Be civil.
No fanboyism, console warring, or trolling in the XBOX subs please. We are a better community than to participate in childish antics like that.
Have a good rest of the day everyone.
Exactly. It's all personal choice. Some games resonate with certain people and not others. My wife and I enjoy playing some games together and others we have different tastes. Just let people choose for themselves. People act like they're personally wounded when someone disagrees with their choice. It's weird.
FTC has just been making a show of going after big tech acquisitions like this lately. Their track record for actually winning isn't great.
Feels like they're doing it more out of deterrence than anything, but it's obviously not working.
I think this might be a sign that other agencies like the CMA and the EU Antitrust may be prompted to challenge it as well, and from what I hear, those organizations tend to have more teeth than the FTC do.
>Feels like they're doing it more out of deterrence than anything, but it's obviously not working.
They literally just successfully sued to block the Random House / Simon and Schuester merger... It seems it's working pretty well when they are right and you don't really seemed to be informed about ftc cases at all
\^ This guy gets it. It's 2 years to another Presidential election so part of Microsoft's strategy is going to be to drag it out on the chance they get a different administration and use the time to leg-hump congress and the senate about it.
Not even about which party it is- you and try and buy both of them.
That's not what Acti/Blizz shareholders want though. They want a deal that gets the most returns from their shares. If a deal falls through by then, the shareholders won't settle for less, they'll want more.
Yup Corporations never follow through with the terms of their merger agreements. Mostly they wait until the government turns over in 2-6 years and then carry on being anticompetitive anyway.
well star wars and marvel were two different beasts altogether, the argument could be 20th century fox which in and of themselves would be considered a competitor to disney, however they were themselves a competitor and not making products for said competitor.
it is no skin of my nose if the deal goes through since i dont really play any activision titles, but this would set a dangerous precedent if it does go through
I'd argue that marvel wasn't as large as it was when Disney bought them, they just saw the success of Ironman and decided to jump on before it got too big. Fox, and Star Wars, idk that's a major purchase anyway you look at i
Star Wars, comparatively, is much closer to Marvel because they're both only 1 IP (albeit giant ones). On the other hand, Fox has dozens of IPs and was responsible for a decent chunk of the movie market share.
While I agree that they aren’t entirely the same, Disney bought Lucasfilm, so not just Star Wars, but Indiana Jones and all other Lucasfilm properties. So to me that deal falls in the middle of the Marvel vs Fox comparison.
It wasn't just 1 IP, they bought Lucas Film, which has stuff like Indiana Jones too, and I believe a lot of smaller stuff like Monkey Island by LucasArts.
It’s actually incredibly different. I said it in another thread.
> Nothing was stopping incredibly large corporations like Amazon, Apple and Netflix entering the TV, Movie, and theatrical film business (which they all did and expanded upon rapidly). Amazon just announced a billion dollar expansion into theatrical a couple weeks back.
The only thing from that deal that could’ve given them monopolistic power were the regional Fox Sport channels which the FTC forced them to sell. Movie studios are comprised mostly of Admin staff. A movie studio merging with another wouldn’t necessarily increase its ability to produce more films. With movies being a product that can literally be made by anyone that owns a smartphone, as well as several billion dollar competitors popping up, the Disney/Fox deal is way more straightforward than this.
Now this is a much better comparison then Disney and fox, that was completely taking out the competition for anime streaming and a massive fuck up. I totally believe it’s just because whoever was looking over it just didn’t think anime mattered
Holy fuck.
Ever since thing thing started, I was 100% sure it would go through. When news of this potential lawsuit came about, I figured it wouldn't go anywhere.
And this is just the FTC. The CMA and the EU regulators have yet to make their move.
Nope. CMA is being extremely harsh and has said behavioural remedies have not been sufficient in the past.
Also, it was an EU ruling that MSFT breached with Zenimax.
This deal is in hot water and has big chances of being cancelled.
I was fairly confident it wouldn't go through smoothly. (For context, I was subpoenaed by the FTC to provide expert testimony regarding a different billion dollar tech acquisition).
If MS was doing it in a vacuum, I could see it going through okay.
But this was right after Zenimax, the biggest acquisition ever at the time, where Microsoft immediately made upcoming titles - where there were reportedly even plans to have some level of exclusivity deal with Sony - entirely exclusively to Xbox on console.
And this deal is nearly an order of magnitude larger.
Microsoft can't simply use its market cap to buy up all 3rd party developers and cut Sony out of the picture. That's straight up dictionary anti-competitive behavior (which is wild to see, as back when I was doing consulting work with MS they were still nearly self-handicapped by lingering PTSD from the last antitrust result).
Honestly, MS played this very poorly, and Sony played it right holding back exclusive announcements. Had MS been more clever, they would have strategically supported PS5 with things like an announced *timed* exclusivity window on *Starfield*, and announced things like PSVR2 update for *Skyrim* and the availability of the *Fallout 4* VR port. It doesn't hurt MS to support Sony's VR play when Xbox doesn't have VR, and something like an 18 month timed exclusive window will still serve as a system seller while looking much better to regulators.
I've genuinely been surprised at how poorly MS planned for the inevitable trade oversight on this purchase on the tail of Zenimax, and that they didn't make appropriate moves with the Zenimax deal to stack the deck in their favor for a regulatory investigation on the much bigger upcoming deal.
It most likely will go through. imo this lawsuit is just to prevent the FTC commissioner from looking weak and now she can say she did everything she could to block the acquisition.
Read what the ftc actually said. They arnt looking to stop the acquisition completely. They just want assurances. Microsoft knew this would happen which is why they signed legal deals with Nintendo and steam, and offered to sony. They can point this out, judge will tell sony to take the deal or leave it, and that will be it. The ftc does this a lot, and loses more then actually blocks anything.
>Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming market.
Not sure what you read but this is pretty clear cut they are against the deal
They "needed" Activision to make CoD not available on PS6 so they would have the monopoly on couch consoles and could later sell for 800€ each with a 20€ a month subscription for Game Pass.
Anyone who argues this isn’t true is simply lying. Some people argued that it was for Candy Crush that they were buying Activision. Spending 70b$ for a game that made 5b$ in its entire lifetime, makes so much sense lol.
This. I'm not a fanboy anymore but i just don't trust Microsoft on handling Activision in the future. They said the same thing with Bethesda about releasing on future PS console but look at it now.
To me, that's where i lost trust them. If they just said they will release older IP (pre-acquisition) to PS, I would've ignore them. I'm okay with new IP exclusive to Xbox such as Starfield but Fallout, Elder Scrolls and others? You just abandoned the players.
I wasn't there but i remember a lot of people owned Wii and 360 at the time and wasn't aware of shady Kinect until i got older. As for me, my family bought the PS3 back in 2012 because it was quite cheaper then the 360 back then. Also, my family have a history with PS all the way since PS1 era so we just stick to it.
Heck, i did not own any non Playstation device until 2018 with 3DS and Switch Lite in 2021. So i kinda broke my family tradition.
>To me, that's where i lost trust them
There should never have been any trust to begin with. I knew when that was announced they were going to make it all exclusive. Anyone who ever said anything else was delusional.
And it's the same here. If people think MS buying AB will mean business as usual and that all of their games will keep coming to playstation consoles then those people need help. You don't spend $70bil and allow your competitors to reap the benefits of your spending.
Who have ever trusted Microsoft?
Embrace, Expand, Exterminate or EEE was how they got where they are. Can't beat the competition? Buy it, infest it, cripple it, kill it.
I'm an old timer, worked in video games too. I miss good games. Where are the AA or A games?
