Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard (UPDATE: CMA says NO!).

[Uzi]

It really is common sense. Game pass is good because microsoft have to compete with Sony who are in a good position. By weakening their position (say cod is exclusive in the future and the casuals stop buying PS in favour of xbox) they do not need to compete as much and their service may not be as competitive. It's an odd stance to take to not see any potential consumer and competition disadvantages to taking over such a giant in the industry. If MS bought EA next and had Fifa and Madden would the same obliviousness apply? What about take 2/gta? Sony were better in the PS4 gen because MS competed well with them with the 360. These companies need to stay relatively competitive to be better for the consumer. 

[rgraves]

1 minute ago, K said:

 

Higher prices, worse service, less choice, less innovation, higher barriers to entry. The usual risks that might potentially arise from a dominant player who is in a position to engage in anticompetitive behaviour.

 

That's just a list of theoretical bad things though - you could counter all of those with similar theoretical good things:

 

Lower prices as Sony tries to compete with GP, better cloud services, more choice as it's now on more platforms, lower barrier to entry as you now play via cloud on your phone etc etc

 

I think the idea that this deal would make MS a dominant market leader in anything like the way Sony is right now baffles me. I just don't see that happening at all.

[Uzi]

Just now, rgraves said:

 

That's just a list of theoretical bad things though - you could counter all of those with similar theoretical good things:

 

Lower prices as Sony tries to compete with GP, better cloud services, more choice as it's now on more platforms, lower barrier to entry as you now play via cloud on your phone etc etc

 

I think the idea that this deal would make MS a dominant market leader in anything like the way Sony is right now baffles me. I just don't see that happening at all.

COD is a stronger entity than any single franchise Sony have right now

[Kevvy Metal]

I personnally don't want to see this aquisition go through.

It does feel anti-competitive, and Xbox Game Studios are the clown-shoes of the game publishing world if at least less cunty than those who are currently running Activision. 

[rgraves]

2 minutes ago, Uzi said:

 If MS bought EA next and had Fifa and Madden would the same obliviousness apply?

 

Probably not, because we'd be looking at a market that was potentially much closer than it is now - MS are in a clear 3rd place, so this acquisition needs to be considered in that way. If they were already dominant and looking to do this, then yes it would be a different set of circumstances in my mind - they would be pulling away from the competition, not trying to close the gap to it.

[Stanley]

4 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

That's just a list of theoretical bad things though - you could counter all of those with similar theoretical good things:

 

Lower prices as Sony tries to compete with GP, better cloud services, more choice as it's now on more platforms, lower barrier to entry as you now play via cloud on your phone etc etc

 

I think the idea that this deal would make MS a dominant market leader in anything like the way Sony is right now baffles me. I just don't see that happening at all.

But what if they can’t afford to compete with Game Pass? 

[Stanley]

2 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

Probably not, because we'd be looking at a market that was potentially much closer than it is now - MS are in a clear 3rd place, so this acquisition needs to be considered in that way. If they were already dominant and looking to do this, then yes it would be a different set of circumstances in my mind - they would be pulling away from the competition, not trying to close the gap to it.

What, to help them along a little bit? 

[rgraves]

1 minute ago, Stanley said:

What, to help them along a little bit? 

 

Yes, because closer competition is good for the consumer right?

[Uzi]

Aww, spending over 70 bill to give them a lil bit of help 

[Stanley]

1 minute ago, rgraves said:

 

Yes, because closer competition is good for the consumer right?

A company the size of MS doesn’t need help. Someone else said it earlier in the thread and it’s very true, Sony has spent a lot of time and money investing in studios, MS has just spent a lot of money. 

[K]

Companies aren't immune from competition law if they're not in first place. In a market dominated by a small number of players, being third is still a pretty big deal, especially if the third place company is a division of one of the biggest companies in the world with access to colossal amounts of funding and resource. I will not reveal the name of the company I'm talking about in order to inject an air of mystery and narrative intrigue into this post, but let's just say they dropped the "ball"(mer) with their exclusives this and last gen, and the "Outlook" is not great for such exclusives until the projected release of Starfield and Redfall later this year.

[teddymeow]

[Alex W.]

11 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

No, it's a massive simplification of course - so how do we think this deal will make MS particularly dominant or powerful in the market exactly?

Well it comes down to how bad vertical integration is versus the merging of two businesses which directly compete. Microsoft is actually a games publisher and not just a console and services manufacturer; upon owning AB it will inevitably arrange things so that AB’s output doesn’t compete with its own by cancelling or rescheduling software and simply not going ahead with some projects that otherwise would’ve been trotted out in the future. Activision never has to worry about making a Halo killer.

 

As a platform holder it also puts it in a position to dictate the software slates of other platforms, which is obviously anticompetitive. 

 

Activision Blizzard is huge. It’s not everything but by itself it was anticompetitive. Further consolidation once companies get to that size is always cause for concern.

 

It all comes down to, how many fewer games are you willing to accept, in exchange for cheaper games in a simpler, consolidated release schedule?

[Alex W.]

22 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

I think the idea that this deal would make MS a dominant market leader in anything like the way Sony is right now baffles me. I just don't see that happening at all.

Are you under the impression that Microsoft is not a dominant market leader in the way Sony is? They’ve sold something like 75% as many consoles. They’re enormous. This isn’t, like, the playdate or the Analog Pocket we’re talking about. Microsoft can already decide to a large extent which direction the games industry goes in.

