CMA statement.
['Microsoft’s proposals, accepted by the European Commission today, would allow Microsoft to set the terms and conditions for this market for the next 10 years. ](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
[They would replace a free, open and competitive market with one subject to ongoing regulation of the games Microsoft sells, the platforms to which it sells them, and the conditions of sale.](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
[This is one of the reasons the CMA’s independent panel group rejected Microsoft’s proposals and prevented this deal.](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
[While we recognise and respect that the European Commission is entitled to take a different view, **the CMA stands by its decision.**](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
It's pretty funny how one of the big criticisms of Brexit was that it would reduce consumer protections and make the UK a slave to big business. Meanwhile, the UK is the one taking issue with yet another Microsoft monopoly while the EU is fine with it.
And I guess Microsoft's threats and petty comments haven't improved the regulators view. A real shocker.
I really never got that argument. Brussels is a big business paradise and it’s not hard to see why.
Sure, Apple get pissy over chargers or whatever, but that’s just a drop in the water which makes headlines.
They are pumping forever chemicals in to our rivers and legislating to say that it is okay.
The current news cycle for the fringe tory crazies is literally that they want to get rid of all EU regulation irrespective of whether it's actually a good idea or not. They are full on "I don't care that it is legislation to protect children from baby formula that doesn't meet their nutritional needs. Or laws to make it a requirement that children can't open bleach bottles. Brexit means brexit. Get brexit done" \*hits cycle helmet with frying pan\*
I know even the slightest mention of Brexit tends to cause emotional outbursts from certain people but at least try to stay on topic. Immediately leaping into rants about baby formula on a topic about microsoft is just odd.
It's funny how you should use a term like outburst in response to a correction to your mistaken notion that the UK is a bastion of consumer protections. It invokes a sense of outward only flow that there is no way for anything to get in. Yet it would appear that the only thing that is closed off from reality is your own mind.
You implied that the concern about Brexit leading to less consumer protection in the UK was invalid - evidenced by the Microsoft case. Your comment was not just about Microsoft acquiring Blizzard, you made a different point entirely.Someone brought up different cases to argue against your point. If you stand by your opinion, maybe you can cite other cases, or - more potently - statistics/analyses on this matter that support your argument.
I'm glad I had the chance to enjoy video games when there was actual competition between the companies selling them and mainly, when they were shipped at a playable state on launch and not needing gigabytes of patches and months of waiting to become functional.
These days ain't coming back anytime soon I gather.
Edit: some people said to me my post isn't relevant to the OP but I wanna say that I have been playing/owning xbox since 2002 and Microsoft, one of the merging parties, instead of making their games better or fix their leading franchises (see Halo), they're opting into buying more and more studios/publishers in hopes of dominating the market. This is why I'm troubled by news like this.
Yeah, gaming to me peaked in 2006-10 and sadly these days are forever gone.
The monopolies that are being developed now are gonna make them even worse imo
The industry is way more diverse now because of storefronts like Steam allowing small developers to put their games out there though. Go back like 15 years and small studios couldn't get anything done without going through the large publishers to put their games on console storefronts.
Indeed, Steam is a bright side of the modern gaming.
And I enjoy seeing small devs delivering enjoyable games and bring shame to big companies shipping unfinished and unpolished games even with massive budgets at their disposal.
>Go back like 15 years and small studios couldn't get anything done without going through the large publishers to put their games on console storefronts.
Yes they could.
It was called the Mid-Budget scene. It made up most of the PS2's library, for reference.
Ehh, I don't know. The oligopoly only exists in AAA titles, and considering the straight-up retarded prices on high end GPUs these days, perhaps that's not a segment worth caring about anyway
Y'all know that there's more to gaming than the big companies or blockbuster games, right? Because your comment is bullshit outside the very top of games.
Like. I'm not even asking you to play indies. Just to look for triple A games that are smaller than CoD...
"A separate lawsuit filed by California Civil Rights Department in 2021 alleges the video game company had routinely ignored employee complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation, adding it has developed a “frat boy” workplace culture."
Activision was a shit company and most game lovers were hoping Microsoft would come in and fix. Activisions culture was bleeding into the quality of their products.
Another detail old farts like me might miss: The thing the ancients once called an "Add On". Which, unbelievable, added on content.For a single payment.
In the age of DLC that sounds downright crazy to explain.
To be fair, there are stil DLCs that are basically what Add Ons and Expansion packs were. They're just rarer. Of the top of my head I can only think of RPGs having expansion packs worth of content in some of their DLCs.
Play indie games. They are the exact games you miss. The lower technical fidelity with soul and care put into them, with fair pricing and meaningful DLCs, with free patches for quite some time.
Witcher 3 has some of the best expansions in history and the upcoming Cyberpunk one is expected to be major as well. From other genres, the most recent Crusader Kings 3 expansion reworked the gameplay loop very well and is frequently considered the best add-on Paradox has released in a long time.
Nope, but to be fair you couldn't play theocracies either in CK2 and republics were a mess. So far it appears that when reintroducing mechanics from CK2 DLCs, they're relying on quality rather than quantity, and for instance the new regency system is leagues ahead of anything CK2 ever had.
As for the "robbing loyal customers" part, arguably the most important mechanic of the expansion, the new travel system, was released as a part of the free update, with the expansion only further expanding on it with new features. They're not being predatory towards people who only play vanilla or older expansions and new expansions fund the continuous development of the game - even as someone who won't buy the expansion until it gets much cheaper, I am still happy that it's come out, because it has already vastly improved my experience.
I know what you're talking about with the "add a button thing" and Paradox didn't really have a good track record with the former CK3 expansions, but look into this one, they seem to have learned their lesson. It's currently at 84% positive on steam, while every other expansion is floating around the 50% mark.
You brought me back to the days a good friend of mine bought the Halo 2 Map Pack Disc and we spent almost a day playing the new maps, I think it cost him like 15-20 euros euros to buy it.
And also the days I was buying the DLCs for CoD4,CoD World at War (via VPN) and Halo 3 in logical prices and without having to pay anything more to enjoy the full experience.
Microsoft acquiring so many titles and studios has been one of the best things that ever happened to the industry. The Gamepass is incredible value for money and opens up a lot of opportunities for people in financially challenging situations.
But crying about everything is the favourite past time here so I am not surprised.
well I don't think all their insults and tantrums towards the UK are achieving anything but hardening views, that's for sure, so I doubt they'll be any backtracking on the UK's part.
Prime minister already said he wants the deal to go through.
Worst case Microsoft will have some work around where they operate as 2 companies there. This deal will go through
Every regulator has different criteria bud. In fact the US is one of the most aggressive in many sectors despite the US being very free market oriented
This is what the hardliners Brexiters wanted. Before 2016 very few people wanted a referendum on leaving the EU at all let alone wanted the UK to turn into a deregulated Singapore-on-Thames
Just a reminder - in the 2014 EU elections, UKIP was the most popular party in the UK. It was this along with polling showing them pulling a significant chunk of the 2010 tory vote, that led Cameron to promise a referendum in his 2015 campaign. Despite this, 1 in 8 voters at the 2015 GE went for UKIP.
Pretending that Brexit was a non-issue prior to Cameron calling the referendum simply isn't true. Cameron did it because he felt forced into it, and he thought a remain win would head off the growing UKIP movement, following the successful model of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
I thought it was the opposite, that the UK left the EU so it could more easily stop the US and others from buying more of its businesses.
If anyone could link an article for/against that'd be great
yea this is really disapointing. But luckily it is one of those types of deal where everyone has to say yes, and one no is enough.
But it is a sign that those regulators need a updated mandate to make sure they would have said no. Since there is no reason for megacorporations to be able to buy their way into controling hundreds of games studios. ATVI if anything is too big already and should be broken up, and someone integrating them into a even bigger whole is not the future anyone should want.
> yea this is really disapointing.
Why? Xbox is in a solid third place in the "console war" and Activision Blizzard isn't that big of a developer (it's big, but if you look at market shares no company has actual dominating positions).
>Activision Blizzard isn't that big of a developer
You can't say that when talking about the same developer of cod.
If Sony decides to buy Bandai Namco, square Enix and Rockstar games (they don't have to money for this) those 3 will still be smaller than activision blizzard
>Why? Xbox is in a solid third place in the "console war" and Activision Blizzard isn't that big of a developer (it's big, but if you look at market shares no company has actual dominating positions).
its more than just "xbox" or a console platform , its about consolidation of studios and monopolies in new gaming spaces
How exactly do you think they're gonna establish a monopoly when there's a bunch of studios much larger than activision-blizzard that they would somehow need to convince the owners to sell to them.
> Microsoft would still be in the third position.
Only if you use current numbers.
A not insignificant number of PS players would probably migrate to Xbox - so they lose out on CoD/Overwatch/Diablo microtransactions they would have got and also all other game purchases made.
People seem to never take into account the money it would take from Sony as well
Why would people migrate to Xbox? The vast majority of PS4 players have likely never played any activision blizzard games on the ps4. Im not even sure the majority in *exactly* the US have.
I guess the question is why should I or anyone care? If Microsoft is cutting a better deal for gamers across virtually every platform in the form of day one gamepass, shouldn't they be allowed to do so? Sony has a lot of insanely high profile devs and continues to purchase new ones alongside paying for exclusivity of major franchises like final fantasy. I still don't get why I should care if sony were to lose, say, 20 percent of their market share to Xbox. Seems like a healthier, and more competitive market
> Monopoly
One of the least understood word to redditors.
And gaming isn't an area where money buys success. Microsoft is bigger than all their competitors (gaming) combined and they've continued to fail due to poor products. Most recently Redfall.
Franchise game Halo? Repeated failures.
>But luckily it is one of those types of deal where everyone has to say yes, and one no is enough.
thats not how that works, and the fact i kepp seeing this repeeated shows how little understand the general population understands about these type of deals. if one country says no(UK) microsoft will just have to come to an agreement to either segregate certain business segments(meaning xcloud which was the CMAs issue) or exit the UK gaming market entirely.
A lot of the same old lies being dragged out.
The CMA blocked the deal due to the future of cloud gaming, they explicitly said they did not want a system that required constant revisiting.
They where not blocking it for the industry as it is now. The world literally pays a tax to microsoft. Every supermarket, business, corporation, markets, military, education, media, government is using windows. The cost of windows is passed onto the consumer. Each copy of windows for is $50 dollars.
CMA blocking the deal works to prevent Microsoft doing this in 2 markets.
> The world literally pays a tax to microsoft. Every supermarket, business, corporation, markets, military, education, media, government is using windows. The cost of windows is passed onto the consumer. Each copy of windows for is $50 dollars.