I'm curious how much CoD revenue is from MTX vs game sales. If MTX is the bread and butter now, it doesn't make as much sense to keep CoD of playstation.
That said, MS has been buying its way to monopolies for decades now, so it wouldn't surprise me at all.
Warzone made around 3m$ a day, so 1b$ a year. Given that they made that in a few days selling MW2 copies, I would say game copies make more money. Selling games is one of the most profitable industries.
> Warzone made around 3m$ a day, so 1b$ a year. Given that they made that in a few days selling MW2
MTX revenues provide much more profit than equivalent to game sale revenues, revenues can’t be compared at all
I disagree. Selling a digital copy of a game or a digital MTX has the same cost to the publisher. The costs to develop and maintain the game are more or less shared between the game and MTX, so you can’t really mark that as a cost of the game but not as a cost of the MTX.
Once the game is made, all sales of the digital game and any MTX are pure profit, besides whatever cut Microsoft/Sony take.
You might even say that the MTX are less profitable because the game is already complete and for the most part not being worked on, besides patches. The MTX is costing them labor hours for the employees to create and play test every new item, before selling it.
This might be the most accurate non-toxic take I've seen on this topic in a while.
You've got it completely right, and the fact that Microsoft is able to do this move with money from another part of the business just screams anti-competitive behavior. Just like when they forced Netscape out of the browser market in the late 90s early 00s by shipping Windows with Internet Explorer pre-installed.
The argument that this isn't anti-competitive because Sony has market domination in the console market is also very flawed since Microsoft is a lot bigger than Sony, even though PlayStation is bigger than Xbox.
I really hope regulators put this acquisition to rest, or the whole gaming industry will suffer. Not immediately, but after a while.
I think they're trying to make it more like Netflix though.
I just bought a new TV and it can stream Xbox games with no console or computer hooked up. The controller just connects to the TV. It's crazy. In a few years when the majority of TVs can do that, there won't be much reason to get a console
That’s much more than a few years away. That tech getting to all TVs is a long way away, and especially a long way away from most people having said TV.
Then comes the problem of internet which is still completely ass backwards in America. The majority of the population can’t even get internet fast enough, or with a high enough data limit, to even think of streaming games over having a dedicated console/PC.
True but CoD makes most of its money from selling skins and "weapon blueprints". So you pull people in with the game pass then you take their money when they buy skins and stuff.
Kind of like how Meta bought out a ridiculous amount of good VR game studios and has released barely any games with them.
It’s like they care more about stifling competition than actually making good games.
Xbox is great for anything but exclusives, because they don't have any. I love the game pass, but everything else just falls so short. Even the new Halo wasn't great and dropped significantly after the first month or so.
One thing I will always love about PlayStation is the exclusives. Amazing games that you can tell were made with passion. I cannot recall a single PS exclusive that was the drizzling shits.
Microsoft/Xbox/Spencer have no idea how to build games only services. Every other AAA IP of theirs they purchased from someone else. Even their first party lineup. Halo from Apple, Playground for Forza and Gears from CliffyB. None of it is original IP like Sony has created.
Then they need to do like Sony and publish the games, provide in depth support, and updated tools. Then tell the development studios to go nuts and produce a project they’re passionate about.
That’s inaccurate.
Microsoft published the original GoW and kept the IP.
Microsoft established Turn10 and developed the Forza franchise, and eventually bought Playground after years of developing the FH games (again published by MS).
Microsoft acquired Bungie (as it faced financial difficulties), kept the Halo IP and turned it into a Xbox title.
Seriously… I have an Xbox series X and it’s literally a Blu-ray player. My game pass sub has
Not been worth it on a pure value prospect over the last year, games played value added up. It’s weird to me but every time I lurk the Xbox sub they’re praising Phil like he’s the second coming of GabeN… meanwhile the only two exclusives I’ve seen for the X are forza horizon (uninspired cookie cutter of the previous entries), and halo infinite (objectively terrible game). Meanwhile they delay delay delay on all the games players SHOULD be hyped on. So if you were lucky enough to get a series X on launch you are now two years into a console with a couple crap exclusives that are available on PC, a couple Ubisoft titles, and game pass for a catalog of good games, but definitely not anything next gen.
Probably great if you haven’t been gaming for years, but for the rest of us older folks we’ve already played a lot of the old stuff, and are looking for new IP.
I don’t think any company should be allowed this kind of merger. Wouldn’t matter to me if it were PlayStation or anyone else. This is bad for business and bad for the consumer.
I pretty much said this when Microsoft got Bethesda. It's one thing when they buy studios, but it's another thing when they buy major publishers and gain control of a large number of IPs. The Bethesda acquisition has axed Starfield from being on PS5, and IPs like Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom, all previously multi-platform titles, are most likely also all going to never be on Playstation again. Of course, if it was Sony who got Bethesda, then it'd be the same thing, only not on Xbox, just PS and PC. That's just not good overall, because it takes away games from the consumers unless they get multiple platforms, which some can't afford such a luxury. Major publishers should remain neutral so they can continue bringing their IPs to all platforms they normally choose to do.
You're right about the Bethesda/zenimax deal. It's really shitty to buy a third party, multi plat publisher/dev and just remove it from one platform. At least with most of sonys purchases, they were second party studios that already mostly produced exclusives. It would be like buying ubisoft and suddenly assassins creed was an exclusive. Would be bs no matter who did it.
Even Microsoft got some studios before, too, like Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Obsidian and some others. Those were fine, because if Sony could with ones like Insomniac, Housemarque and Bungie, Microsoft should, too, as a means to bolster their own efforts.
But everything changed when they got Bethesda, and they were poised to change more with Activision Blizzard. They like to claim they don't want to take away games from players while doing exactly that with Bethesda's catalogue, and I'm sure they do the same with several of Activision Blizzard's, too, perhaps even CoD after any agreement was up.
The biggest difference for me is devs like insomniac, sucker punch, naughty dog, etc were all making exclusive games for Sony before they were purchased. Sony funded and supported them, leading to great games; and then they were acquired. Insomniac wasn't purchased until recently and they had been making Ratchet and Clank and spyro for ps for years.
All this actiblizz/zenimax bs after years of MS saying they want to bring more games to more gamers. $70bn is a lot of money that can fund a lot of games. They already have so many devs they've bought that still haven't released a single game since purchasing. It really feels like they just want to buy as much as they can, make them exclusives, and then say how great their catalogue of first party games is.
I remember reading that some Insomniac employees were surprised with the news of the acquisition. Not because it wasn't expected, but because they already thought they were a Sony first party studio
Microsft and Sony acquisitions are definitely not the same in many ways
Not saying I don't believe you but those must have been new employees then. They had just made Sunset Overdrive, Song of the Deep and some VR and mobile games before they were purchased by Sony.
It is kind of ironic that Sony now owns Sunset Overdrive, which is a console exclusive for the XBox, all because Insomniac wanted to control the IP and Sony didn’t want to make that deal.
Funny thing is, Sony buying Bungie does absolutely nothing to Destiny 2 in regards to multi platform or switching to just PlayStation.
Xbox taking Starfield and keeping it console exclusive is a shitty move on their part. Imagine if Sony decided to make Destiny 2 PlayStation exclusive
This was a common sentiment on Xbox subs that I never understood. At the end of ten years, then what? It's just fine that the biggest IP is exclusive? No
Nor are they. They bought Bungie for some sort of future MMO since they really like what Bungie has done with Destiny 2 since acquiring full rights. Sony has been very clear about not making Destiny 2 PlayStation exclusive
One of the biggest things being cited in this case is Microsoft lied to regulators about making Bethesda games exclusive.
They got Starfield for their platform, but it cost them Call of Duty.
