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Rumour: MS approach Valve for buyout $16b offer

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Its not a lame take when people say how they will die but forget they could of died 3 times by now and it still didnt phase them, while continuously buying other studios. If same happened to SONY they would of folded at the first roadblock like SEGA did. People keep forgetting xbox for them is a play thing to push their other services. One year of Windows subscription model or purchases finances the next 3 generations of xbox lol. 72% of world population use a PC, what you on abot bleeding money.
Time is ticking.
All that money afforded them was more extra time than others.

Now they want to make money hence them putting games on rival platforms and slowly distancing themselves from the xbox name on some products.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
That’s not how laws against monopoly work.

If memory serves, there were already a bunch of posts in this very thread that indicated the FTC, etc, doesn't get invovled in private company purchases. Perhaps they were mistaken though.
But even if the FTC gets involved, they are kind of a toothless wondering most of the time. The other problem would be that ms buying steam wouldn't substantially change the market.
Here's why:

Right now, steam contols like 80% of the PC online store game sales.
If MS buys them, it will control about 85% of the PC online store game sales. (by all accounts, the MS store sells very little, last figures I heard were around 80% for steam, 5% MS store, 10% Epic, 5% Other stores.
So one entity will still own the lions share of the market. It would be different if MS owned 40%, and valve owned 40%, turning one company into 80%. (net change matters)
As far as mobile game machines, MS has no market share, so adding the steam deck wouldn't change that part at all.
Similar case with the VR stuff.
And Valve doesn't really have a huge software business, so that doesn't change the market substantially either when added to MS's studios.

Also I'm not sure why people say there is no chance this is real, the documents released last year showed the MS was considering both steam and Nintndo, if possible. So not a crazy notion at all. Its extremely likely they have approached Valve, perhaps multiple times.
But it just comes down to if they want to sell. That I have no real idea, just speculation.
 
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If memory serves, there were already a bunch of posts in this very thread that indicated the FTC, etc, doesn't get invovled in private company purchases. Perhaps they were mistaken though.
But even if the FTC gets involved, they are kind of a toothless wondering most of the time. The other problem would be that ms buying steam wouldn't substantially change the market.
Here's why:

Right now, steam contols like 80% of the PC online store game sales.
If MS buys them, it will control about 85% of the PC online store game sales. (by all accounts, the MS store sells very little, last figures I heard were around 80% for steam, 5% MS store, 10% Epic, 5% Other stores.
So one entity will still own the lions share of the market. It would be different if MS owned 40%, and valve owned 40%, turning one company into 80%. (net change matters)
As far as mobile game machines, MS has no market share, so adding the steam deck wouldn't change that part at all.
Similar case with the VR stuff.
And Valve doesn't really have a huge software business, so that doesn't change the market substantially either when added to MS's studios.

If you think allowing Microsoft to control 85% of the PC gaming market wouldn't change anything, then you're more than a little bit delusional.

All of the things that make Steam a beloved platform will slowly be stripped out in the name of delivering shareholder value. And giving Microsoft a defacto monopoly in any sector is a disaster waiting to happen.

Allowing them to just buy their way to market dominance is the highest brand of dumb fuckery
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
If you think allowing Microsoft to control 85% of the PC gaming market wouldn't change anything, then you're more than a little bit delusional.

All of the things that make Steam a beloved platform will slowly be stripped out in the name of delivering shareholder value. And giving Microsoft a defacto monopoly in any sector is a disaster waiting to happen.

Allowing them to just buy their way to market dominance is the highest brand of dumb fuckery

I never said it wouldn't change anything. But you have to understand, it's going from one company controlling almost all of it to another. It's technically, on paper, close to the same size market. It's going to be extremely hard to argue that the market is fundamentaly changed. The ftc and the courts aren't going to care if you think ms will run it into the ground. They could also care less if ms will make the store 20% more confusing to use, or use twice as much system resources to run.
 
I never said it wouldn't change anything. But you have to understand, it's going from one company controlling almost all of it to another. It's technically, on paper, close to the same size market. It's going to be extremely hard to argue that the market is fundamentaly changed. The ftc and the courts aren't going to care if you think ms will run it into the ground. They could also care less if ms will make the store 20% more confusing to use, or use twice as much system resources to run.
I think they would care. Particularly around price control, and market manipulation.
Steam works as it is because it doesn't behave as a monopoly would - probably because its privately held and doesn't need to. But that would 100% change under Microsoft's ownership due to the profit motive and shareholder pressure. And Microsoft is a known Monopoly abuser.

If I was the FTC, I would do everything in my power to get Microsoft to fuck off.
 
I never said it wouldn't change anything. But you have to understand, it's going from one company controlling almost all of it to another. It's technically, on paper, close to the same size market. It's going to be extremely hard to argue that the market is fundamentaly changed. The ftc and the courts aren't going to care if you think ms will run it into the ground. They could also care less if ms will make the store 20% more confusing to use, or use twice as much system resources to run.
I think it's more to do with Microsoft's dominace with Windows. If they had Steam as well they'd basically own PC gaming.
 

Life Diff

Neo Member
If memory serves, there were already a bunch of posts in this very thread that indicated the FTC, etc, doesn't get invovled in private company purchases. Perhaps they were mistaken though.
But even if the FTC gets involved, they are kind of a toothless wondering most of the time. The other problem would be that ms buying steam wouldn't substantially change the market.
Here's why:

Right now, steam contols like 80% of the PC online store game sales.
If MS buys them, it will control about 85% of the PC online store game sales. (by all accounts, the MS store sells very little, last figures I heard were around 80% for steam, 5% MS store, 10% Epic, 5% Other stores.
So one entity will still own the lions share of the market. It would be different if MS owned 40%, and valve owned 40%, turning one company into 80%. (net change matters)
As far as mobile game machines, MS has no market share, so adding the steam deck wouldn't change that part at all.
Similar case with the VR stuff.
And Valve doesn't really have a huge software business, so that doesn't change the market substantially either when added to MS's studios.

Also I'm not sure why people say there is no chance this is real, the documents released last year showed the MS was considering both steam and Nintndo, if possible. So not a crazy notion at all. Its extremely likely they have approached Valve, perhaps multiple times.
But it just comes down to if they want to sell. That I have no real idea, just speculation.
Lad, did you see the list from Microsoft? It literally had 99% of the game studios that exist. It might as well have been a list of celebs you want to fuck, pure fantasy.
 
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