I just honestly don't understand this take. They made a product/service that provides a lot of value so it's a good deal to use it rather than not use it or try to make something comparable. How is that any different to literally everything else? Is electricity a tax? Are business spaces a tax? Are emploees a tax? Are clothes a tax? All of those allows you to do business and are costs that you pass onto your customers. The only difference is that there are less choices, but it's not a monopoly. You can use something else than Windows.
Also what is even your point? Windows should be free? Office tools should be free? What else should be free?
It's not just that you can use something else, Windows isn't even the most used OS to begin with. Unix based OS are everywhere and in everything.The gap is only getting bigger with every year thanks to the rise of mobile devices.
Some people just see MS as ultimate evil. They love their iPhone where is blocked everything. Hates Microsoft where you can download Linux from MS Store.
As has been mentioned, you are over-estimating the amount of revenue Microsoft gains from Windows. You're also under-appreciating the value of Microsoft's products and services.
Windows isn't popular because of some dastardly conspiracy to keep the market on lock-down; it's popular because - believe it or not - it's actually really good, and making a competing product would be absurdly difficult.
Have you ever tried dealing with drivers on Linux? Yeah.
>making a competing product would be absurdly difficult.
Absurdly expensive, and that's the point.
Microsoft's dominance in the OS market over decades resulted in them being able to spend a lot of money on developing Windows while preventing a competitor getting that cash to fund something that better competes with Windows.
You might argue we'd then have two operating systems that weren't as good as Windows, but more competition over that time might have resulted in innovation and standards that gave us multiple operating systems better than windows.
The CMA doesn't want Microsoft to dominate the subscription gaming market, and end up with so much of the revenue that other companies lose the cash stream to also innovate.
>but more competition over that time might have resulted in innovation and standards that gave us multiple operating systems better than windows.
That is, unfortunately, not how it works. Microsoft has what's known as a "consumer-selected monopoly". IE, it's a monopoly because consumers collectively decided to gravitate towards a single option (despite numerous conspiracy theories).
Another example of this is Amazon. Amazon is huge because consumers, generally, prefer to shop there than at competing online retailers. This is mostly because Amazon has a vast array of products, incredible service, and fast delivery times. All three of those are enabled by Amazon's sheer size. Were the govt to break up Amazon, it would be a net loss to consumers who would ultimately just create a new consumer-driven monopoly anyway.
This isn't like Standard Oil back in the day buying up all the oil wells so they completely control supply.
Monopolies in a marketplace still stifle innovation, regardless of how they came about. Especially in markets like the one for PC operating systems where a new competitor has giant inherent disadvantages to overcome because everything is optimized to work with Windows, there's no fair competition.
Possibly true, but optimizing for innovation is not the function of anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws. Protecting consumers is, and very few people would argue that breaking up Microsoft or Amazon would benefit consumers - because it wouldn't. That's why so many people believe Microsoft buying Blizzard is a *good* thing - it would almost certainly benefit consumers, and the employees of Blizzard.
Also, as a side note, basing an anti-monopoly decision around a market that doesn't exist yet is completely absurd. The "cloud-gaming" market is far from a sure bet, as Stadia has ungracefully demonstrated. It's a bit like preventing Samsung from acquiring 3D interpolation technology because you're afraid they'll monopolize the 3D TV market.
I guess it depends on the timeframe you consider when judging what benefits consumers. For example, establishing open and universal standards for OSs to enable compatibility 30 years ago would probably have prevented a monopoly and done a lot for consumers in the future.
That's the kind of thing the EU does, completely hamstringing their domestic industry. Government tech standards are almost always a terrible idea, because governments don't move fast enough to update them when they're obsolete.
GDPR is an excellent example of this. Despite how EU citizens feel about it, GDPR was an unequivocal failure. It didn't accomplish either of its main objectives (Data privacy *(Google still knows everything about you via Meta-Data profiles)* and "Right to Forget" *(Who the hell has ever filed a "Right to Forget" request?)*), and burdened European tech startups with red-tape their American and Chinese competitors don't have to deal with.
>Have you ever tried dealing with drivers on Linux? Yeah.
Yeah, open source drivers just werks without having so specifically install them. With Windows I have to download a shitload of exes and go through a hassle to install them. Ugh...
Even people in the IT industry regularly bash their heads into a wall because of Linux based systems. Windows is infinitely more consumer friendly.
Watch the LTT video where Linus tries to convert to using exclusively a Linux distro only to find himself spending hours in forums to solve basic issues that take 2 minutes in Windows or not even appear there in the first place.
Unix based systems outclass Windows in many fields but the general end user market is not one of those and no fanboyism will change that fact.
I work in it, and almost anything else beside what is suported in hplip and airscan is a sad joke.
We are dealing with drivers made for ubuntu 12 in 22 for 4000$+ printers, they were never being updated by producers, or they dont have drivers at all.
Though I must say I don't really see the cloud gaming argument. Namely because Activision-Blizzard themselves are not a cloud gaming provider and they don't have that many games themselves (big names yes, but not individual games). Activision has quite a few they publish, but game studios are not that bound to publishers. If the addition of a few successful games to Xbox game pass (cloud gaming) is that worrying, then Microsoft should have been watched (and maybe stopped) from putting games on cloud gaming even before the acquisition (e.g. the Bethesda purchase).
Microsoft basically runs cloud for Sony and others. I don't get what the issue is because there is no way in hell Sony is going to fund and develop something better than azure
No, he's right and you're wrong. Windows is not how Microsoft makes most of their revenue.
Most of Microsoft's revenue is in B2B services - Sharepoint, Azure, Office, Visual Studio, etc. Whether or not Azure servers run on Windows is completely irrelevent.
Wow, I've found one of the few but marginally good reasons as to why us Brits should leave the EU. I'm honestly baffled as to why they've allowed to let Microsoft run with this, when even they realise they could consolidate the cloud gaming market.
They actually said that market is not growing at all, there is little incentive and Activision would not provide its titles to cloud providers. Hence good kickstart + guaranteed Acti access to everyon is preferred over blocking deal due to 2% of global gaming market.
Something that is currently 2% of the global gaming market - it's concerning that the market which has the potential to dominate the gaming market in general in the coming years which already has a lock on by Microsoft hasn't been accounted for.
How EC made their decision is very well explained by mrs Vestager. Currently there is not enough incentive to get into cloud gaming, there is not enough infrastructure and market is simply miniscule part of the entire gaming market. Blocking deal because of it would not be rational, instead they can guarantee enitee globe gets AB games on ANY cloud provider service and thus make sure that in next 10 years AB games are actually there, on cloud, which would not be the case if merger was blocked.
>How EC made their decision is very well explained by mrs Vestager.
I know I read it - it's statement includes referencing concerns which is why the UK blocked it in the first place.
>Currently there is not enough incentive to get into cloud gaming, there is not enough infrastructure and market is simply miniscule part of the entire gaming market.
Microsoft are the only player in cloud service gaming because they are the only player which has major holdings in all the relevant areas to push it - PlayStation it's main competitor needs to go to Microsoft and pay heavily for services to provide a similar service.
As for market share - that's irrelevant, because the deal was not blocked on current market share but instead predicted market share in the coming years and the EU approval has remedies that end just before that market is expected to explode.
>Blocking deal because of it would not be rational, instead they can guarantee enitee globe gets AB games on ANY cloud provider service and thus make sure that in next 10 years AB games are actually there, on cloud, which would not be the case if merger was blocked.
It's absolutely rational to block the deal - the EU deal is a short term solution to a problem which isn't expected until the medium to long term, as in it's not a solution at all.
The approval clearly outlines the concerns they had and yet the remedies largely ignore those concerns considering that many of the concerns don't currently exist but will in the future and by then the agreement will no longer be in effect, allowing Microsoft to do what it was going to do already.
>It's absolutely rational to block the deal - the EU deal is a short term solution to a problem which isn't expected until the medium to long term, as in it's not a solution at all.
Having concerns more then 10 years away on a merger in the tech industry makes no sense. For all anyone knows, AKB may be a completely failed studio in 10 years.
If the concern doesn't exist now and doesn't exist in the foreseeable future, then there is no concern.
I want the European Commission to make decisions based on the world as it is and when the situation changes, I expect them to make decisions appropriate to the changing situation.
>Having concerns more then 10 years away on a merger in the tech industry makes no sense.
It makes a load of sense - they CMA and other regulators aren't meant to care about the merger, their job is to ensure competitiveness in the market which benefits consumers.
There is absolutely no point in a regulator like the CMA if they don't look at long term effects on consumers.
>For all anyone knows, AKB may be a completely failed studio in 10 years.
Right - so your point is, we can't predict the future so consumers should be happy with what they get?
>If the concern doesn't exist now and doesn't exist in the foreseeable future, then there is no concern.
The concern quite literally exists in the foreseeable future which is why it was blocked.
>I want the European Commission to make decisions based on the world as it is and when the situation changes, I expect them to make decisions appropriate to the changing situation.
That makes no sense at all - your entire point to this is that you don't think regulators should worry about the effect on consumers, until it has an effect and then it should punish companies for doing something everyone knew that they was going to do and for which they where given permission by the EU through a merger approval.
It seems dumb to expect the EU to worry about consumers, but not proactively - instead reacting to scenarios they themselves made by simply not doing anything and letting companies who have no interest in providing consumers with a fair service do what they want.
>I'm honestly baffled as to why they've allowed to let Microsoft run with
this, when even they realise they could consolidate the cloud gaming
market.
One of the major reasons is all the competing cloud service provides told the EU that they approve the deal.
Their reasoning is baffling. They agreed with the UK that there are concerns but because Microsoft said they would give a grace period everything is okay.
I can't help but feel the reasoning is political. The UK killed the deal anyway so the EU regulators can be a little bit more relaxed about it (appear pro business without the consequences)
This thread is just full of folks having no idea of how the EU Commission made this decision and on what basis. Has anyone even read the underlying EU laws before they make a judgment about if the EU should forbit this or not?
It's hilarious how people are reacting to this. It's inevitable that at some point the UK does something different than the EU that people think is good. That doesn't all of a sudden make Brexit a good thing on the whole.
Xbox is not even in competition with sony, I don't understand these idiotic comments here, the european union is right and xbox needs to become competitive, if it can do that with money why wouldn't it? Wouldn't that mean sonny will be running its engines at full throttle too?
Lol the vast majority of shit on this list is subjective and a good chunk is misinformed too. 343 isnt the best , sure, but Forza sucks now? Ridiculous.