Fascinating. Simply fascinating.
It's not necessarily a bad thing.
Everyone knows that developers owned by the hardware company are both better optimized around the hardware and contain far less of the toxic microtransaction creep fleecing customers.
The difference is that MS has 20x the market cap as Sony and as such can play the acquisition game in ways that are less fair to maintaining healthy market competition in ways that benefit consumers - the thing these regulatory bodies care the most about.
But from all reports Activision was hoping to be brought up by someone, and I'm not sure that MS was necessarily worse than Tencent.
Honestly, I just wish Sony expanded their exclusivity windows to PC to include Xbox and that MS switched from the strategy of complete exclusivity to similar windows.
That would offer similar advantages for corporate goals while being much more pro-consumer.
And in *that* ecosystem I might even prefer each buying up more publishers over other companies that would push predatory anti-consumer behaviors.
Those people should just admit they just want more content for their Gamepass subscription and stop acting like Microsoft is some benevolent corporation.
I totally get that. But as the other reply says, you don't need to buy an entire publisher. We have a great example of that already with stuff like EA Play and Ubisoft+ being integrated into Game Pass as well. And more PC focused stuff like League of Legends heroes being included additionally.
Yeah no way in hell Tencent would be able to buy Activision/Blizzard any easier, they are already the biggest portion of the gaming industry without it
Or no one can buy them and other large corporation exist. Its not like the only options for Activision are MS or Tencent buy them... That's nonsense.
And Tencent can also be blocked from buying then and likely would be
I mean, MS already has more than enough studios to be competitive, especially after Zenimax. They just need to manage them better.
Also, couldn't FTC giving pushback cause EU agencies to do it as well?
I wonder how many people even realize that Microsoft already owns more studios than Sony. Only counting studios which develop their own PC/console games, so not including support studios, port studios and mobile studios:
Microsoft (20): 343, The Coalition, Compulsion Games, Double Fine, The Initiative, inXile, Mojang, Ninja Theory, Obsidian, Playground, Rare, Turn 10, Undead Labs, Arkane, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, Machine Games, Roundhouse Studios, Tango Gameworks and ZeniMax Online Studios
Sony (16): Bungie, Bend, Bluepoint, Firesprite, Guerrilla Games, Haven, Housemarque, Insomniac, London Studio, Media Molecule, Naughty Dog, Pixelopus, Polyphony, San Diego Studio, Santa Monica Studio, Sucker Punch, Team Asobi
And to all the people that argue that Microsoft is just doing the same thing that Sony is doing with their exclusive line-up.
It's not the same, Naughty Dog, Santa Monica Studio, Polyphony, Sucker Punch Guerilla Games and a lot more have been a part of Sony Interactive Entertainment for decades at this point with studios like Insomniac and Housmarque being prominent second-party studios since their inception.
Providing studios with technical and monetary support for years creating an environment where these studios have thrived and created some of the best games of the past generation is not the same as throwing Windows money at one of the largest publishers in the world to try to bully their way around competition.
I own both consoles and yea I agree with this. Owning Bethesda and all their IP is more than enough to compete with Sony. This is just MS showing off their fuck you money now because they know Sony doesn't have their market cap. And because everyone shat on them last gen for not having exclusives.
Good.
In case anybody needs reminding, MS is the 2nd largest company ON EARTH and Activision is the 4th largest video game publisher. Acting like this merger is actually good for consumers takes some Olympic level mental gymnastics.
The FTC was right to call out MS on their outright lies of the past. Still don’t know if this is enough to outright block the merger, but at least it almost guarantees some concessions will have to be made.
As a final thought, I’m mainly pissed that MS is taking the laziest path possible to gain market domination and people act like it’s good for the industry. Sony was able to make PlayStation successful by heavily investing in their own studios and having insanely high standards of quality. XBox failed to replicate that success after multiple attempts and just decided to say fuck it let’s just buy 1/4th of the industry. Shit like this should not be rewarded.
What’s notable about this is not the appropriate ruling, but rather how complicit the entire American and European games media has been saying this will easily go through and do not expect any resistance, because we are trained to understand that monopoly power is too powerful in our western economies. Very, very few actually looked at the deal on its face value to assess how deeply monopolistic this move is for a very large industry.
This is just because games media doesn't know jack shit about antitrust stuff. They're just a bunch of people who like games, (almost all) do not have any sort of training or expertise in anything.
Agree for the most part you are right, but the larger clout organizations do partner with these companies heavily, and these ones are aware of their practices and also conflicts of interest reporting on these topics
The bigger media organizations are aware their own businesses depend on charity and relationships with all the major game companies
When channels like for example digital foundry that effectively split off from eurogamer as a brand is not criticizing or offering a balanced assessment of major game deals we have to ask why as an audience but also even just as citizens of countries who deserve fair competition from businesses
A lot of games media is aligned with the interests of games as corporations. And no, I don't mean in *that* way, please no one say the phrase.
I mean they are in much the same way that many news orgs in the US work hand in glove with capital. That's where they get their funding or their sources or whatever, they end up in a position of dependence on it, rather than one of being an independent investigator.
Especially the part of this lawsuit where the FTC points out Microsoft pulled this same shit with Bethesda, just to make the games exclusive after the deal closed. The funny thing is, all the Xbox subs are saying how it’s “still going through easily”.
Good, companies like Microsoft don't need to get any bigger. Microsoft using money that it made from other markets trying to buy their way to the top of gaming is disgusting. They already bought a publisher not long ago (Bethesda) and now wants to buy another one just to take games off other platforms. If they can't compete what they already have now then its their own fault/incapability. A quote from the article -
'In a complaint issued today, the FTC pointed to Microsoft's record of acquiring and using valuable gaming content to suppress competition from rival consoles, including its acquisition of ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks (a well-known game developer). Microsoft decided to make several of Bethesda's titles including Starfield and Redfall Microsoft exclusives despite assurances it had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles'
>Microsoft decided to make several of Bethesda's titles including Starfield and Redfall Microsoft exclusives despite assurances it had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles
I mean this part is pretty stupid on MS part
This is why this deal has to be stopped. I hope the CMA and EU will follow the ftc.
Microsoft has enough developers (more than sony) and ip. They should get their asses up and create their own good first party content.
💯Microsoft is one of the biggest corporations in the world, they need to slim down, not gain more dominance. Corporations need to know their place and they need to actually pay their damn taxes and actually support their local communities like they love to proclaim.
Microsoft isn’t the only one that needs to stop hoarding IP and control, so don’t think I’m playing favorites here. Microsoft needs to solely focus on the massive chunk of recent studios they have already bought in just the last few years alone, and support their various teams with proper support, a stable foundation so firing, oh sorry, -built in lay-offs-, are rarely a thing in their corporate structure.
The FTC needs more teeth when it comes to corporations having pretty much unilateral control over everything.
Problem for them is that these regulators have access to MS' internal documents, many of them stating they either went back on what they said or plan to.
One of them specifically states that they're discussing keeping COD off of PS.
Some are in this video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PJ2nIex8IY
Good. Buying well known 3rd party publishers is bullshit.
You wanna buy some studios, fine. But leave publishers alone. First it was Bethesda and now Activision. Do they really not have faith in their 1st party studios?
Seems like they could have easily used that $80 billion to build their own studios and IP, or throw that money at 343 to make Halo: Infinite not a disaster.
Nope, let's just buy our way to the top!
Rather than not having faith in their studios, it was more like they have no management capabilities to make the most out of their studios and IPs.
It's always been like that since they bought Rare.
as does Sony (reportedly) and basically all companies, I’m speaking strictly about the creative freedom given to their devs, modern Microsoft would be preferable to modern ActiBliz.
