 years is already a nice unnecessary gesture.

Welp, they can't. And parity for 10 years isn't good enough going by the CMA's own statements on behavioral remedies, plus some posters like Mibu no ookami have illustrated the difficulties in defining and enforcing parity in an ever-changing market.

That's why I said it doesn't work like that.

While they might accept a partial divestment from COD and COD related business stood up as an independent company, they wouldn't let Microsoft maintain an investment in said company and I'm sure Microsoft would rather sell than just let COD and related business walk away for nothing, only for them to be bought by another company.

Welp, that sucks for Microsoft, then. Best option for them is to find a company that would best provide those aforementioned conditions as neutrally as possible. Unfortunately for them the only companies that would probably be able to afford the price of a divested Activision & COD are essentially among their direct competitors.

Unless some big pharma company suddenly decided to jump into gaming and bought them or something.

 

[yurinka]

What exactly a divestment means? CoD and maybe the Activision part of the Activision Blizzard King company would be separated into a new company that wouldn't be acquired by MS, while MS would keep Blizzard and King?

And that separated Activision company, who would own it? I assume they'd have to sell it to someone and regulators wouldn't allow someone like let's say Sony own it, so probably Tencent, EA, Take 2 or Amazon would acquire it?

By divesting this company, would regulators force to keep CoD multi? Or MS could still also own this separated company and keep it exclusive?

 

[Banjo64]

What exactly a divestment means? CoD and maybe the Activision part of the Activision Blizzard King company would be separated into a new company that wouldn't be acquired by MS, while MS would keep Blizzard and King?

And that separated Activision company, who would own it? I assume they'd have to sell it to someone and regulators wouldn't allow someone like let's say Sony own it, so probably Tencent, EA, Take 2 or Amazon would acquire it?

By divesting this company, would regulators force to keep CoD multi? Or MS could still also own this separated company and keep it exclusive?

The transaction goes ahead as planned.

Microsoft then have to sell off the element that they’ve agreed to with the CMA. It’s yet to be determined what that would look like.

Hypothetically, they could come to an agreement to sell off the CoD IP, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Sledgehammer and Raven.

This collective would then be sold by Microsoft to another company. Microsoft are not allowed to own this collective.

Could the new collective voluntarily choose to only make Xbox games? I don’t know. It wouldn’t make much sense for the future acquirer to ignore Sony so it’s something that’s extremely unlikely in my opinion.

Other people here know more than me so please feel free to chime in if I’ve got anything wrong.

 

[Heisenberg007]

It was just a comment about respective market shares, it doesn’t matter that it’s an OS … in the console case it is more just an indication of hardware share, as you said you can’t install an OS anyway.


MS don’t have a monopoly on laptop / desktop anymore than PS have a monopoly on console sales. Both have strong market share, but there continues to be competition in both markets.

Not entirely a part of this conversation, so I might be missing context, but I see there's some confusion regarding monopoly.

To clarify, monopoly is not illegal, according to laws. It is the means that matter.

So PlayStation's larger market share is legal. However, Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard King and the resultant increased market share would be illegal.

This is as per the FTC's laws.

In addition, the argument that "acquiring ABK will not make Xbox a monopoly" is also invalid.

That's because courts and regulators are not supposed to only look at literal monopolies. Attempts to monopolizing the industry and/or increasing the market share via anti-competitive means also fall under their jurisdiction.

Microsoft's ABK acquisition falls under this.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

Not entirely a part of this conversation, so I might be missing context, but I see there's some confusion regarding monopoly.

To clarify, monopoly is not illegal, according to laws. It is the means that matter.

So PlayStation's larger market share is legal. However, Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard King and the resultant increased market share would be illegal.

This is as per the FTC's laws.

In addition, the argument that "acquiring ABK will not make Xbox a monopoly" is also invalid.

That's because courts and regulators are not supposed to only look at literal monopolies. Attempts to monopolizing the industry and/or increasing the market share via anti-competitive means also fall under their jurisdiction.

Microsoft's ABK acquisition falls under this.

Yeah, I get all that and I wasn’t suggesting otherwise.

Although there are a few semantics I disagree with as well as the FTCs newly defined ‘high performance market’.

 

[DenchDeckard]

No changes lol.

It would be crazy if this took a curve ball and the hardware guys had to goto court and it was somehow found out that the hardware teams had been breaking nda and discussing other companies specs and design with one another.

I doubt there would be a paper trail bout it would be amazing to see something where AMD and Microsoft or Sony were caught out discussing the competitors box in detail.

Would be great just for the drama.

 

[ToadMan]

What is wrong with you guys? Read what I'm saying. MS increasing marketshare is not DESTROYING sony. Even if Playstation dropped to last place (which would never happen) your precious Playstation would still be around and profitable.

No one is saying MS will destroy Sony by gaining market share. That is your strawman. What is “wrong with us guys” is people using strawmen and various false comments to paint an inaccurate picture of what’s occurred here.

The CMA is opposed because of how MS is attempting to increase market share - the CMA is protecting consumers in the marketplace, not Sony or anyone else.