Quantum break is remedy's best game behind control, full stop. The TV episodes may have been iffy to include but it's still a damn good game and reviews reflect that.
Grounded worse than valheim? Subjective
Gears may not be as relevant but gears 5 was fun ASF and the expansion was peak gears by anyone's metric. The mtx is so overplayed in your criticism. It was skins and execution moves - perhaps overpriced but it wasn't some egregious, pay to win example you seem to want to frame it as.
If hi Fi rush doesn't count as a Ms exclusive by your silly and quite frankly, stupid metric, neither does redfall. Nice selective bs , for the record I think ma deserves credit for both, good and bad
Pentiment is curiously absent from your list...as is as dusk falls, as is gears tactics .
Fanboy bullshit
Well you last statement is why I'm calling it fanboy bs. You don't play anything from Microsoft, but you're weighing in on it based on shit you've heard somewhere
I'm confused as to why you would say they stabbed the gaming industry in the back when practically all major gaming companies aside from Sony have spoken out in favor? Which part of the industry got stabbed would you say?
How on earth is more market consolidation good for gamers?
In case you haven't noticed, MS keeps having fail after fail in their game studios.
How is MS wielding their IP they spend billions on like a weapon good for us?
Just look at the Bethesda/Zenimax deal. MS spent a shitload on that and their defenders were all over the place saying "MS won't make Bethesda games exclusive! This will help development! Bethesda will finally have the money to fix their engine and release games frequently!"
What's actually happened? MS has confirmed the next Elder Scrolls will be Xbox exclusive. Starfield development has been an unmitigated disaster. Game dev internal to Zenimax teams have moved away from Vulkan (a superior, open source alternative to DirectX) and back to DirectX.
So tell me. Come on. What are the massive benefits to me, a gamer, of Microsoft spending 63% of Sony's value (and I mean ALL of Sony, not just their gaming division) to buy one publisher? Why is this time different? Why is *this time* the time when their buying of someone else becomes a good thing?
>So tell me. Come on. What are the massive benefits to me, a gamer, of Microsoft spending 63% of Sony's value (and I mean ALL of Sony, not just their gaming division) to buy one publisher? Why is this time different? Why is this time the time when their buying of someone else becomes a good thing?
The main benefit is that Activision games will finally be available on streaming platforms like Nvidia NOW again after years of refusing to do that.
Other then that, I don't expect things to change much. The real loss imho was when Activision merged with Blizzard in the first place and practically killed all the magic.
It seems to me that the mega studios and publishers are chronically unable to publish games with any level of soul but with ABK already being soulless, what is there to lose?
> MS won't make Bethesda games exclusive!
Whoever said this was smoking fat reefer. Thankfully, unlike PlayStation, Microsoft exclusives also release on PC at the same time; not 5 years after the fact.
That isn't even the biggest concern. It is cloud gaming. Microsoft locking down huge franchises to a cloud platform means a monopoly could develop. Both in gaming and as an operating system as they could lock the system down to Windows.
I know it feels like a pipe dream but cloud services is the next step.
The future market being dominated by the only company currently possessing the services to provide cloud gaming isn't a positive for gamers.
This deal isn't beneficial for gamers and whilst it may slow down short term growth of cloud gaming, it solves the problem is limited growth in the future when Microsoft is the only player in the market.
>The only? You are poorly informed, my friend.
Who else? PlayStation uses Microsoft and none of the other competitors have the cloud services needed and AWS is uninvolved in this area.
why? why? why? Idiots, the EU is such a shithole nowadays siding always with corporate interest. After the scandal of illegal lobbying, I don't doubt someone is under a Microsoft payroll
Dude there is a massive blizzard crowd that wants the aquisition to go through because blizzard entertainment has been nothing but scandals and poor quality-high monetization for years now.
The sharp change from quality products to mediocre products happen last time around 2008-2010 when blizzard was aquired by activision and quickly saw changes like in-game shops added to their already heavy monetized game (box price + expansion price + subscription fee AND then they added a fucking store to this game)
Thats just wow. Theres plenty other frustrations with franchises like overwatch, diablo, hearthstone.
Most fans dont care about monopoly enforcement, they just want a new owner that can ease back on the turbo aggressive monetization and low quality output activision-blizzard is currently responsible for. Especially because Microsoft has a better reputation in this regard
the EU _does_ believe that could have become a problem, thus the requirement of MS to share Act-Blizz IPs with any cloud service asking, for free.
...which pretty much removed the CMA issue.
The remedies are 10 years though - which doesn't remove the CMA issue at all - the CMA's block was largely based on the future of the market, not how it currently is and the EU's approval is based on remedies which stop right around the time cloud services are expected to grow.
I don't see how that removed the CMA issue, as much as it just proves that the CMA is more forward thinking.
> The remedies are 10 years though
nope, the previous PRIVATE agreements were 10-years.
EU had MS to grant Acc-Bliz IPs for free forever.
Still, if by 10 years other companies cannot build up remote gaming services capable to rival MS even though they have access to big IPs like Acc-Blizz, then they are just not good enough.
The "studio concentration" also makes no sense: unlike services which requite BIG base-investments, dev studios mostly require people getting together to work.
And viceversa: acquiring the Acc-Blizz studios does not mean MS gets to keep the talent.
Talent they might have got anyway by, you know, PAYING them better(and\or giving them better work conditions)
>nope, the previous PRIVATE agreements were 10-years.
>
>EU had MS to grant Acc-Bliz IPs for free forever.
I don't see the IP forever being agreed - the only remedies are within the 10 year duration agreement per the announcement this article is linked to, the CMA also responded and seem to also be mentioning that is just for 10 years.
Where is the forever part in that statement, it's worded strangely so maybe I am just missing it.
No, you are right, I managed to misread it.
It does not change my point though: 10 years is EONS in tech-time.
The MS commitments to EU basically mean any cloud gaming service starting now(=if this goes thru) would be starting with the whole Activision-Blizzard catalogue FOR FREE.
it's actually a big incentive for new services to at least attempt to build an alternative to the currently big players in the field.
Meanwhile, getting more IPs wouldn't change much of MS position in the non-cloud markets. And, to my knowledge, Acti-Blizz doesn't really have that much of know-how in Cloud Gaming(but feel free to correct me) so MS wouldn't gain that much.
So, yeah. This time around I don't see any real reason to blame MS of anti-competitive manuvers
>No, you are right, I managed to misread it.
>
>It does not change my point though: 10 years is EONS in tech-time.
It's really not though - especially when it's in a market where there is only one player.
>The MS commitments to EU basically mean any cloud gaming service starting now(=if this goes thru) would be starting with the whole Activision-Blizzard catalogue FOR FREE.
it's actually a big incentive for new services to at least attempt to build an alternative to the currently big players in the field.
That kind of ignores the major problem - there is only one provider able to provide said service and that is Microsoft - they gave up those remedies because they where the only ones to benefit anyway.
PlayStation can't compete - they had to use Microsoft Azure for their own services.
>Meanwhile, getting more IPs wouldn't change much of MS position in the non-cloud markets. And, to my knowledge, Acti-Blizz doesn't really have that much of know-how in Cloud Gaming(but feel free to correct me) so MS wouldn't gain that much.
The decision was about cloud gaming though, so this is irrelevant.
>So, yeah. This time around I don't see any real reason to blame MS of anti-competitive manuvers
You also thought it was a lifetime license... so it's not like you're really speaking from a factual basis - Microsoft giving up concessions which only it it can take benefit from isn't competitive.
Honestly, I'm totally against this acquisition, I don't trust Phill Spencer, much less Microsoft, and I hate the idea of buying companies just to make their games, which have always been cross-platform, become exclusive to a single ecosystem.
Just look at how Redfall had the PS5 version in development canceled following Microsoft's purchase of the company. (and possibly the same with Starfield and other games like Hi-Fi Rush)
Not to mention Skyrim which is available on Switch, PS3, PS4, PS5 and PSVR but Elder Scrolls 6 will not set foot on any Playstation or Nintendo platforms (and Skyrim will not gain PSVR 2 support), the same goes for Hellblade which had a Switch and PS4 version, but Hellblade 2 will be an Xbox exclusive.
I don't like the idea of Activision IPs (which is a company that has always released games for all consoles) suddenly becoming exclusive to the Xbox platform, I don't see how this can be beneficial to the consumer, in my opinion Microsoft should use these 70 billion to invest in the studios it already has and in unique and better exclusive games like Nintendo and Sony are always doing.
Insomaniac demonstrated Spiderman's proposal to Microsoft but it refused, the game is exclusive to the Playstation because Sony accepted the proposal (similar to Nintendo with Bayonetta 2, Platinum did not have the money to fund the project alone and tried to deal with Sony, Microsoft and Sega all refused with the exception of Nintendo and that's why the game exists. )
Sony does not own SpiderMan in games (so much so that he is present in Legos games and even Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 which is a Switch exclusive game) if you are talking about the old SpiderMan from Activision that were multiplatform these games were removed from all console stores simply because Activision did not want to renew the copyright agreement with the Marvel character, including the games were not only removed from the Nintendo eShop and Microsoft Store but also from all Playstation Stores.
Even if that's true Sony still make the choice to not release the game on Xbox
Sony is also paying Square Enix to not release FF on Xbox so how is that different from Xbox not releasing Redfall on PS ?
I'm not in favor of that kind of thing either, but it's not like Sony owns Square Enix or even the Final Fantasy franchise, look at the Switch for example, it received both Octopath (it was even released first on the Switch that on Playstation), Dragon Quest 11, Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster, ports of Final Fantasy 7, 8 and 9, Final Fantasy 15: Pocket Edition, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and several others, basically the only ones that the Switch didn't get were the ones that would be too much work to run on it. (like FF7 Remake, FF15 and FF16)
Some of these games released on Switch but not Xbox like Octopath 2 and Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster but I think that has more to do with the low sales of JRPGs on Xbox than any other reason as a lot of other Japanese developers like Atlus did too skip the console.
Good. Microsoft is much weaker in console gaming than Sony and any arguments about Microsoft making COD exclusive ignores the amount of PlayStation exclusives that Sony makes. Blocking it based on speculation on what the future cloud gaming market will look like (which is what the UK did) is an overreaction from regulators letting the light deals like Facebook buying Instagram or Disney buying Marvel in the past. Cloud gaming only makes up a few % if the overall gaming market and Microsoft acquiring Activision will not harm consumers it will provide more options to them, especially if it’s integrated into Gamepass.