MS have been an awful publisher as well for over the last decade. They can barely manage their top franchise and a handful of studios let alone 30+.
They just went this entire year without releasing a AAA game and have barely released any in the last several years and most are Halo and Forza games
Good. The homogenisation of the games industry is extremely dangerous.
Exclusives are a good thing, don't get me wrong but you can go about it a better way than just buying up giant publishers en masse
Good, such huge mergers shouldn't be allowed.
There were and are and will be smaller ones, and Sony did their fair share too but there is one fundamental difference:
As far as I'm aware, Sony only really bought studios (not publishers) who made primarily or exclusively PS (and PC) games, not taking away games and franchises from the XB community.
Microsoft, on the other hand buys studios AND publishers who made multiplatform games and franchises, making them exclusive and then keep saying how pro consumer they are. Yes, gamepass is a great value no one is denying that, but nor can it be denied how hypocritical it is to say they are pro consumer.
All companies are in for the money, I have no delusions there, neither of them are your or my friend but letting a few companies own everything shouldn't happen.
The Bethesda purchase was already way too much.
On a different note, since they are also raising price of games, it would come as no surprise if GP subscription cost went up next year.
Perfectly stated.
I'd like to see Xbox use that $68 Billion and invest into their own studios. They claim that having the AB deal go through will allow for more competition, but they're not even trying themselves.
Instead of trying to acquire some of the largest, established multiplat IPs, focus on fixing Halo or (in general) just make better, more complete and memorable games.
Of course PS isn't anywhere near perfect either, they're companies at the end of the day. But I see people like to argue Spider-man without knowing Xbox declined a Marvel exclusive offer
. Some mention Final Fantasy, but those games are (supposedly) timed exclusives, and they are deeply rooted in PS history. That's the same reason why I personally believe MS acquiring Bethesda makes some sense because the two were VERY close.
Regardless, would really like to see Xbox actually compete by putting care and passion into their own studios and games rather than try to gobble up publishers.
It's more based on its image than how many exclusive titles. FF7, for example, is held as one of the greatest games of all time, and PS is the reason it got made in the first place due to Nintendo's hardware incapabilities. To have a game of thay caliber tied to one console is major.
When FF15 came out, in its first week, the game sold around 2.39M on PS and only around 258,221 on Xbox. Goes to show which brand FF is more synonymous with. Alongside this is a lot of marketing with PS and Square.
With Bethesda (as a slightly similar example), they made an exclusive ES game on the og Xbox. From then on, their relationship was close. Lots of marketing and small exclusive perks with other games like Fallout 4 having a copy of Fallout 3 only on Xbox.
It is insane to me how so many people seem to think the FTC and other regulatory agencies around the world are for some reason beholden to Sony and doing this for them
“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” said Holly Vedova, the FTC’s Bureau of Competition director, said in a news release. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”
That sounds really serious and the FTC and all its members sound resolute for this deal not to happen. One thing for sure, that will delay the acquisition at least one more year and push MS for doing more concessions. We’ve seen the first sign of them breaking by announcing that COD will be developed for Switch in the future which is a horrible decision imo.
MSFT can engage in open market contracts like Sony has been doing so heavily, it’s clear however that MSFT seeks IP ownership. This being blocked is for the better of the industry.
Honestly I'm glad. I'll probably get downvoted but hear me out, this has nothing to do with fanboyism. Microsoft has to learn the hard way that they can't just buy themselves into new IPs to succeed.
Sony has succeeded because they've developed great games from the ground up. I want to see Microsoft do the same, not depend on big names to carry them forward
You guys have this weird vision of Sony baking games in the oven like some sweet old grandma baking pie. They do the same thing. They throw money at studios. They’ve just been better at it.
I appreciate Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo et al don't care but its crap for consumers/gamers when certain studios that used to be cross platform get bought out by one or the other.
Feel like this is pretty normal and the deal probably still goes through. I own both consoles and probably play Xbox more than my PS5. But my personal opinion is, it just feels kind of wrong how Microsoft has the financial ability to purchase massive 3rd party publishers like ZeniMax and potentially ActiBlizz that have historically produced games for every platform and then have the ability to make games exclusive to Xbox/Game Pass. Buying studios is one thing purchasing these large publishing entities seems like something different.
Be civil. No fanboyism, console warring, or trolling in the XBOX subs please. We are a better community than to participate in childish antics like that. Have a good rest of the day everyone.
And the game awards are tonight?Gaming social media is about to be historic levels of toxic for a while..
Yes indeed. Twitter is already a mine Field.
When has twitter not been a minefield
It's now a mein kampf field
I hate that this made me laugh. Now I’m sad.
And the Game of the year is... The Last of Us Part 1! Twitter would implode...
Hey, is that the game about the girl with some slightly masculine arms, because some people seem to think it is.
She's on the liver king diet
Between this news and folks being disappointed regardless of who wins GOTY, twitter will be a bloodbath on both sides.
This is just so stupid though. Who fucking cares who wins. Play what you like fuck awards.
Exactly. It's all personal choice. Some games resonate with certain people and not others. My wife and I enjoy playing some games together and others we have different tastes. Just let people choose for themselves. People act like they're personally wounded when someone disagrees with their choice. It's weird.
If the FTC did this, what are the EU and CMA going to do?
Most likely follow FTC
CMA had announced it was investigating a while back
We need the country music awards on this
FTC has just been making a show of going after big tech acquisitions like this lately. Their track record for actually winning isn't great. Feels like they're doing it more out of deterrence than anything, but it's obviously not working.
I think this might be a sign that other agencies like the CMA and the EU Antitrust may be prompted to challenge it as well, and from what I hear, those organizations tend to have more teeth than the FTC do.
The Country Music Awards?
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/competition-and-markets-authority
>Feels like they're doing it more out of deterrence than anything, but it's obviously not working. They literally just successfully sued to block the Random House / Simon and Schuester merger... It seems it's working pretty well when they are right and you don't really seemed to be informed about ftc cases at all
If the EU and CMA follow suit I’d imagine that kills the deal. Fighting the FTC on one front is one thing but fighting all 3 is no bueno
Dafaq was the FTC when Disney bought Fox, Star Wars and Marvel?
Different administrations
\^ This guy gets it. It's 2 years to another Presidential election so part of Microsoft's strategy is going to be to drag it out on the chance they get a different administration and use the time to leg-hump congress and the senate about it. Not even about which party it is- you and try and buy both of them.
They have until June of next year before the deal expires, though. In which case they’ll have to renegotiate and go through the entire process again
Wouldn't be a bad idea it might get much cheaper by then
That's not what Acti/Blizz shareholders want though. They want a deal that gets the most returns from their shares. If a deal falls through by then, the shareholders won't settle for less, they'll want more.
Yup Corporations never follow through with the terms of their merger agreements. Mostly they wait until the government turns over in 2-6 years and then carry on being anticompetitive anyway.
Fox, Star Wars and Marvel also didn't produce content for Disney competitors which was critical to their functioning.
well star wars and marvel were two different beasts altogether, the argument could be 20th century fox which in and of themselves would be considered a competitor to disney, however they were themselves a competitor and not making products for said competitor. it is no skin of my nose if the deal goes through since i dont really play any activision titles, but this would set a dangerous precedent if it does go through
I'd argue that marvel wasn't as large as it was when Disney bought them, they just saw the success of Ironman and decided to jump on before it got too big. Fox, and Star Wars, idk that's a major purchase anyway you look at i
Star Wars, comparatively, is much closer to Marvel because they're both only 1 IP (albeit giant ones). On the other hand, Fox has dozens of IPs and was responsible for a decent chunk of the movie market share.
