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Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovation and choice in gaming
- sbarre 4y agoThe conspiracy theorist in me can't help but think about the fact that most of the corporate/leadership power at Sony Playstation resides in Europe these days.
- batty_alex 4y agoSo, you're not the least bit concerned about a massive cloud company buying a huge competitive advantage? Sony uses Azure to host their own competitive offering, you don't think they're the least bit nervous that Microsoft can just pull the rug out from under them? It doesn't need to be a conspiracy, there's plenty we should all be wary of with regards to mega mergers. Why is Microsoft so keen on making this happen? They're basically throwing mountains of money to make this happen and it's not out of the goodness of their hearts
- ensignavenger 4y agoThere are a plethora of other hosting companies Sony could choose to use. They obviously aren't worried about it, why should I be? If Microsoft kicked Sony off of their cloud all of a sudden without a really good explanation, it would be hugely damaging to their reputation.
- sbarre 4y agoYes yes all that too, sorry I forgot to point out all the other possible concerns in my post. My bad.
- kenjackson 4y agoThe Azure thing you note is odd. Sony invested in Azure far after they knew MSFT would be competition. I’m sure they also realize the legal backlash to MS hampering them with Azire would be huge. And lastly Azure’s long-term play is much bigger than consoles. It would be stupid for MS to throw out the baby…
- seatac76 4y agoUK isn’t the same as Europe (politics aside) I’m saying in regulatory terms so Sony leadership staying in Europe has no impact. Europe is doing is it’s own investigation and is slated to actually approve the merger. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/2/23621989/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-eu-approval-rumor https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/2/23621989/microsoft-activis...
- dm_me_dogs 4y agoIt's pretty strange that the CMA is most concerned with a market that functionally doesn't exist right now, and may not ever be "a thing". Cloud gaming is still fundamentally not a great experience. Having said that, I don't think the deal should go through anyway. Large companies should not be allowed to purchase other large companies within the same market as them.
- dagw 4y agoCloud gaming is still fundamentally not a great experience. Personally I disagree. Cloud gaming on Game Pass is a fantastic deal and quite frankly the Xbox's killer feature
- schnitzelstoat 4y agoWho buys a state of the art console to use it for cloud gaming though?
- rjh29 4y agoI agree it's not the xbox killer feature, but you can stream new games on your old PC or non-gaming laptop.
- dubcanada 4y agoWhat is "cloud gaming"? Is that like GeForce Now and the failed Google Stadia?
- dagw 4y agoYes. If you have Gamepass on the Xbox you can, for many games, choose between installing a game locally or playing it "in the cloud". It's quite frankly a fantastic feature for all those time you want to try out a game, but don't want to clear 100 GB of free space on your Xbox hard drive to actually download the game.
- mFixman 4y agoAlso fantastic for those of us who only have a work laptop and don't want to buy an expensive console or PC to play the occasional video game.
- MikusR 4y agoYes. And one of the first things Microsoft did when they bought Bethesda was to remove their games from GeforceNow.
- schnitzelstoat 4y agoThey've made deals with GeforceNow to keep ATVI games on there though.
- InsomniacL 4y agoWhy can't Microsoft buy the services they want from Activision without buying Activision itself. The only reason I can think is to prevent others from using those services which is anti-competitive and harms the general public. I'm aware it happens all the time elsewhere.
- sylens 4y agoBecause they want King for the mobile gaming aspect. They were preparing to launch a mobile game store on iOS once sideloading is allowed (rumored to be soon in Europe if not everywhere)
- dzonga 4y agomaybe the CMA worded it wrongly in terms of cloud gaming. but the gist of it remains the same. Microsoft wants to weaken Sony's exclusive moat by buying their own big property to make it an exclusive down the line, thereby either increasing the value proposition of Game Pass, or Xbox cloud gaming anywhere. by now Microsoft already knows they're not going to catch up to Sony or Nintendo in terms of console sales. game pass is probably one of the best deals in entertainment though, and by that I mean all forms of entertainment whether sports, film, music etc.
- AlexandrB 4y ago> game pass is probably one of the best deals in entertainment though, and by that I mean all forms of entertainment whether sports, film, music etc. To me this says it's a subsidized loss leader and will get a whole lot crappier once Microsoft has a dominant position. What's annoying is that GeForce Now could be much better if publishers stopped blocking their games from appearing there under dubious legal pretense: https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-blizzard-pulls-games-from-nvidias-geforce-now https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-blizzard-pulls-games...
- web3-is-a-scam 4y agoIf you read the CMA's statement it is specifically about Cloud Gaming, so they didn't word it incorrectly. They are talking specifically about streaming games from a data center to a thin client.
- worrycue 4y agoI don’t understand why Microsoft doesn’t build up their exclusive library the way Sony does. Yes, it’s riskier but so what. Sony could do it. Microsoft definitely has the money to do it. Not to mention making former multi-platform franchises exclusive to their machines just makes everyone who isn’t in their camp hate them.
- kenjackson 4y agoHow does Sony do it? By paying smaller companies to do exclusive deals?
- haunter 4y ago"choice in cloud gaming" Big difference in context. I don't know why edited titles like this are allowed
- input_sh 4y ago> I don't know why edited titles like this are allowed They're not, but there's also a max length at play. The current headline right on the 80 character limit. If length is longer, you're supposed to condense it as truthfully to the original as possible.