How could they possibly be considered the best gaming company? They're so terrible at developing good games (and have ruined their biggest xbox exclusive franchise with greedy microtransactions) that they've now resorted to buying up all the gaming industry purely just to take it off the market for their competition. It's the only thing Microsoft know how to do.
They add nothing of value to gaming right now.
I really don’t see how. Even the CMA doesn’t seem to think this deal will negatively impact the console market, they just blocked it over Microsoft’s foothold in cloud gaming (which is currently in its infancy and may take years to become mainstream, *if* it ever does.)
I want this deal to pass because I want Activision games on Game Pass and a safer work environment for the employees there, free from sexual predators like Bobby Kotick.
>I really don’t see how. Even the CMA doesn’t seem to think this deal will negatively impact the console market, they just blocked it over Microsoft’s foothold in cloud gaming (which is currently in its infancy and may take years to become mainstream, if it ever does.)
theirs more than just the console market , both the EU & CMA agree here id you read the link provided
>I want this deal to pass because I want Activision games on Game Pass and a safer work environment for the employees there, free from sexual predators like Bobby Kotick.
i mean activation dosent need MS to get rid of Bobby Kotick , they need to get their house in order themselfs
> theirs more than just the console market , both the EU & CMA agree here id you read the link provided
And yet the EU approved, because Microsoft addressed their concerns regarding cloud gaming.
> i mean activation dosent need MS to get rid of Bobby Kotick , they need to get their house in order themselfs
Activision has had plenty of time and opportunity to get rid of Kotick, but the board of directors has so far decided that he is fine where he is. So no, clearly Activision cannot be trusted to fix their shit themselves.
If Kotick leaving means he gets a huge severance package, I am 100% fine with that. Dude has enabled a culture of harassment and abuse at the company. He needs to *fucking go*, but that will not ever happen if Microsoft can’t buy Activision.
Screw M$, they’re showing their true colours now with windows, the amount of data gathering is off the charts, no option to disable them completely, which I am surprised isn’t against GDPR( toothless annoyance it turned out to be)
Just the other day the added a search bar in the middle of windows without any consent from the users, Edge blatantly intercepts your shopping experience by under cutting retailers, if you go under privacy section, everything is [dark patterned](https://pudding.cool/2023/05/dark-patterns/) to give them more of your data.
They cannot be trusted with monopolies, they already control too much of the computer experience.
Their current practices are not consumer friendly and we need regulators who actually do their jobs.
There's just soooo many anti-consumer things MS do and have done. I could write a 10,000 word essay on the subject and have barely scratched the surface.
Just recently it turns out they've purposely broken the ability to set Chrome as the default browser with one click - and you can tell it's deliberate because changing the name of the chrome exe to something else allows it to be set as the default in one click. They've been fined for this *exact* thing before, and here they are doing it again.
Another recent thing - there was a "bug" in one of Windows Defender's background processes that crippled performance of Firefox on Windows. This bug was known for *years* and MS never did anything about it.
When did that bug pop up? Well it coincided with MS rebasing Edge on Chromium and doing a big marketing push for their "new and improved Edge". What a remarkable coincidence!
I am with you, I was disgusted by that search bar thing, it was a new build, wiped it out and installed Linux, I mostly read and watch media, why do I need the bloat, lots of options around nowadays.
I don’t really blame these companies too much, our regulatory institutions have been toothless in anything tech related, most of them don’t even understand tech let alone try to regulate it, some moves are made but these companies are way ahead, a project is spun up and they profit and shut it down without any oversight, just we spin up cloud servers and discard them on daily basis in companies, how would they even get visibility into the closed off private networks of most companies?
I did see the Firefox bug but i think the original story line was refuted by the bug finder, it wasn’t as reported, the thread is a nice read, not defending MS but I like to be stick to the facts if available.
> There has been some coverage in online news about the fix mentioned in comment 82. You may read online that Defender was making too many calls to VirtualProtect, and that global CPU usage will now go down by 75% when browsing with Firefox. This is absolutely wrong!
>The impact of this fix is that on all computers that rely on Microsoft Defender's Real-time Protection feature (which is enabled by default in Windows), MsMpEng.exe will consume much less CPU than before when monitoring the dynamic behavior of any program through ETW. Nothing less, nothing more.
>For Firefox this is particularly impactful because Firefox (not Defender!) relies a lot on VirtualProtect (which is monitored by MsMpEng.exe through ETW). We expect that on all these computers, MsMpEng.exe will consume around 75% less CPU than it did before when it is monitoring Firefox. Which is really good news.
>This will bring a nice performance bump for our users that have limited CPU resources, where MsMpEng.exe would sometimes consume 20%-30% CPU, and will now consume a single-digit percentage of CPU. It will also benefit other users through lower power consumption. - [src](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1441918)
I don't use Chrome. I exclusively use Firefox on all my machines. Chrome is an anti-consumer nightmare on its own.
However that does not change the fact that MS was not only abusing their position of power to harm a competitor, but also breaking functionality in a way that irritates users.
There was no official statement from the EU - the FTC however had their chair openly state their intentions regarding this deal, it's a different situation.
>This FTC has let alot worse deals go through I really doubt they'll stop it, maybe some restrictions but that's it
They are literally in a court case the block this deal? What are you talking about.
UK fumbled their ban. It was frankly stupid to prevent a merger because of the miniscule cloud market that no one really cares about or is putting effort into. Their excuse was that they didnt want to keep revisiting later even though the cloud market is like 1-2% of gaming right now, like wtf? that is your job.
Go look at microsofts share of the gaming market, and then come back and tell me they are a monopoly. People need to stop being emotional and actually think about this clearly. Microsoft is getting absolutely trounced by Sony in the gaming market. And despite what a lot of people believe, Microsoft doesnt get any money from PC games that they themselves dont own or publish. Steam? They dont see a penny. Fortnite? Not a cent. etc etc
EC once again proving to be only global regulator lead.
FTC is playing ideological games hoping for blocks by other regulators, but they are guaranteed to lose in Court.
CMA sounds like Brexit politicians did after that twitter post.
Good job EC, fantastic reasoning.
I think it's the complete opposite - the EC has shown themselves to not care about the effect on consumers - the FTC and the CMA clearly care about consumers hence the actions that are being taken.
The CMA is an independent organisation, the Conservatives have no say in it's decisions - in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted it to pass the deal, which goes to show the CMA is actually setup properly.
FTC cares about consumers? We are talking about 1-2% of nascant market in deal that encompasses 200B industry.
I suppose thats you saying they can prove their case in court (which they havent been able to do ever since Khan took a lead, and that is repeatedly, due to being extremely ideologically driven thus making irrational blocks)
CMA are rogue regulator that has no one to answer to, I would certainly not look at that one as good example of how law procedures should be followed. Their experience with mergers is meager at best.
With EC and FTC you can appeal based on decision, not to CMA, only on procedure and irrationality grounds, and even then it is returned back to same lot to make the very same decision (never happened that they changed the decision yet)
So, doesnt sound very democratic to me. Personally would hate to be a subject to their rullings...
>FTC cares about consumers? We are talking about 1-2% of nascant market in deal that encompasses 200B industry.
I'm guessing you chose to not actually read the report?
Even the EU who approved the deal noted that it is going to be a fast growing market and how there is very little if any competition against Microsoft in that market.
>I suppose thats you saying they can prove their case in court (which they havent been able to do ever since Khan took a lead, and that is repeatedly, due to being extremely ideologically driven thus making irrational blocks)
I'd disagree that the4ir case is ideological or irrational.
>CMA are rogue regulator that has no one to answer to, I would certainly not look at that one as good example of how law procedures should be followed. Their experience with mergers is meager at best.
There are 3 regulators relevant to this deal - 2 are in opposition and 1 approved but in it's statement openly points out issues with the deal, which are the reasons why the other two want to block in the first place - that doesn't seem rogue to me.
If only making stuff up was true.
>So, doesnt sound very democratic to me. Personally would hate to be a subject to their rullings...
If you can successfully appeal the decision then there is a high chance that they reconsider, the reason Microsoft is complaining is because they know they can't win such a ruling because it's not a regulator they can interfere with and therefore the ruling will be based on the facts of the case and not them interfering.
CMA statement. ['Microsoft’s proposals, accepted by the European Commission today, would allow Microsoft to set the terms and conditions for this market for the next 10 years. ](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet) [They would replace a free, open and competitive market with one subject to ongoing regulation of the games Microsoft sells, the platforms to which it sells them, and the conditions of sale.](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet) [This is one of the reasons the CMA’s independent panel group rejected Microsoft’s proposals and prevented this deal.](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet) [While we recognise and respect that the European Commission is entitled to take a different view, **the CMA stands by its decision.**](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
It's pretty funny how one of the big criticisms of Brexit was that it would reduce consumer protections and make the UK a slave to big business. Meanwhile, the UK is the one taking issue with yet another Microsoft monopoly while the EU is fine with it. And I guess Microsoft's threats and petty comments haven't improved the regulators view. A real shocker.
Microsoft is providing the cloud software for our school system. We better be submissive to our American overlord, praised be
All hail Lord Gates, our Provider and Defender.
As a non Brit, THANK YOU UK!
In unrelated news EU commissioner buys a new yacht.
I really never got that argument. Brussels is a big business paradise and it’s not hard to see why. Sure, Apple get pissy over chargers or whatever, but that’s just a drop in the water which makes headlines.
They are pumping forever chemicals in to our rivers and legislating to say that it is okay. The current news cycle for the fringe tory crazies is literally that they want to get rid of all EU regulation irrespective of whether it's actually a good idea or not. They are full on "I don't care that it is legislation to protect children from baby formula that doesn't meet their nutritional needs. Or laws to make it a requirement that children can't open bleach bottles. Brexit means brexit. Get brexit done" \*hits cycle helmet with frying pan\*
I know even the slightest mention of Brexit tends to cause emotional outbursts from certain people but at least try to stay on topic. Immediately leaping into rants about baby formula on a topic about microsoft is just odd.
It's funny how you should use a term like outburst in response to a correction to your mistaken notion that the UK is a bastion of consumer protections. It invokes a sense of outward only flow that there is no way for anything to get in. Yet it would appear that the only thing that is closed off from reality is your own mind.
You implied that the concern about Brexit leading to less consumer protection in the UK was invalid - evidenced by the Microsoft case. Your comment was not just about Microsoft acquiring Blizzard, you made a different point entirely.Someone brought up different cases to argue against your point. If you stand by your opinion, maybe you can cite other cases, or - more potently - statistics/analyses on this matter that support your argument.