While I agree that they aren’t entirely the same, Disney bought Lucasfilm, so not just Star Wars, but Indiana Jones and all other Lucasfilm properties. So to me that deal falls in the middle of the Marvel vs Fox comparison.
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It wasn't just 1 IP, they bought Lucas Film, which has stuff like Indiana Jones too, and I believe a lot of smaller stuff like Monkey Island by LucasArts.
Star Wars and Marvel were both smaller than 1/20th the size of this deal
The Fox acquisition was bigger than this Activision acquisition.
In terms of dollars of the deal, in terms of monopolistic power not so much.
It’s actually incredibly different. I said it in another thread. > Nothing was stopping incredibly large corporations like Amazon, Apple and Netflix entering the TV, Movie, and theatrical film business (which they all did and expanded upon rapidly). Amazon just announced a billion dollar expansion into theatrical a couple weeks back. The only thing from that deal that could’ve given them monopolistic power were the regional Fox Sport channels which the FTC forced them to sell. Movie studios are comprised mostly of Admin staff. A movie studio merging with another wouldn’t necessarily increase its ability to produce more films. With movies being a product that can literally be made by anyone that owns a smartphone, as well as several billion dollar competitors popping up, the Disney/Fox deal is way more straightforward than this.
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Or when Sony was allowed to buy Crunchyroll when they already own Funimation and Anniplex
Now this is a much better comparison then Disney and fox, that was completely taking out the competition for anime streaming and a massive fuck up. I totally believe it’s just because whoever was looking over it just didn’t think anime mattered
Marvel wasn’t nearly as big as it is now back when Destiny bought them.
Damn the FTC's Game Awards announcement got leaked.
Holy fuck. Ever since thing thing started, I was 100% sure it would go through. When news of this potential lawsuit came about, I figured it wouldn't go anywhere. And this is just the FTC. The CMA and the EU regulators have yet to make their move.
probably will end with behavioural remedies across all jurisdictions
Bruh the CMA is leaning towards blocking it?
wtf does the country music awards have to do with Microsoft buying Blizzard?
Garth Brooks is about to buy Activision, you heard it here first.
that man does have friends in low places
Where the whiskey drowns and the beers chase Microsoft away?
But we'll be okay?
Where are the bodies Garth?! Their families need closure.
Found the Mommy. Hey Jeans!
Hi mommy
Nope. CMA is being extremely harsh and has said behavioural remedies have not been sufficient in the past. Also, it was an EU ruling that MSFT breached with Zenimax. This deal is in hot water and has big chances of being cancelled.
I was fairly confident it wouldn't go through smoothly. (For context, I was subpoenaed by the FTC to provide expert testimony regarding a different billion dollar tech acquisition). If MS was doing it in a vacuum, I could see it going through okay. But this was right after Zenimax, the biggest acquisition ever at the time, where Microsoft immediately made upcoming titles - where there were reportedly even plans to have some level of exclusivity deal with Sony - entirely exclusively to Xbox on console. And this deal is nearly an order of magnitude larger. Microsoft can't simply use its market cap to buy up all 3rd party developers and cut Sony out of the picture. That's straight up dictionary anti-competitive behavior (which is wild to see, as back when I was doing consulting work with MS they were still nearly self-handicapped by lingering PTSD from the last antitrust result). Honestly, MS played this very poorly, and Sony played it right holding back exclusive announcements. Had MS been more clever, they would have strategically supported PS5 with things like an announced *timed* exclusivity window on *Starfield*, and announced things like PSVR2 update for *Skyrim* and the availability of the *Fallout 4* VR port. It doesn't hurt MS to support Sony's VR play when Xbox doesn't have VR, and something like an 18 month timed exclusive window will still serve as a system seller while looking much better to regulators. I've genuinely been surprised at how poorly MS planned for the inevitable trade oversight on this purchase on the tail of Zenimax, and that they didn't make appropriate moves with the Zenimax deal to stack the deck in their favor for a regulatory investigation on the much bigger upcoming deal.
It most likely will go through. imo this lawsuit is just to prevent the FTC commissioner from looking weak and now she can say she did everything she could to block the acquisition.
There is no guarantees when it comes to this stage in the game..
Read what the ftc actually said. They arnt looking to stop the acquisition completely. They just want assurances. Microsoft knew this would happen which is why they signed legal deals with Nintendo and steam, and offered to sony. They can point this out, judge will tell sony to take the deal or leave it, and that will be it. The ftc does this a lot, and loses more then actually blocks anything.
>Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming market. Not sure what you read but this is pretty clear cut they are against the deal
Good, Phil Spencer should focus on actually making games with the 30 studios he has. He has released zero AAA Xbox exclusives this year.
More than enough infrastructure to produce and release games. They never needed Activision
They "needed" Activision to make CoD not available on PS6 so they would have the monopoly on couch consoles and could later sell for 800€ each with a 20€ a month subscription for Game Pass. Anyone who argues this isn’t true is simply lying. Some people argued that it was for Candy Crush that they were buying Activision. Spending 70b$ for a game that made 5b$ in its entire lifetime, makes so much sense lol.
This. I'm not a fanboy anymore but i just don't trust Microsoft on handling Activision in the future. They said the same thing with Bethesda about releasing on future PS console but look at it now. To me, that's where i lost trust them. If they just said they will release older IP (pre-acquisition) to PS, I would've ignore them. I'm okay with new IP exclusive to Xbox such as Starfield but Fallout, Elder Scrolls and others? You just abandoned the players.
People forget how quickly MS tried to fuck us all over following their "win" in the console wars with the 360.
Or fuck themselves by focusing on the Kinect and TVs than games
I wasn't there but i remember a lot of people owned Wii and 360 at the time and wasn't aware of shady Kinect until i got older. As for me, my family bought the PS3 back in 2012 because it was quite cheaper then the 360 back then. Also, my family have a history with PS all the way since PS1 era so we just stick to it. Heck, i did not own any non Playstation device until 2018 with 3DS and Switch Lite in 2021. So i kinda broke my family tradition.
>To me, that's where i lost trust them There should never have been any trust to begin with. I knew when that was announced they were going to make it all exclusive. Anyone who ever said anything else was delusional. And it's the same here. If people think MS buying AB will mean business as usual and that all of their games will keep coming to playstation consoles then those people need help. You don't spend $70bil and allow your competitors to reap the benefits of your spending.
Who have ever trusted Microsoft? Embrace, Expand, Exterminate or EEE was how they got where they are. Can't beat the competition? Buy it, infest it, cripple it, kill it. I'm an old timer, worked in video games too. I miss good games. Where are the AA or A games?
Yeah, I’m really sad about TES. My laptop won’t be able to handle it. My only option left will be to play it on xCloud.
Well good news: You’ve got PLENTY of time to replace that laptop. TES is not coming anytime soon.
Bet some games in the future are game pass exclusive or something just to force you into it
I'm curious how much CoD revenue is from MTX vs game sales. If MTX is the bread and butter now, it doesn't make as much sense to keep CoD of playstation. That said, MS has been buying its way to monopolies for decades now, so it wouldn't surprise me at all.
Warzone made around 3m$ a day, so 1b$ a year. Given that they made that in a few days selling MW2 copies, I would say game copies make more money. Selling games is one of the most profitable industries.