 

It isn’t about “will this make them the winner in an absurd console wars horse race”, like it’s a contest and someone’s cheating, it’s about “will this adversely affect the games market economically”.

 

You saw this sort of rationale when Apple were caught doing “most favoured nation” deals with book publishers to carve out a niche for iBooks against Kindle without needing to lower costs. It doesn’t matter if it puts you in the lead, so long as it’s stifling competition and therefore raising costs.

[Flanders]

I strongly suspect that if Microsoft could redo the last three years in hindsight they would not have bought Bethesda. I think the ABK deal would be a lot more defensible if they hadn’t already just bought a large publisher. 

[footle]

36 minutes ago, K said:

 

Higher prices, worse service, less choice, less innovation, higher barriers to entry. The usual risks that might potentially arise from a dominant player who is in a position to engage in anticompetitive behaviour.

I can’t imagine which dominant player you mean. Better keep them entrenched for perpetuity.

 

(I’d be fine with Sony being regulated so their eshop wasn’t an anticompetitive anti-consumer disaster with misleading prices as an alternative to this transaction going through: as sales shift entirely digitally, cementing the position of one player in first place is, in itself, anti-consumer. See also: Apple, Nintendo, Google, Microsoft.)

[Alex W.]

Just now, footle said:

(I’d be fine with Sony being regulated so their eshop wasn’t an anticompetitive anti-consumer disaster with misleading prices as an alternative to this transaction going through: as sales shift entirely digitally, cementing the position of one player in first place is, in itself, anti-consumer. See also: Apple, Nintendo, Google, Microsoft.)

Sony’s eshop being terrible is arguably pro-competitive, literally anyone who launches a games platform can lure people away by virtue of them not having the PS Store.

[Flanders]

4 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Are you under the impression that Microsoft is not a dominant market leader in the way Sony is? They’ve sold something like 75% as many consoles. They’re enormous. This isn’t, like, the playdate or the Analog Pocket we’re talking about. Microsoft can already decide to a large extent which direction the games industry goes in.

This is definitely worth remembering as well, the whole minnow notion is absurd. There are only six home consoles in history that sold more than Microsoft’s last two machines. 

[Kryptonian]

41 minutes ago, teddymeow said:

Which one?

[footle]

45 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Sony’s eshop being terrible is arguably pro-competitive, literally anyone who launches a games platform can lure people away by virtue of them not having the PS Store.

Not if you’ve a captive audience of COD players

[Down by Law]

All this fuss over a generic military shooter

 

Why not take some of the billions of dollars and invest in a competitor, you know like how Call of Duty came about in the first place as an alternative to Medal of Honor.

 

 

[teddymeow]

31 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

Which one?

 

Exactly.

[b00dles]

20 minutes ago, teddymeow said:

 

Exactly.

Accrington Stanley. 

[Kryptonian]

28 minutes ago, Down by Law said:

All this fuss over a generic military shooter

 

Why not take some of the billions of dollars and invest in a competitor, you know like how Call of Duty came about in the first place as an alternative to Medal of Honor.

I’ve never played a Medal of Honor game so started reading about them and it sounds like they were quite a big deal at one point?

 

The first 2 games were PlayStation only but the developers were Dreamworks Interactive who were 50% owned by Microsoft

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Close_Games

[SeanR]

Medal of Honor (reboot) and the sequel who’s name escape me MOH warfighter?) were pretty decent COD clones as it happens.

 

I liked pacific rising, and airborne was ok.

[Gabe]

Airborne was pretty good and it was the first time they had limited enemies on a map, rather than infinitely respawning like in previous entries.

 

I never did play Allied Assualt, but I think that was the one that really took the series up a few notches, I remember it being raved about on PC. 

[Down by Law]

Infinity Ward was created by 2015 staffers who were tired of working on Medal of Honor for EA.

 

So they made Call of Duty for Activision in response.

 

Years later they would leave Infinity Ward because they were tired of working for Activision and created Respawn to make games for EA.

 

(To be fair Activision royally screwed them over MW2 royalties) 

 🥴

[bear]

2 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

I personnally don't want to see this aquisition go through.

It does feel anti-competitive, and Xbox Game Studios are the clown-shoes of the game publishing world if at least less cunty than those who are currently running Activision. 

If it doesn't go through then surely that raises the likelihood that MS will go on a spree picking up a bunch more studios (IO Interactive, Avalanche, Crytek) or even another publisher like Sega or Capcom? 

[Kevvy Metal]

3 minutes ago, bear said:

If it doesn't go through then surely that raises the likelihood that MS will go on a spree picking up a bunch more studios (IO Interactive, Avalanche, Crytek) or even another publisher like Sega or Capcom? 

 

They're far smaller, and less of a strategic move for the Xbox division to sell to the higher's up at Microsoft. This would be been a considered strategic move that would of taken a good while to plan and come together.

I'd imagine the PlayStation's life's blood is the percentage cut they take from every game sold and games such as COD/FIFA/GTA are probably far bigger console sale drivers than we would think, and that leads to further games bought and a better attachment rate. Sony would not be disputing this move if it wasn't going to fuck them to a degree. 

 

 

[squirtle]

1 hour ago, Kryptonian said:

I’ve never played a Medal of Honor game so started reading about them and it sounds like they were quite a big deal at one point?

 

The first 2 games were PlayStation only but the developers were Dreamworks Interactive who were 50% owned by Microsoft

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Close_Games

Well... It's not like there was a Microsoft console to put them on at the time...