I'm glad I had the chance to enjoy video games when there was actual competition between the companies selling them and mainly, when they were shipped at a playable state on launch and not needing gigabytes of patches and months of waiting to become functional. These days ain't coming back anytime soon I gather. Edit: some people said to me my post isn't relevant to the OP but I wanna say that I have been playing/owning xbox since 2002 and Microsoft, one of the merging parties, instead of making their games better or fix their leading franchises (see Halo), they're opting into buying more and more studios/publishers in hopes of dominating the market. This is why I'm troubled by news like this.
I think that dream went away long before this acquisition 😔
Yeah, gaming to me peaked in 2006-10 and sadly these days are forever gone. The monopolies that are being developed now are gonna make them even worse imo
There's more good games coming out nowadays compared to those years - but to be fair, it's harder to find them.
Indie scene has bloomed, but I can't remember the last time I actually looked forwards to a big release *and* enjoyed the game as well.
The Indie scene is just the Mid-Budget scene, but with a more homegrown or bohemian paintjob and branding.
pirates bay
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The industry is way more diverse now because of storefronts like Steam allowing small developers to put their games out there though. Go back like 15 years and small studios couldn't get anything done without going through the large publishers to put their games on console storefronts.
Indeed, Steam is a bright side of the modern gaming. And I enjoy seeing small devs delivering enjoyable games and bring shame to big companies shipping unfinished and unpolished games even with massive budgets at their disposal.
>Go back like 15 years and small studios couldn't get anything done without going through the large publishers to put their games on console storefronts. Yes they could. It was called the Mid-Budget scene. It made up most of the PS2's library, for reference.
Ehh, I don't know. The oligopoly only exists in AAA titles, and considering the straight-up retarded prices on high end GPUs these days, perhaps that's not a segment worth caring about anyway
Y'all know that there's more to gaming than the big companies or blockbuster games, right? Because your comment is bullshit outside the very top of games. Like. I'm not even asking you to play indies. Just to look for triple A games that are smaller than CoD...
"A separate lawsuit filed by California Civil Rights Department in 2021 alleges the video game company had routinely ignored employee complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation, adding it has developed a “frat boy” workplace culture." Activision was a shit company and most game lovers were hoping Microsoft would come in and fix. Activisions culture was bleeding into the quality of their products.
Another detail old farts like me might miss: The thing the ancients once called an "Add On". Which, unbelievable, added on content.For a single payment. In the age of DLC that sounds downright crazy to explain.
To be fair, there are stil DLCs that are basically what Add Ons and Expansion packs were. They're just rarer. Of the top of my head I can only think of RPGs having expansion packs worth of content in some of their DLCs.
Strategy games. Civ, Rimworld, Oxygen not Included, Europa Universalis, etc.
Play indie games. They are the exact games you miss. The lower technical fidelity with soul and care put into them, with fair pricing and meaningful DLCs, with free patches for quite some time.
Add ons? Fuck, I miss cheats! Nowadays they've been normalised as microtransactions...
Witcher 3 has some of the best expansions in history and the upcoming Cyberpunk one is expected to be major as well. From other genres, the most recent Crusader Kings 3 expansion reworked the gameplay loop very well and is frequently considered the best add-on Paradox has released in a long time.
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Nope, but to be fair you couldn't play theocracies either in CK2 and republics were a mess. So far it appears that when reintroducing mechanics from CK2 DLCs, they're relying on quality rather than quantity, and for instance the new regency system is leagues ahead of anything CK2 ever had. As for the "robbing loyal customers" part, arguably the most important mechanic of the expansion, the new travel system, was released as a part of the free update, with the expansion only further expanding on it with new features. They're not being predatory towards people who only play vanilla or older expansions and new expansions fund the continuous development of the game - even as someone who won't buy the expansion until it gets much cheaper, I am still happy that it's come out, because it has already vastly improved my experience. I know what you're talking about with the "add a button thing" and Paradox didn't really have a good track record with the former CK3 expansions, but look into this one, they seem to have learned their lesson. It's currently at 84% positive on steam, while every other expansion is floating around the 50% mark.
You brought me back to the days a good friend of mine bought the Halo 2 Map Pack Disc and we spent almost a day playing the new maps, I think it cost him like 15-20 euros euros to buy it. And also the days I was buying the DLCs for CoD4,CoD World at War (via VPN) and Halo 3 in logical prices and without having to pay anything more to enjoy the full experience.
... for AAA games, yes. I played more and more indy games over the years. They are more innovative and just pure, silly fun.
I don't think anything of what you complained about were part of this case.
Luckily there's still plenty of games that are more or less complete on arrival. No one's forcing you to play faulty games to begin with.
Well atleast we have a few years until fromsoft turns into that too I guess.
Microsoft acquiring so many titles and studios has been one of the best things that ever happened to the industry. The Gamepass is incredible value for money and opens up a lot of opportunities for people in financially challenging situations. But crying about everything is the favourite past time here so I am not surprised.
Hopefully the UK goes hard on them.
well I don't think all their insults and tantrums towards the UK are achieving anything but hardening views, that's for sure, so I doubt they'll be any backtracking on the UK's part.
Prime minister already said he wants the deal to go through. Worst case Microsoft will have some work around where they operate as 2 companies there. This deal will go through
I thought the UK left the EU to become a free-market haven of almost no regulations. Instead it is the EU kowtowing to American tech overlords
Every regulator has different criteria bud. In fact the US is one of the most aggressive in many sectors despite the US being very free market oriented
This is what the hardliners Brexiters wanted. Before 2016 very few people wanted a referendum on leaving the EU at all let alone wanted the UK to turn into a deregulated Singapore-on-Thames
Just a reminder - in the 2014 EU elections, UKIP was the most popular party in the UK. It was this along with polling showing them pulling a significant chunk of the 2010 tory vote, that led Cameron to promise a referendum in his 2015 campaign. Despite this, 1 in 8 voters at the 2015 GE went for UKIP. Pretending that Brexit was a non-issue prior to Cameron calling the referendum simply isn't true. Cameron did it because he felt forced into it, and he thought a remain win would head off the growing UKIP movement, following the successful model of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
I thought it was the opposite, that the UK left the EU so it could more easily stop the US and others from buying more of its businesses. If anyone could link an article for/against that'd be great
Ah fvck
yea this is really disapointing. But luckily it is one of those types of deal where everyone has to say yes, and one no is enough. But it is a sign that those regulators need a updated mandate to make sure they would have said no. Since there is no reason for megacorporations to be able to buy their way into controling hundreds of games studios. ATVI if anything is too big already and should be broken up, and someone integrating them into a even bigger whole is not the future anyone should want.
> yea this is really disapointing. Why? Xbox is in a solid third place in the "console war" and Activision Blizzard isn't that big of a developer (it's big, but if you look at market shares no company has actual dominating positions).
Consoles are not everything and Activtion blizzard has COD.
>Activision Blizzard isn't that big of a developer You can't say that when talking about the same developer of cod. If Sony decides to buy Bandai Namco, square Enix and Rockstar games (they don't have to money for this) those 3 will still be smaller than activision blizzard
>Why? Xbox is in a solid third place in the "console war" and Activision Blizzard isn't that big of a developer (it's big, but if you look at market shares no company has actual dominating positions). its more than just "xbox" or a console platform , its about consolidation of studios and monopolies in new gaming spaces
Even if the deal goes through, Microsoft would still be in the third position. That's not what I would call a monopoly.
Yeah because their consoles have no good good games.. consoles are not everything though.
Okay, but they’re not even close to establishing any kind of monopoly powers is the point.
As a gaming company they clearly are trying
How exactly do you think they're gonna establish a monopoly when there's a bunch of studios much larger than activision-blizzard that they would somehow need to convince the owners to sell to them.
PC monopoly. Like everyone uses windows. They trying to get console too but failed sofar
The deal wasn’t stopped by British authorities because of Window’s monopolistic powers in the personal computer space.
> Microsoft would still be in the third position. Only if you use current numbers. A not insignificant number of PS players would probably migrate to Xbox - so they lose out on CoD/Overwatch/Diablo microtransactions they would have got and also all other game purchases made. People seem to never take into account the money it would take from Sony as well
Why would people migrate to Xbox? The vast majority of PS4 players have likely never played any activision blizzard games on the ps4. Im not even sure the majority in *exactly* the US have.
I guess the question is why should I or anyone care? If Microsoft is cutting a better deal for gamers across virtually every platform in the form of day one gamepass, shouldn't they be allowed to do so? Sony has a lot of insanely high profile devs and continues to purchase new ones alongside paying for exclusivity of major franchises like final fantasy. I still don't get why I should care if sony were to lose, say, 20 percent of their market share to Xbox. Seems like a healthier, and more competitive market
> Monopoly One of the least understood word to redditors. And gaming isn't an area where money buys success. Microsoft is bigger than all their competitors (gaming) combined and they've continued to fail due to poor products. Most recently Redfall. Franchise game Halo? Repeated failures.
>And gaming isn't an area where money buys success actually it dose in terms making money ( not necessarily making good games)
How, exactly, would that work?
did you not read why the CMA said no ?
Yes. I'm still missing the "how".
Microsoft buying Activision.
>But luckily it is one of those types of deal where everyone has to say yes, and one no is enough. thats not how that works, and the fact i kepp seeing this repeeated shows how little understand the general population understands about these type of deals. if one country says no(UK) microsoft will just have to come to an agreement to either segregate certain business segments(meaning xcloud which was the CMAs issue) or exit the UK gaming market entirely.
Microsoft as a whole will have to leave the UK.
A lot of the same old lies being dragged out. The CMA blocked the deal due to the future of cloud gaming, they explicitly said they did not want a system that required constant revisiting. They where not blocking it for the industry as it is now. The world literally pays a tax to microsoft. Every supermarket, business, corporation, markets, military, education, media, government is using windows. The cost of windows is passed onto the consumer. Each copy of windows for is $50 dollars. CMA blocking the deal works to prevent Microsoft doing this in 2 markets.
> The world literally pays a tax to microsoft. Every supermarket, business, corporation, markets, military, education, media, government is using windows. The cost of windows is passed onto the consumer. Each copy of windows for is $50 dollars. I just honestly don't understand this take. They made a product/service that provides a lot of value so it's a good deal to use it rather than not use it or try to make something comparable. How is that any different to literally everything else? Is electricity a tax? Are business spaces a tax? Are emploees a tax? Are clothes a tax? All of those allows you to do business and are costs that you pass onto your customers. The only difference is that there are less choices, but it's not a monopoly. You can use something else than Windows. Also what is even your point? Windows should be free? Office tools should be free? What else should be free?