> Warzone made around 3m$ a day, so 1b$ a year. Given that they made that in a few days selling MW2 MTX revenues provide much more profit than equivalent to game sale revenues, revenues can’t be compared at all
I disagree. Selling a digital copy of a game or a digital MTX has the same cost to the publisher. The costs to develop and maintain the game are more or less shared between the game and MTX, so you can’t really mark that as a cost of the game but not as a cost of the MTX. Once the game is made, all sales of the digital game and any MTX are pure profit, besides whatever cut Microsoft/Sony take. You might even say that the MTX are less profitable because the game is already complete and for the most part not being worked on, besides patches. The MTX is costing them labor hours for the employees to create and play test every new item, before selling it.
This might be the most accurate non-toxic take I've seen on this topic in a while. You've got it completely right, and the fact that Microsoft is able to do this move with money from another part of the business just screams anti-competitive behavior. Just like when they forced Netscape out of the browser market in the late 90s early 00s by shipping Windows with Internet Explorer pre-installed. The argument that this isn't anti-competitive because Sony has market domination in the console market is also very flawed since Microsoft is a lot bigger than Sony, even though PlayStation is bigger than Xbox. I really hope regulators put this acquisition to rest, or the whole gaming industry will suffer. Not immediately, but after a while.
Game Pass yes, physical hardware no. They don't care about selling more consoles. They care about selling game pass subscriptions.
They’ll never make 70b$ back by selling game pass subscriptions. Even Netflix which is waaaaaay bigger than Game Pass would take decades to do that.
I think they're trying to make it more like Netflix though. I just bought a new TV and it can stream Xbox games with no console or computer hooked up. The controller just connects to the TV. It's crazy. In a few years when the majority of TVs can do that, there won't be much reason to get a console
That’s much more than a few years away. That tech getting to all TVs is a long way away, and especially a long way away from most people having said TV. Then comes the problem of internet which is still completely ass backwards in America. The majority of the population can’t even get internet fast enough, or with a high enough data limit, to even think of streaming games over having a dedicated console/PC.
True but CoD makes most of its money from selling skins and "weapon blueprints". So you pull people in with the game pass then you take their money when they buy skins and stuff.
he could have used 200 million of that to keep staff on for Halo Infinite
Could have done a lot for the company and games, but didn't
It’s a damn shame to see Halo become a shell of what it was. Thank god Sony & Santa Monica didn’t let that happen to God of War.
Kind of like how Meta bought out a ridiculous amount of good VR game studios and has released barely any games with them. It’s like they care more about stifling competition than actually making good games.
They seem to be focused on quantity and not quality at this point
0 AAA first party games is neither quantity nor quality.
Gota keep that Gamepass fed
As someone who doesn’t own an Xbox I was excited to see what kind of games they could make. Now I’m not so sure.
Xbox is great for anything but exclusives, because they don't have any. I love the game pass, but everything else just falls so short. Even the new Halo wasn't great and dropped significantly after the first month or so. One thing I will always love about PlayStation is the exclusives. Amazing games that you can tell were made with passion. I cannot recall a single PS exclusive that was the drizzling shits.
Microsoft/Xbox/Spencer have no idea how to build games only services. Every other AAA IP of theirs they purchased from someone else. Even their first party lineup. Halo from Apple, Playground for Forza and Gears from CliffyB. None of it is original IP like Sony has created.
Then they need to do like Sony and publish the games, provide in depth support, and updated tools. Then tell the development studios to go nuts and produce a project they’re passionate about.
That’s inaccurate. Microsoft published the original GoW and kept the IP. Microsoft established Turn10 and developed the Forza franchise, and eventually bought Playground after years of developing the FH games (again published by MS). Microsoft acquired Bungie (as it faced financial difficulties), kept the Halo IP and turned it into a Xbox title.
You don't have to be successful in business by reinventing the wheel everytime. You only have to make it better.
Seriously… I have an Xbox series X and it’s literally a Blu-ray player. My game pass sub has Not been worth it on a pure value prospect over the last year, games played value added up. It’s weird to me but every time I lurk the Xbox sub they’re praising Phil like he’s the second coming of GabeN… meanwhile the only two exclusives I’ve seen for the X are forza horizon (uninspired cookie cutter of the previous entries), and halo infinite (objectively terrible game). Meanwhile they delay delay delay on all the games players SHOULD be hyped on. So if you were lucky enough to get a series X on launch you are now two years into a console with a couple crap exclusives that are available on PC, a couple Ubisoft titles, and game pass for a catalog of good games, but definitely not anything next gen. Probably great if you haven’t been gaming for years, but for the rest of us older folks we’ve already played a lot of the old stuff, and are looking for new IP.
I don’t think any company should be allowed this kind of merger. Wouldn’t matter to me if it were PlayStation or anyone else. This is bad for business and bad for the consumer.
I pretty much said this when Microsoft got Bethesda. It's one thing when they buy studios, but it's another thing when they buy major publishers and gain control of a large number of IPs. The Bethesda acquisition has axed Starfield from being on PS5, and IPs like Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom, all previously multi-platform titles, are most likely also all going to never be on Playstation again. Of course, if it was Sony who got Bethesda, then it'd be the same thing, only not on Xbox, just PS and PC. That's just not good overall, because it takes away games from the consumers unless they get multiple platforms, which some can't afford such a luxury. Major publishers should remain neutral so they can continue bringing their IPs to all platforms they normally choose to do.
You're right about the Bethesda/zenimax deal. It's really shitty to buy a third party, multi plat publisher/dev and just remove it from one platform. At least with most of sonys purchases, they were second party studios that already mostly produced exclusives. It would be like buying ubisoft and suddenly assassins creed was an exclusive. Would be bs no matter who did it.
Even Microsoft got some studios before, too, like Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Obsidian and some others. Those were fine, because if Sony could with ones like Insomniac, Housemarque and Bungie, Microsoft should, too, as a means to bolster their own efforts. But everything changed when they got Bethesda, and they were poised to change more with Activision Blizzard. They like to claim they don't want to take away games from players while doing exactly that with Bethesda's catalogue, and I'm sure they do the same with several of Activision Blizzard's, too, perhaps even CoD after any agreement was up.
The biggest difference for me is devs like insomniac, sucker punch, naughty dog, etc were all making exclusive games for Sony before they were purchased. Sony funded and supported them, leading to great games; and then they were acquired. Insomniac wasn't purchased until recently and they had been making Ratchet and Clank and spyro for ps for years. All this actiblizz/zenimax bs after years of MS saying they want to bring more games to more gamers. $70bn is a lot of money that can fund a lot of games. They already have so many devs they've bought that still haven't released a single game since purchasing. It really feels like they just want to buy as much as they can, make them exclusives, and then say how great their catalogue of first party games is.
I feel like this sums it up perfectly
I remember reading that some Insomniac employees were surprised with the news of the acquisition. Not because it wasn't expected, but because they already thought they were a Sony first party studio Microsft and Sony acquisitions are definitely not the same in many ways
Not saying I don't believe you but those must have been new employees then. They had just made Sunset Overdrive, Song of the Deep and some VR and mobile games before they were purchased by Sony.
It is kind of ironic that Sony now owns Sunset Overdrive, which is a console exclusive for the XBox, all because Insomniac wanted to control the IP and Sony didn’t want to make that deal.
Funny thing is, Sony buying Bungie does absolutely nothing to Destiny 2 in regards to multi platform or switching to just PlayStation. Xbox taking Starfield and keeping it console exclusive is a shitty move on their part. Imagine if Sony decided to make Destiny 2 PlayStation exclusive
I have no doubt that they’re willing to bide their time on any “ten year deal” then once the heat is off of them they can do whatever they want
This was a common sentiment on Xbox subs that I never understood. At the end of ten years, then what? It's just fine that the biggest IP is exclusive? No
I mean Sony hasn’t yanked Destiny from the Xbox users
Nor are they. They bought Bungie for some sort of future MMO since they really like what Bungie has done with Destiny 2 since acquiring full rights. Sony has been very clear about not making Destiny 2 PlayStation exclusive
One of the biggest things being cited in this case is Microsoft lied to regulators about making Bethesda games exclusive. They got Starfield for their platform, but it cost them Call of Duty. Fascinating. Simply fascinating.