- haunter 4y ago>If length is longer, you're supposed to condense it as truthfully to the original as possible. But there are ways to do that not buy leaving out literally the most important word. They are not concerned about the retail or digitial sales of games. They are concerned about the market share of GamePass and streaming market where after Google left pretty much only MS and Nvidia Geforce remained.
- doodlesdev 4y agoSony is also providing a cloud gaming service [0]. [0]: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps-now/ https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps-now/
- creshal 4y ago"MSFT/ATVI deal prevented to protect innovation and choice in cloud gaming" is 73 characters.
- joshgree8888888 4y agoCan someone explain to me how a UK regulator has the power to block a merger between two US companies - I get that they can say its blocked - but what kind of powers do they have to enforce it from not happening?
- sithadmin 4y agoThe CMA can block access to the UK market and impose fines amounting up to 10% of a firm's global revenue plus impose other requirements to restore access to the UK.
- pavlov 4y agoThey can issue fines to Microsoft UK and ultimately block Microsoft from the market. UK is 67 million people, so not as big as USA and EU, but significant enough that in balance it’s not worth the perpetual multi-year headache that Microsoft would have explaining the situation to shareholders if they were not to comply.
- joshgree8888888 4y agoThey would never be allowed to block Microsoft from the market though - the NHS runs on windows, and basically every other arm of our government - surely the fines wouldn't ever be more than the gain due to the merger?
- pavlov 4y agoIn antitrust fines are generally not capped, since the whole point is to make giant companies pay attention. The EU fined Google 2.4B euros in 2017, then 4.3B again the following year. Even for Google, 7 billion USD isn’t play money. A market block wouldn’t have to be all or nothing. Maybe start with the offending products: Activision games, Microsoft’s cloud gaming service, etc.
- sulkie 4y agoThe "merged" company wouldn't be able to legally operate in UK. Microsoft/Activision still have the option to merge but withdraw from UK
- cardosof 4y agoQuick question, why was the UK selected for this process? Also, Microsoft was directly involved in very successful games such as AoE, Flight Simulator, Dungeon Siege and Fable. I understand the management's desire to acquire every other IP in the industry but they really should focus on making their own stuff.
- no_wizard 4y agoCouldn't, in theory, Microsoft acquire a newly formed subsidary that is US based that owns Activision and its properties, also legally moved to the US, there by circumventing this? Basically, Activision would lease its UK IPs to the newly founded company, maintaining access (with extra steps I imagine, never the less), and Activision UK would technically be a separate entity
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago> Microsoft’s proposal contained a number of significant shortcomings connected with the growing and fast-moving nature of cloud gaming services: > [...] It was not sufficiently open to providers who might wish to offer versions of games on PC operating systems other than Windows. But Microsoft Loves Linux! They could not possibly be resorting to Ballmer-era techniques again, couldn't them? /s
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago> The UK cloud gaming market is growing fast. Monthly active users in the UK more than tripled from the start of 2021 to the end of 2022. It is forecast to be worth up to £11 billion globally and £1 billion in the UK by 2026. By way of comparison, sales of recorded music in the UK in 2021 amounted to £1.1billion. This seems disingenuous. Why not compare to the video game market as a whole? That appears to be currently worth around £8 billion in the UK.
- nickthegreek 4y agodupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35711968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35711968
- SkyMarshal 4y agoGive the current uninspired bean-counter leadership at Activision and turmoil at their major studio Blizzard, this acquisition seemed like it would be a net positive to innovation and choice in gaming. Microsoft is actually pretty good at games, has the deep pockets needed to make long-term investments in quality content that Blizzard at least seems to be struggling with atm (not sure about Activision’s other properties). I don’t follow gaming that closely though, is there some reason this acquisition is a net negative and needs intervention by regulators? Or is this a case of regulators misunderstanding the situation and the market?
- ldoughty 4y agoMaybe the council environment is different, but I generally feel Microsoft has more often killed the PC game franchises that they have acquired, hurting innovation and choice. The last 2 fallout games I can recall are a phone game and an MMO... And it took people bailing from the company (instead of the company supporting the initiative) to get Outer Worlds, which is the closest thing to Fallout. And then there's Skyrim... It's like MS acquires the intellectual property then goes DLC and/or MMO only. I don't think many games that I loved for PC survived any acquisition.. at least before Blizzard (so far)
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- zimpenfish 4y ago> Microsoft is actually pretty good at games Their lacklustre stewardship of Minecraft notwithstanding.
- ziml77 4y agoI agree. I was really hoping this would go through so Microsoft had some chance to keep Activision Blizzard from destroying itself. Dragonflight has been one of the best WoW expansions and yet the dev team continues to lose talent due to terrible management decisions from people who must neither understand video games nor people.
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- RamblingCTO 4y agoBoth buying publishers is a very, very bad thing for consumers. So very good decision! Want to make gamers happy? Stop with the exclusives, built better UX into the console and introduce cloud gaming. Consoles won't be a thing in 10 years anyway.
- blondie9x 4y agoThis is great for gamers. Bethesda/Zenimax Media and Bungie were ruined by Microsoft. Way too many of Microsoft acquisitions have actually made it harder to compete and stymied innovations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...
- Eumenes 4y agoCloud gaming. No thanks. This trend to requiring an internet connection to play offline games is spooky. Who TF wants that?
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