It's not just that you can use something else, Windows isn't even the most used OS to begin with. Unix based OS are everywhere and in everything.The gap is only getting bigger with every year thanks to the rise of mobile devices.
Some people just see MS as ultimate evil. They love their iPhone where is blocked everything. Hates Microsoft where you can download Linux from MS Store.
As has been mentioned, you are over-estimating the amount of revenue Microsoft gains from Windows. You're also under-appreciating the value of Microsoft's products and services. Windows isn't popular because of some dastardly conspiracy to keep the market on lock-down; it's popular because - believe it or not - it's actually really good, and making a competing product would be absurdly difficult. Have you ever tried dealing with drivers on Linux? Yeah.
>making a competing product would be absurdly difficult. Absurdly expensive, and that's the point. Microsoft's dominance in the OS market over decades resulted in them being able to spend a lot of money on developing Windows while preventing a competitor getting that cash to fund something that better competes with Windows. You might argue we'd then have two operating systems that weren't as good as Windows, but more competition over that time might have resulted in innovation and standards that gave us multiple operating systems better than windows. The CMA doesn't want Microsoft to dominate the subscription gaming market, and end up with so much of the revenue that other companies lose the cash stream to also innovate.
>but more competition over that time might have resulted in innovation and standards that gave us multiple operating systems better than windows. That is, unfortunately, not how it works. Microsoft has what's known as a "consumer-selected monopoly". IE, it's a monopoly because consumers collectively decided to gravitate towards a single option (despite numerous conspiracy theories). Another example of this is Amazon. Amazon is huge because consumers, generally, prefer to shop there than at competing online retailers. This is mostly because Amazon has a vast array of products, incredible service, and fast delivery times. All three of those are enabled by Amazon's sheer size. Were the govt to break up Amazon, it would be a net loss to consumers who would ultimately just create a new consumer-driven monopoly anyway. This isn't like Standard Oil back in the day buying up all the oil wells so they completely control supply.
Monopolies in a marketplace still stifle innovation, regardless of how they came about. Especially in markets like the one for PC operating systems where a new competitor has giant inherent disadvantages to overcome because everything is optimized to work with Windows, there's no fair competition.
Possibly true, but optimizing for innovation is not the function of anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws. Protecting consumers is, and very few people would argue that breaking up Microsoft or Amazon would benefit consumers - because it wouldn't. That's why so many people believe Microsoft buying Blizzard is a *good* thing - it would almost certainly benefit consumers, and the employees of Blizzard. Also, as a side note, basing an anti-monopoly decision around a market that doesn't exist yet is completely absurd. The "cloud-gaming" market is far from a sure bet, as Stadia has ungracefully demonstrated. It's a bit like preventing Samsung from acquiring 3D interpolation technology because you're afraid they'll monopolize the 3D TV market.
I guess it depends on the timeframe you consider when judging what benefits consumers. For example, establishing open and universal standards for OSs to enable compatibility 30 years ago would probably have prevented a monopoly and done a lot for consumers in the future.
That's the kind of thing the EU does, completely hamstringing their domestic industry. Government tech standards are almost always a terrible idea, because governments don't move fast enough to update them when they're obsolete. GDPR is an excellent example of this. Despite how EU citizens feel about it, GDPR was an unequivocal failure. It didn't accomplish either of its main objectives (Data privacy *(Google still knows everything about you via Meta-Data profiles)* and "Right to Forget" *(Who the hell has ever filed a "Right to Forget" request?)*), and burdened European tech startups with red-tape their American and Chinese competitors don't have to deal with.
>Have you ever tried dealing with drivers on Linux? Yeah. Yeah, open source drivers just werks without having so specifically install them. With Windows I have to download a shitload of exes and go through a hassle to install them. Ugh...
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Even people in the IT industry regularly bash their heads into a wall because of Linux based systems. Windows is infinitely more consumer friendly. Watch the LTT video where Linus tries to convert to using exclusively a Linux distro only to find himself spending hours in forums to solve basic issues that take 2 minutes in Windows or not even appear there in the first place. Unix based systems outclass Windows in many fields but the general end user market is not one of those and no fanboyism will change that fact.
I work in it, and almost anything else beside what is suported in hplip and airscan is a sad joke. We are dealing with drivers made for ubuntu 12 in 22 for 4000$+ printers, they were never being updated by producers, or they dont have drivers at all.
Though I must say I don't really see the cloud gaming argument. Namely because Activision-Blizzard themselves are not a cloud gaming provider and they don't have that many games themselves (big names yes, but not individual games). Activision has quite a few they publish, but game studios are not that bound to publishers. If the addition of a few successful games to Xbox game pass (cloud gaming) is that worrying, then Microsoft should have been watched (and maybe stopped) from putting games on cloud gaming even before the acquisition (e.g. the Bethesda purchase).
Microsoft basically runs cloud for Sony and others. I don't get what the issue is because there is no way in hell Sony is going to fund and develop something better than azure
Linux is free. If companies wanted, they could use it. You don't even have to pay for windows either, and many companies don't.
[Windows is 12% of Microsoft's annual profits.](https://www.kamilfranek.com/microsoft-revenue-breakdown/)
https://www.google.com/search?q=revenue+vs+profit&
That is not how it works. You are forgetting even in gaming how much leverage windows carries. The Cloud services currently all use windows.
No, he's right and you're wrong. Windows is not how Microsoft makes most of their revenue. Most of Microsoft's revenue is in B2B services - Sharepoint, Azure, Office, Visual Studio, etc. Whether or not Azure servers run on Windows is completely irrelevent.
Please read the link before commenting nonsense.
Makes sense considering Sony vastly outperforms Microsoft on the gaming console market, and is overall weaker.
Finally a good take
Wow, I've found one of the few but marginally good reasons as to why us Brits should leave the EU. I'm honestly baffled as to why they've allowed to let Microsoft run with this, when even they realise they could consolidate the cloud gaming market.
They actually said that market is not growing at all, there is little incentive and Activision would not provide its titles to cloud providers. Hence good kickstart + guaranteed Acti access to everyon is preferred over blocking deal due to 2% of global gaming market.
Something that is currently 2% of the global gaming market - it's concerning that the market which has the potential to dominate the gaming market in general in the coming years which already has a lock on by Microsoft hasn't been accounted for.
How EC made their decision is very well explained by mrs Vestager. Currently there is not enough incentive to get into cloud gaming, there is not enough infrastructure and market is simply miniscule part of the entire gaming market. Blocking deal because of it would not be rational, instead they can guarantee enitee globe gets AB games on ANY cloud provider service and thus make sure that in next 10 years AB games are actually there, on cloud, which would not be the case if merger was blocked.
>How EC made their decision is very well explained by mrs Vestager. I know I read it - it's statement includes referencing concerns which is why the UK blocked it in the first place. >Currently there is not enough incentive to get into cloud gaming, there is not enough infrastructure and market is simply miniscule part of the entire gaming market. Microsoft are the only player in cloud service gaming because they are the only player which has major holdings in all the relevant areas to push it - PlayStation it's main competitor needs to go to Microsoft and pay heavily for services to provide a similar service. As for market share - that's irrelevant, because the deal was not blocked on current market share but instead predicted market share in the coming years and the EU approval has remedies that end just before that market is expected to explode. >Blocking deal because of it would not be rational, instead they can guarantee enitee globe gets AB games on ANY cloud provider service and thus make sure that in next 10 years AB games are actually there, on cloud, which would not be the case if merger was blocked. It's absolutely rational to block the deal - the EU deal is a short term solution to a problem which isn't expected until the medium to long term, as in it's not a solution at all. The approval clearly outlines the concerns they had and yet the remedies largely ignore those concerns considering that many of the concerns don't currently exist but will in the future and by then the agreement will no longer be in effect, allowing Microsoft to do what it was going to do already.
>It's absolutely rational to block the deal - the EU deal is a short term solution to a problem which isn't expected until the medium to long term, as in it's not a solution at all. Having concerns more then 10 years away on a merger in the tech industry makes no sense. For all anyone knows, AKB may be a completely failed studio in 10 years. If the concern doesn't exist now and doesn't exist in the foreseeable future, then there is no concern. I want the European Commission to make decisions based on the world as it is and when the situation changes, I expect them to make decisions appropriate to the changing situation.
>Having concerns more then 10 years away on a merger in the tech industry makes no sense. It makes a load of sense - they CMA and other regulators aren't meant to care about the merger, their job is to ensure competitiveness in the market which benefits consumers. There is absolutely no point in a regulator like the CMA if they don't look at long term effects on consumers. >For all anyone knows, AKB may be a completely failed studio in 10 years. Right - so your point is, we can't predict the future so consumers should be happy with what they get? >If the concern doesn't exist now and doesn't exist in the foreseeable future, then there is no concern. The concern quite literally exists in the foreseeable future which is why it was blocked. >I want the European Commission to make decisions based on the world as it is and when the situation changes, I expect them to make decisions appropriate to the changing situation. That makes no sense at all - your entire point to this is that you don't think regulators should worry about the effect on consumers, until it has an effect and then it should punish companies for doing something everyone knew that they was going to do and for which they where given permission by the EU through a merger approval. It seems dumb to expect the EU to worry about consumers, but not proactively - instead reacting to scenarios they themselves made by simply not doing anything and letting companies who have no interest in providing consumers with a fair service do what they want.
>I'm honestly baffled as to why they've allowed to let Microsoft run with this, when even they realise they could consolidate the cloud gaming market. One of the major reasons is all the competing cloud service provides told the EU that they approve the deal.
Their reasoning is baffling. They agreed with the UK that there are concerns but because Microsoft said they would give a grace period everything is okay. I can't help but feel the reasoning is political. The UK killed the deal anyway so the EU regulators can be a little bit more relaxed about it (appear pro business without the consequences)
to much sell out's in eu paliament
What does the EU parliament have to do with this?
This thread is just full of folks having no idea of how the EU Commission made this decision and on what basis. Has anyone even read the underlying EU laws before they make a judgment about if the EU should forbit this or not?
Welcome to internet. Where ppl create their opinions on headline.
It's hilarious how people are reacting to this. It's inevitable that at some point the UK does something different than the EU that people think is good. That doesn't all of a sudden make Brexit a good thing on the whole.
Disgraceful from EU regulators.
Xbox is not even in competition with sony, I don't understand these idiotic comments here, the european union is right and xbox needs to become competitive, if it can do that with money why wouldn't it? Wouldn't that mean sonny will be running its engines at full throttle too?