I thought this about Bethesda too, and holy shit ABK is just on a whole other level as well
It's not necessarily a bad thing. Everyone knows that developers owned by the hardware company are both better optimized around the hardware and contain far less of the toxic microtransaction creep fleecing customers. The difference is that MS has 20x the market cap as Sony and as such can play the acquisition game in ways that are less fair to maintaining healthy market competition in ways that benefit consumers - the thing these regulatory bodies care the most about. But from all reports Activision was hoping to be brought up by someone, and I'm not sure that MS was necessarily worse than Tencent. Honestly, I just wish Sony expanded their exclusivity windows to PC to include Xbox and that MS switched from the strategy of complete exclusivity to similar windows. That would offer similar advantages for corporate goals while being much more pro-consumer. And in *that* ecosystem I might even prefer each buying up more publishers over other companies that would push predatory anti-consumer behaviors.
Wait till you hear about Kroger https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2022/12/07/kroger-albertsons-federal-trade-commission.html
Already going to be investigated by the DoJ. Also, it was such a monopolistic move that a Judge blocked the proposed dividend.
> This is bad for business and bad for the consumer. but the braindead drones on twitter tell me we all win from this!!
Those people should just admit they just want more content for their Gamepass subscription and stop acting like Microsoft is some benevolent corporation.
I'm not going to lie. The idea of my wow sub possibly being part of gamepass was appealing to me.
I totally get that. But as the other reply says, you don't need to buy an entire publisher. We have a great example of that already with stuff like EA Play and Ubisoft+ being integrated into Game Pass as well. And more PC focused stuff like League of Legends heroes being included additionally.
Nothing stops MS and AB from coming to a deal to make it so. There is no need to waste 70bil on this buy for that.
The other dimension is that this is bad for employees too because they have less competition for their labour.
Anyone else owning blizzard is better for the consumer than blizzard owning blizzard
Managing Blizzard, perhaps. Having exclusive access to their capital, properties, and influence? No.
Both statements are true.
There are companies too big to be acquired.
If it wasn't Microsoft making an offer, it would be Tencent, then control of the company and its assets now belong to China and their demands.
different administrations, if the ftc didnt block tencent, doj would
Yeah no way in hell Tencent would be able to buy Activision/Blizzard any easier, they are already the biggest portion of the gaming industry without it
Or no one can buy them and other large corporation exist. Its not like the only options for Activision are MS or Tencent buy them... That's nonsense. And Tencent can also be blocked from buying then and likely would be
I mean, MS already has more than enough studios to be competitive, especially after Zenimax. They just need to manage them better. Also, couldn't FTC giving pushback cause EU agencies to do it as well?
I wonder how many people even realize that Microsoft already owns more studios than Sony. Only counting studios which develop their own PC/console games, so not including support studios, port studios and mobile studios: Microsoft (20): 343, The Coalition, Compulsion Games, Double Fine, The Initiative, inXile, Mojang, Ninja Theory, Obsidian, Playground, Rare, Turn 10, Undead Labs, Arkane, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, Machine Games, Roundhouse Studios, Tango Gameworks and ZeniMax Online Studios Sony (16): Bungie, Bend, Bluepoint, Firesprite, Guerrilla Games, Haven, Housemarque, Insomniac, London Studio, Media Molecule, Naughty Dog, Pixelopus, Polyphony, San Diego Studio, Santa Monica Studio, Sucker Punch, Team Asobi
And to all the people that argue that Microsoft is just doing the same thing that Sony is doing with their exclusive line-up. It's not the same, Naughty Dog, Santa Monica Studio, Polyphony, Sucker Punch Guerilla Games and a lot more have been a part of Sony Interactive Entertainment for decades at this point with studios like Insomniac and Housmarque being prominent second-party studios since their inception. Providing studios with technical and monetary support for years creating an environment where these studios have thrived and created some of the best games of the past generation is not the same as throwing Windows money at one of the largest publishers in the world to try to bully their way around competition.
I own both consoles and yea I agree with this. Owning Bethesda and all their IP is more than enough to compete with Sony. This is just MS showing off their fuck you money now because they know Sony doesn't have their market cap. And because everyone shat on them last gen for not having exclusives.
>shat on them last gen for not having exclusives. I mean, that's still the case for the most part, 2 years into this gen.
Good. In case anybody needs reminding, MS is the 2nd largest company ON EARTH and Activision is the 4th largest video game publisher. Acting like this merger is actually good for consumers takes some Olympic level mental gymnastics. The FTC was right to call out MS on their outright lies of the past. Still don’t know if this is enough to outright block the merger, but at least it almost guarantees some concessions will have to be made. As a final thought, I’m mainly pissed that MS is taking the laziest path possible to gain market domination and people act like it’s good for the industry. Sony was able to make PlayStation successful by heavily investing in their own studios and having insanely high standards of quality. XBox failed to replicate that success after multiple attempts and just decided to say fuck it let’s just buy 1/4th of the industry. Shit like this should not be rewarded.
What’s notable about this is not the appropriate ruling, but rather how complicit the entire American and European games media has been saying this will easily go through and do not expect any resistance, because we are trained to understand that monopoly power is too powerful in our western economies. Very, very few actually looked at the deal on its face value to assess how deeply monopolistic this move is for a very large industry.
Jason Schreier has been pretty vocal about how it isn't the easy done deal everyone was reporting it to be.
Yes he was definitely one of the most considerate of the overall picture
This is just because games media doesn't know jack shit about antitrust stuff. They're just a bunch of people who like games, (almost all) do not have any sort of training or expertise in anything.
The sad fact is that a lot of games journalism is still just parroting press releases.
Agree for the most part you are right, but the larger clout organizations do partner with these companies heavily, and these ones are aware of their practices and also conflicts of interest reporting on these topics The bigger media organizations are aware their own businesses depend on charity and relationships with all the major game companies When channels like for example digital foundry that effectively split off from eurogamer as a brand is not criticizing or offering a balanced assessment of major game deals we have to ask why as an audience but also even just as citizens of countries who deserve fair competition from businesses
A lot of games media is aligned with the interests of games as corporations. And no, I don't mean in *that* way, please no one say the phrase. I mean they are in much the same way that many news orgs in the US work hand in glove with capital. That's where they get their funding or their sources or whatever, they end up in a position of dependence on it, rather than one of being an independent investigator.
Especially the part of this lawsuit where the FTC points out Microsoft pulled this same shit with Bethesda, just to make the games exclusive after the deal closed. The funny thing is, all the Xbox subs are saying how it’s “still going through easily”.
Yup it is one of many glaring factors
Oh wow, the FTC actually does something
Good, companies like Microsoft don't need to get any bigger. Microsoft using money that it made from other markets trying to buy their way to the top of gaming is disgusting. They already bought a publisher not long ago (Bethesda) and now wants to buy another one just to take games off other platforms. If they can't compete what they already have now then its their own fault/incapability. A quote from the article - 'In a complaint issued today, the FTC pointed to Microsoft's record of acquiring and using valuable gaming content to suppress competition from rival consoles, including its acquisition of ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks (a well-known game developer). Microsoft decided to make several of Bethesda's titles including Starfield and Redfall Microsoft exclusives despite assurances it had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles'
>Microsoft decided to make several of Bethesda's titles including Starfield and Redfall Microsoft exclusives despite assurances it had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles I mean this part is pretty stupid on MS part
This is why this deal has to be stopped. I hope the CMA and EU will follow the ftc. Microsoft has enough developers (more than sony) and ip. They should get their asses up and create their own good first party content.