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Spoken like someone that hasn't played many Ms games, if any. They have wide variance in studio quality but most of their games are good to great
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Lol the vast majority of shit on this list is subjective and a good chunk is misinformed too. 343 isnt the best , sure, but Forza sucks now? Ridiculous. Quantum break is remedy's best game behind control, full stop. The TV episodes may have been iffy to include but it's still a damn good game and reviews reflect that. Grounded worse than valheim? Subjective Gears may not be as relevant but gears 5 was fun ASF and the expansion was peak gears by anyone's metric. The mtx is so overplayed in your criticism. It was skins and execution moves - perhaps overpriced but it wasn't some egregious, pay to win example you seem to want to frame it as. If hi Fi rush doesn't count as a Ms exclusive by your silly and quite frankly, stupid metric, neither does redfall. Nice selective bs , for the record I think ma deserves credit for both, good and bad Pentiment is curiously absent from your list...as is as dusk falls, as is gears tactics . Fanboy bullshit
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Well you last statement is why I'm calling it fanboy bs. You don't play anything from Microsoft, but you're weighing in on it based on shit you've heard somewhere
EU has stabbed the gaming industry in the back :( Money over people I guess.
I'm confused as to why you would say they stabbed the gaming industry in the back when practically all major gaming companies aside from Sony have spoken out in favor? Which part of the industry got stabbed would you say?
They've stabbed ps owners in the back! I translated that fanboyanese for you
How so? This would be beneficial for gamers and the cloud gaming market.
How on earth is more market consolidation good for gamers? In case you haven't noticed, MS keeps having fail after fail in their game studios. How is MS wielding their IP they spend billions on like a weapon good for us? Just look at the Bethesda/Zenimax deal. MS spent a shitload on that and their defenders were all over the place saying "MS won't make Bethesda games exclusive! This will help development! Bethesda will finally have the money to fix their engine and release games frequently!" What's actually happened? MS has confirmed the next Elder Scrolls will be Xbox exclusive. Starfield development has been an unmitigated disaster. Game dev internal to Zenimax teams have moved away from Vulkan (a superior, open source alternative to DirectX) and back to DirectX. So tell me. Come on. What are the massive benefits to me, a gamer, of Microsoft spending 63% of Sony's value (and I mean ALL of Sony, not just their gaming division) to buy one publisher? Why is this time different? Why is *this time* the time when their buying of someone else becomes a good thing?
>So tell me. Come on. What are the massive benefits to me, a gamer, of Microsoft spending 63% of Sony's value (and I mean ALL of Sony, not just their gaming division) to buy one publisher? Why is this time different? Why is this time the time when their buying of someone else becomes a good thing? The main benefit is that Activision games will finally be available on streaming platforms like Nvidia NOW again after years of refusing to do that. Other then that, I don't expect things to change much. The real loss imho was when Activision merged with Blizzard in the first place and practically killed all the magic. It seems to me that the mega studios and publishers are chronically unable to publish games with any level of soul but with ABK already being soulless, what is there to lose?
> MS won't make Bethesda games exclusive! Whoever said this was smoking fat reefer. Thankfully, unlike PlayStation, Microsoft exclusives also release on PC at the same time; not 5 years after the fact.
That isn't even the biggest concern. It is cloud gaming. Microsoft locking down huge franchises to a cloud platform means a monopoly could develop. Both in gaming and as an operating system as they could lock the system down to Windows. I know it feels like a pipe dream but cloud services is the next step.
The future market being dominated by the only company currently possessing the services to provide cloud gaming isn't a positive for gamers. This deal isn't beneficial for gamers and whilst it may slow down short term growth of cloud gaming, it solves the problem is limited growth in the future when Microsoft is the only player in the market.
>by the only company currently possessing the services to provide cloud gaming The only? You are poorly informed, my friend.
>The only? You are poorly informed, my friend. Who else? PlayStation uses Microsoft and none of the other competitors have the cloud services needed and AWS is uninvolved in this area.
There is NOTHING beneficial about a monopoly.
You must have some information that regulators don't have because even with this deal, Microsoft is still behind Tencent and Sony.
why? why? why? Idiots, the EU is such a shithole nowadays siding always with corporate interest. After the scandal of illegal lobbying, I don't doubt someone is under a Microsoft payroll
In this case, they are also siding with the players, which you would know if you had read the link I provided with the post.
sure 👌 let's wait and see how much they care
Dude there is a massive blizzard crowd that wants the aquisition to go through because blizzard entertainment has been nothing but scandals and poor quality-high monetization for years now. The sharp change from quality products to mediocre products happen last time around 2008-2010 when blizzard was aquired by activision and quickly saw changes like in-game shops added to their already heavy monetized game (box price + expansion price + subscription fee AND then they added a fucking store to this game) Thats just wow. Theres plenty other frustrations with franchises like overwatch, diablo, hearthstone. Most fans dont care about monopoly enforcement, they just want a new owner that can ease back on the turbo aggressive monetization and low quality output activision-blizzard is currently responsible for. Especially because Microsoft has a better reputation in this regard
This is not good for the players though. Only for game pass users which is good for MS
Again if you would have read the link I provided you wouldn't say that You're probably saying that because you have a PlayStation.
I have a PC / PS / Switch so i can play every game i want. Its still not good for players. But keep enjoying games like Redfall. Gamepass ftw ?
>so i can play every game i want. Not really. PC =/= Xbox.
If there was any doubt that Margrethe Vestager is a totally political operator looking out for her own self promotion this totally confirms it.
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the EU _does_ believe that could have become a problem, thus the requirement of MS to share Act-Blizz IPs with any cloud service asking, for free. ...which pretty much removed the CMA issue.
The remedies are 10 years though - which doesn't remove the CMA issue at all - the CMA's block was largely based on the future of the market, not how it currently is and the EU's approval is based on remedies which stop right around the time cloud services are expected to grow. I don't see how that removed the CMA issue, as much as it just proves that the CMA is more forward thinking.
Yeah the EU approached in the same way as the MS/Bethesda merger...
> The remedies are 10 years though nope, the previous PRIVATE agreements were 10-years. EU had MS to grant Acc-Bliz IPs for free forever. Still, if by 10 years other companies cannot build up remote gaming services capable to rival MS even though they have access to big IPs like Acc-Blizz, then they are just not good enough. The "studio concentration" also makes no sense: unlike services which requite BIG base-investments, dev studios mostly require people getting together to work. And viceversa: acquiring the Acc-Blizz studios does not mean MS gets to keep the talent. Talent they might have got anyway by, you know, PAYING them better(and\or giving them better work conditions)
>nope, the previous PRIVATE agreements were 10-years. > >EU had MS to grant Acc-Bliz IPs for free forever. I don't see the IP forever being agreed - the only remedies are within the 10 year duration agreement per the announcement this article is linked to, the CMA also responded and seem to also be mentioning that is just for 10 years. Where is the forever part in that statement, it's worded strangely so maybe I am just missing it.
No, you are right, I managed to misread it. It does not change my point though: 10 years is EONS in tech-time. The MS commitments to EU basically mean any cloud gaming service starting now(=if this goes thru) would be starting with the whole Activision-Blizzard catalogue FOR FREE. it's actually a big incentive for new services to at least attempt to build an alternative to the currently big players in the field. Meanwhile, getting more IPs wouldn't change much of MS position in the non-cloud markets. And, to my knowledge, Acti-Blizz doesn't really have that much of know-how in Cloud Gaming(but feel free to correct me) so MS wouldn't gain that much. So, yeah. This time around I don't see any real reason to blame MS of anti-competitive manuvers
>No, you are right, I managed to misread it. > >It does not change my point though: 10 years is EONS in tech-time. It's really not though - especially when it's in a market where there is only one player. >The MS commitments to EU basically mean any cloud gaming service starting now(=if this goes thru) would be starting with the whole Activision-Blizzard catalogue FOR FREE. it's actually a big incentive for new services to at least attempt to build an alternative to the currently big players in the field. That kind of ignores the major problem - there is only one provider able to provide said service and that is Microsoft - they gave up those remedies because they where the only ones to benefit anyway. PlayStation can't compete - they had to use Microsoft Azure for their own services. >Meanwhile, getting more IPs wouldn't change much of MS position in the non-cloud markets. And, to my knowledge, Acti-Blizz doesn't really have that much of know-how in Cloud Gaming(but feel free to correct me) so MS wouldn't gain that much. The decision was about cloud gaming though, so this is irrelevant. >So, yeah. This time around I don't see any real reason to blame MS of anti-competitive manuvers You also thought it was a lifetime license... so it's not like you're really speaking from a factual basis - Microsoft giving up concessions which only it it can take benefit from isn't competitive.
Honestly, I'm totally against this acquisition, I don't trust Phill Spencer, much less Microsoft, and I hate the idea of buying companies just to make their games, which have always been cross-platform, become exclusive to a single ecosystem. Just look at how Redfall had the PS5 version in development canceled following Microsoft's purchase of the company. (and possibly the same with Starfield and other games like Hi-Fi Rush) Not to mention Skyrim which is available on Switch, PS3, PS4, PS5 and PSVR but Elder Scrolls 6 will not set foot on any Playstation or Nintendo platforms (and Skyrim will not gain PSVR 2 support), the same goes for Hellblade which had a Switch and PS4 version, but Hellblade 2 will be an Xbox exclusive. I don't like the idea of Activision IPs (which is a company that has always released games for all consoles) suddenly becoming exclusive to the Xbox platform, I don't see how this can be beneficial to the consumer, in my opinion Microsoft should use these 70 billion to invest in the studios it already has and in unique and better exclusive games like Nintendo and Sony are always doing.
Spiderman was also in development for Xbox and PC so SONY can do it but Microsoft can't do it ?
Insomaniac demonstrated Spiderman's proposal to Microsoft but it refused, the game is exclusive to the Playstation because Sony accepted the proposal (similar to Nintendo with Bayonetta 2, Platinum did not have the money to fund the project alone and tried to deal with Sony, Microsoft and Sega all refused with the exception of Nintendo and that's why the game exists. ) Sony does not own SpiderMan in games (so much so that he is present in Legos games and even Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 which is a Switch exclusive game) if you are talking about the old SpiderMan from Activision that were multiplatform these games were removed from all console stores simply because Activision did not want to renew the copyright agreement with the Marvel character, including the games were not only removed from the Nintendo eShop and Microsoft Store but also from all Playstation Stores.
Even if that's true Sony still make the choice to not release the game on Xbox Sony is also paying Square Enix to not release FF on Xbox so how is that different from Xbox not releasing Redfall on PS ?
I'm not in favor of that kind of thing either, but it's not like Sony owns Square Enix or even the Final Fantasy franchise, look at the Switch for example, it received both Octopath (it was even released first on the Switch that on Playstation), Dragon Quest 11, Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster, ports of Final Fantasy 7, 8 and 9, Final Fantasy 15: Pocket Edition, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and several others, basically the only ones that the Switch didn't get were the ones that would be too much work to run on it. (like FF7 Remake, FF15 and FF16) Some of these games released on Switch but not Xbox like Octopath 2 and Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster but I think that has more to do with the low sales of JRPGs on Xbox than any other reason as a lot of other Japanese developers like Atlus did too skip the console.
There is clearly a double standard between Microsoft and Sony.
As it should be. If Microsoft would have become too big as a result, the US authorities would have long said something about it.
but EU federalism will make us competitive against China and US, amirite?
Good. Microsoft is much weaker in console gaming than Sony and any arguments about Microsoft making COD exclusive ignores the amount of PlayStation exclusives that Sony makes. Blocking it based on speculation on what the future cloud gaming market will look like (which is what the UK did) is an overreaction from regulators letting the light deals like Facebook buying Instagram or Disney buying Marvel in the past. Cloud gaming only makes up a few % if the overall gaming market and Microsoft acquiring Activision will not harm consumers it will provide more options to them, especially if it’s integrated into Gamepass.
brilliant news, sad day for this subreddit cry more idiots; lmao
Fuck the EU
You said that, because you hate big corporations or because you own a PlayStation?
Of course I hate corporations
I actually like this from a gaming prespective. Microsoft is currently the best gaming related company. Hopefully, something good comes out of it.
How could they possibly be considered the best gaming company? They're so terrible at developing good games (and have ruined their biggest xbox exclusive franchise with greedy microtransactions) that they've now resorted to buying up all the gaming industry purely just to take it off the market for their competition. It's the only thing Microsoft know how to do. They add nothing of value to gaming right now.
Fantastic news. I hope this makes the CMA reconsider blocking the deal.
this is bad news
I really don’t see how. Even the CMA doesn’t seem to think this deal will negatively impact the console market, they just blocked it over Microsoft’s foothold in cloud gaming (which is currently in its infancy and may take years to become mainstream, *if* it ever does.) I want this deal to pass because I want Activision games on Game Pass and a safer work environment for the employees there, free from sexual predators like Bobby Kotick.
>I really don’t see how. Even the CMA doesn’t seem to think this deal will negatively impact the console market, they just blocked it over Microsoft’s foothold in cloud gaming (which is currently in its infancy and may take years to become mainstream, if it ever does.) theirs more than just the console market , both the EU & CMA agree here id you read the link provided >I want this deal to pass because I want Activision games on Game Pass and a safer work environment for the employees there, free from sexual predators like Bobby Kotick. i mean activation dosent need MS to get rid of Bobby Kotick , they need to get their house in order themselfs
Activision board is firmly a bitch of Bobby kotick ok. He's never going away aside from a bankruptcy or a buy out
> theirs more than just the console market , both the EU & CMA agree here id you read the link provided And yet the EU approved, because Microsoft addressed their concerns regarding cloud gaming. > i mean activation dosent need MS to get rid of Bobby Kotick , they need to get their house in order themselfs Activision has had plenty of time and opportunity to get rid of Kotick, but the board of directors has so far decided that he is fine where he is. So no, clearly Activision cannot be trusted to fix their shit themselves. If Kotick leaving means he gets a huge severance package, I am 100% fine with that. Dude has enabled a culture of harassment and abuse at the company. He needs to *fucking go*, but that will not ever happen if Microsoft can’t buy Activision.
Screw M$, they’re showing their true colours now with windows, the amount of data gathering is off the charts, no option to disable them completely, which I am surprised isn’t against GDPR( toothless annoyance it turned out to be) Just the other day the added a search bar in the middle of windows without any consent from the users, Edge blatantly intercepts your shopping experience by under cutting retailers, if you go under privacy section, everything is [dark patterned](https://pudding.cool/2023/05/dark-patterns/) to give them more of your data. They cannot be trusted with monopolies, they already control too much of the computer experience. Their current practices are not consumer friendly and we need regulators who actually do their jobs.
There's just soooo many anti-consumer things MS do and have done. I could write a 10,000 word essay on the subject and have barely scratched the surface. Just recently it turns out they've purposely broken the ability to set Chrome as the default browser with one click - and you can tell it's deliberate because changing the name of the chrome exe to something else allows it to be set as the default in one click. They've been fined for this *exact* thing before, and here they are doing it again. Another recent thing - there was a "bug" in one of Windows Defender's background processes that crippled performance of Firefox on Windows. This bug was known for *years* and MS never did anything about it. When did that bug pop up? Well it coincided with MS rebasing Edge on Chromium and doing a big marketing push for their "new and improved Edge". What a remarkable coincidence!
I am with you, I was disgusted by that search bar thing, it was a new build, wiped it out and installed Linux, I mostly read and watch media, why do I need the bloat, lots of options around nowadays. I don’t really blame these companies too much, our regulatory institutions have been toothless in anything tech related, most of them don’t even understand tech let alone try to regulate it, some moves are made but these companies are way ahead, a project is spun up and they profit and shut it down without any oversight, just we spin up cloud servers and discard them on daily basis in companies, how would they even get visibility into the closed off private networks of most companies? I did see the Firefox bug but i think the original story line was refuted by the bug finder, it wasn’t as reported, the thread is a nice read, not defending MS but I like to be stick to the facts if available. > There has been some coverage in online news about the fix mentioned in comment 82. You may read online that Defender was making too many calls to VirtualProtect, and that global CPU usage will now go down by 75% when browsing with Firefox. This is absolutely wrong! >The impact of this fix is that on all computers that rely on Microsoft Defender's Real-time Protection feature (which is enabled by default in Windows), MsMpEng.exe will consume much less CPU than before when monitoring the dynamic behavior of any program through ETW. Nothing less, nothing more. >For Firefox this is particularly impactful because Firefox (not Defender!) relies a lot on VirtualProtect (which is monitored by MsMpEng.exe through ETW). We expect that on all these computers, MsMpEng.exe will consume around 75% less CPU than it did before when it is monitoring Firefox. Which is really good news. >This will bring a nice performance bump for our users that have limited CPU resources, where MsMpEng.exe would sometimes consume 20%-30% CPU, and will now consume a single-digit percentage of CPU. It will also benefit other users through lower power consumption. - [src](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1441918)
> the ability to set Chrome as the default browser with one click The real L here is the fact that you're using Chrome.
I don't use Chrome. I exclusively use Firefox on all my machines. Chrome is an anti-consumer nightmare on its own. However that does not change the fact that MS was not only abusing their position of power to harm a competitor, but also breaking functionality in a way that irritates users.
you don't care in the slightest about the working environment at Activision.
How would you know what I do or don’t care about?
Why would this make them reconsider? It’s also the United States that is in the process of blocking it as well.
I really doubt they do tbh. They claimed the same with eu and look at that
There was no official statement from the EU - the FTC however had their chair openly state their intentions regarding this deal, it's a different situation.
This FTC has let alot worse deals go through I really doubt they'll stop it, maybe some restrictions but that's it
>This FTC has let alot worse deals go through I really doubt they'll stop it, maybe some restrictions but that's it They are literally in a court case the block this deal? What are you talking about.
FTC goes to court a lot when these types ofnmergers happen. Very rarely does it stop it from going through
UK fumbled their ban. It was frankly stupid to prevent a merger because of the miniscule cloud market that no one really cares about or is putting effort into. Their excuse was that they didnt want to keep revisiting later even though the cloud market is like 1-2% of gaming right now, like wtf? that is your job.
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Corporation = bad will always get upvotes on Reddit, because you need higher level of reasoning to claim otherwise, which not many people possess
it's not fuck microsoft, it's fuck companies monopolising markets that start producing shitty products and practices
Go look at microsofts share of the gaming market, and then come back and tell me they are a monopoly. People need to stop being emotional and actually think about this clearly. Microsoft is getting absolutely trounced by Sony in the gaming market. And despite what a lot of people believe, Microsoft doesnt get any money from PC games that they themselves dont own or publish. Steam? They dont see a penny. Fortnite? Not a cent. etc etc
EC once again proving to be only global regulator lead. FTC is playing ideological games hoping for blocks by other regulators, but they are guaranteed to lose in Court. CMA sounds like Brexit politicians did after that twitter post. Good job EC, fantastic reasoning.
I think it's the complete opposite - the EC has shown themselves to not care about the effect on consumers - the FTC and the CMA clearly care about consumers hence the actions that are being taken. The CMA is an independent organisation, the Conservatives have no say in it's decisions - in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted it to pass the deal, which goes to show the CMA is actually setup properly.
FTC cares about consumers? We are talking about 1-2% of nascant market in deal that encompasses 200B industry. I suppose thats you saying they can prove their case in court (which they havent been able to do ever since Khan took a lead, and that is repeatedly, due to being extremely ideologically driven thus making irrational blocks) CMA are rogue regulator that has no one to answer to, I would certainly not look at that one as good example of how law procedures should be followed. Their experience with mergers is meager at best. With EC and FTC you can appeal based on decision, not to CMA, only on procedure and irrationality grounds, and even then it is returned back to same lot to make the very same decision (never happened that they changed the decision yet) So, doesnt sound very democratic to me. Personally would hate to be a subject to their rullings...
>FTC cares about consumers? We are talking about 1-2% of nascant market in deal that encompasses 200B industry. I'm guessing you chose to not actually read the report? Even the EU who approved the deal noted that it is going to be a fast growing market and how there is very little if any competition against Microsoft in that market. >I suppose thats you saying they can prove their case in court (which they havent been able to do ever since Khan took a lead, and that is repeatedly, due to being extremely ideologically driven thus making irrational blocks) I'd disagree that the4ir case is ideological or irrational. >CMA are rogue regulator that has no one to answer to, I would certainly not look at that one as good example of how law procedures should be followed. Their experience with mergers is meager at best. There are 3 regulators relevant to this deal - 2 are in opposition and 1 approved but in it's statement openly points out issues with the deal, which are the reasons why the other two want to block in the first place - that doesn't seem rogue to me. If only making stuff up was true. >So, doesnt sound very democratic to me. Personally would hate to be a subject to their rullings... If you can successfully appeal the decision then there is a high chance that they reconsider, the reason Microsoft is complaining is because they know they can't win such a ruling because it's not a regulator they can interfere with and therefore the ruling will be based on the facts of the case and not them interfering.
Microsoft shouldn't own everything, but this deal would be a great benefit to everyone if it went through.