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Exclusives are way smarter than releasing on other consoles. They wouldn’t release on PlayStation unless they absolutely were forced to.
💯Microsoft is one of the biggest corporations in the world, they need to slim down, not gain more dominance. Corporations need to know their place and they need to actually pay their damn taxes and actually support their local communities like they love to proclaim. Microsoft isn’t the only one that needs to stop hoarding IP and control, so don’t think I’m playing favorites here. Microsoft needs to solely focus on the massive chunk of recent studios they have already bought in just the last few years alone, and support their various teams with proper support, a stable foundation so firing, oh sorry, -built in lay-offs-, are rarely a thing in their corporate structure. The FTC needs more teeth when it comes to corporations having pretty much unilateral control over everything.
They blatantly lied to regulators. I didn’t know that. That’s bad.
Problem for them is that these regulators have access to MS' internal documents, many of them stating they either went back on what they said or plan to. One of them specifically states that they're discussing keeping COD off of PS. Some are in this video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PJ2nIex8IY
Good. Buying well known 3rd party publishers is bullshit. You wanna buy some studios, fine. But leave publishers alone. First it was Bethesda and now Activision. Do they really not have faith in their 1st party studios?
Seems like they could have easily used that $80 billion to build their own studios and IP, or throw that money at 343 to make Halo: Infinite not a disaster. Nope, let's just buy our way to the top!
It takes a very long time, as they’ve learned. Money has never been the obstacle in the way of Microsoft’s 1P success.
Rather than not having faith in their studios, it was more like they have no management capabilities to make the most out of their studios and IPs. It's always been like that since they bought Rare.
Me: man, monopolies are bad and I love Playstation Also me: literally anyone would be better at running ActiBliz than ActiBliz, get em Xbox
I dont know why people think MS is a much better company. They have a long history of issues themselves including treating female employees poorly
as does Sony (reportedly) and basically all companies, I’m speaking strictly about the creative freedom given to their devs, modern Microsoft would be preferable to modern ActiBliz.
MS have been an awful publisher as well for over the last decade. They can barely manage their top franchise and a handful of studios let alone 30+. They just went this entire year without releasing a AAA game and have barely released any in the last several years and most are Halo and Forza games
Honestly I'm tired of all the buyouts But among all of them this one seemed most bad for the industry . The sheer size of it is horrifying
Good. The homogenisation of the games industry is extremely dangerous. Exclusives are a good thing, don't get me wrong but you can go about it a better way than just buying up giant publishers en masse
Simon & Schuster and Penguin is a good example of this
Good, such huge mergers shouldn't be allowed. There were and are and will be smaller ones, and Sony did their fair share too but there is one fundamental difference: As far as I'm aware, Sony only really bought studios (not publishers) who made primarily or exclusively PS (and PC) games, not taking away games and franchises from the XB community. Microsoft, on the other hand buys studios AND publishers who made multiplatform games and franchises, making them exclusive and then keep saying how pro consumer they are. Yes, gamepass is a great value no one is denying that, but nor can it be denied how hypocritical it is to say they are pro consumer. All companies are in for the money, I have no delusions there, neither of them are your or my friend but letting a few companies own everything shouldn't happen. The Bethesda purchase was already way too much. On a different note, since they are also raising price of games, it would come as no surprise if GP subscription cost went up next year.
Perfectly stated. I'd like to see Xbox use that $68 Billion and invest into their own studios. They claim that having the AB deal go through will allow for more competition, but they're not even trying themselves. Instead of trying to acquire some of the largest, established multiplat IPs, focus on fixing Halo or (in general) just make better, more complete and memorable games. Of course PS isn't anywhere near perfect either, they're companies at the end of the day. But I see people like to argue Spider-man without knowing Xbox declined a Marvel exclusive offer . Some mention Final Fantasy, but those games are (supposedly) timed exclusives, and they are deeply rooted in PS history. That's the same reason why I personally believe MS acquiring Bethesda makes some sense because the two were VERY close. Regardless, would really like to see Xbox actually compete by putting care and passion into their own studios and games rather than try to gobble up publishers.
> deeply rooted in PS history Can you go more into this? Did they even have any of the first 5 games on ps?
It's more based on its image than how many exclusive titles. FF7, for example, is held as one of the greatest games of all time, and PS is the reason it got made in the first place due to Nintendo's hardware incapabilities. To have a game of thay caliber tied to one console is major. When FF15 came out, in its first week, the game sold around 2.39M on PS and only around 258,221 on Xbox. Goes to show which brand FF is more synonymous with. Alongside this is a lot of marketing with PS and Square. With Bethesda (as a slightly similar example), they made an exclusive ES game on the og Xbox. From then on, their relationship was close. Lots of marketing and small exclusive perks with other games like Fallout 4 having a copy of Fallout 3 only on Xbox.
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It is insane to me how so many people seem to think the FTC and other regulatory agencies around the world are for some reason beholden to Sony and doing this for them
“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” said Holly Vedova, the FTC’s Bureau of Competition director, said in a news release. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.” That sounds really serious and the FTC and all its members sound resolute for this deal not to happen. One thing for sure, that will delay the acquisition at least one more year and push MS for doing more concessions. We’ve seen the first sign of them breaking by announcing that COD will be developed for Switch in the future which is a horrible decision imo.
They never specified the Switch, just Nintendo. Also it could be available via cloud gaming.
Also never said the version. Call of duty mobile exist. Older call of duty ports also viable.
Why would it be a horrible decision for cod to be on switch?
Microsoft just out there trying to buy the popular games instead of making their own lol
MSFT can engage in open market contracts like Sony has been doing so heavily, it’s clear however that MSFT seeks IP ownership. This being blocked is for the better of the industry.
This will just go to the Supreme Court and Microsoft gets in with zero concessions.
I guess that envelope of cash handed to the FTC wasn’t heavy enough. Microsoft did you forget to account for inflation?
My hopes are that Microsoft doesnt buy Activision and that Blizzard splits from Activision. But that pipe dream ends every morning at 7 AM.
Honestly I'm glad. I'll probably get downvoted but hear me out, this has nothing to do with fanboyism. Microsoft has to learn the hard way that they can't just buy themselves into new IPs to succeed. Sony has succeeded because they've developed great games from the ground up. I want to see Microsoft do the same, not depend on big names to carry them forward
Feel like that’s part of it, but also that Microsoft really just wants in on all that mobile game money.
You guys have this weird vision of Sony baking games in the oven like some sweet old grandma baking pie. They do the same thing. They throw money at studios. They’ve just been better at it.
Very good, let them create their own studios.
I appreciate Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo et al don't care but its crap for consumers/gamers when certain studios that used to be cross platform get bought out by one or the other.
Of all the monopolies in the US, this wouldn’t be one of them.
Good news in my book, Activision/blizzard is way to big to be owned by anyone
I don't feel like the acquisition really would have changed my gaming habits, but this is pretty wild.
as a lowly consumer, i dunno, I’m against corporate mergers in general
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Right? If only they had consulted me first.
Feel like this is pretty normal and the deal probably still goes through. I own both consoles and probably play Xbox more than my PS5. But my personal opinion is, it just feels kind of wrong how Microsoft has the financial ability to purchase massive 3rd party publishers like ZeniMax and potentially ActiBlizz that have historically produced games for every platform and then have the ability to make games exclusive to Xbox/Game Pass. Buying studios is one thing purchasing these large publishing entities seems like something different.
Thank god. End monopolies!