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UK Regulator Blocks Microsoft's $70 Billion Activision Blizzard Acquisition

And yes as others have said, Sony bought most of their studios. Difference being, they slowly bought them and helped develop them into behemoths with investment. Microsoft are literally trying to buy the gaming equivalent of a production ready Tesla factory (massive profits, questionable quality products).
 
JuicyGoomba said:
People are so quick to jump on the outrage bandwagon. PlayStation was gaming's love child through the end of the PS3 and whole of the PS4 era. Microsoft are extremely clever with their "we're the little guy help us" mentality that their marketing department constantly throw around.

Anyone even moderately invested into the gaming scene can see from a mile off that if Microsoft gained such a huge acquisition then it would be the beginning of the end for competition in the space. The whole "10 year deal" thing was further proof of this. They would have obliged to churn out decent ports for the first few years and then quickly lower the quality and focus on their own consoles and services. Once that 10 years is up, they have an extremely large chunk of the market and no longer have to provide for other companies.

They were trying to play the long game, they persuaded most of the capitalists and Xbox evangelists to follow with anti-Sony pitchforks.

In reality? Anyone who shills for either company, or any company for that matter, should automatically have their opinions discredited. From a neutral business perspective, Microsoft were looking to try and swipe a major player in the gaming market knowing fine well that most governments don't even so much as blink when it comes to the industry. They don't care.

GG UK on finally having some sense for a change.
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I mean aside from the obvious that Sony and Nintendo are crushing it on sales compared with MS, but sure
 
cmward_nyc said:
Sony buying IP is the same thing, just because bungee isn’t the same scale as Bethesda doesn’t make it any less worse for consumers when there is less choice.
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Pretty sure they did this as a direct response to the MS announcement.

It's easy to forget they have shareholders to appease to as well, regardless of Sony's divisions mostly operating as separate businesses. Letting a rival spend big money on an entire publisher full of development studios and doing nothing in return can easily be seen as a sign of weakness. Buying a single but household studio for a large sum shores up investor beleif, and in turn Sony's stock value.
 
cmward_nyc said:
I mean aside from the obvious that Sony and Nintendo are crushing it on sales compared with MS, but sure
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And how did they get to that point? By purchasing a multi billion dollar publisher to have pre-made profit and desirable games from the get-go?

Sony could have easily collapsed with the PS3, Nintendo with the Wii U. They did not, and they kept investing into studios under their umbrella to create IPs that people actually want to play and are willing to side with a particular console to do so.

During the last 20 years Microsoft have only ever been competitive with the 360. They sat on their hands and let people become bored of Halo and Gears, they cancelled new IP such as Scalebound which actually had a large amount of interest, and instead we're getting Gears 13, Halo 10, and Forza 17. All will typically be chocked to the brim with microtransactions so that the fleeting interest in those games will be fully monopolised.

But sure.
 
After forty years of sitting idly by while scores of mergers drive up consumer prices, it’s nice to see regulators finally doing their jobs.
 
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kellyrev said:
Clearly you have not read anything about this merger. MS already signed 10 year deals with other game companies to ensure that COD continues to be in even more places than it is already. (and before you say 'why only 10 years'.. because no company signs a contract for eternity). And lowering the quality anywhere would hurt sales. lol. They're trying to sell more games not less. Absolutely absurd comment.

MS has kept or expanded where you can play Minecraft after the purchase of Mojang
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kellyrev said:
Clearly you have not read anything about this merger. MS already signed 10 year deals with other game companies to ensure that COD continues to be in even more places than it is already. (and before you say 'why only 10 years'.. because no company signs a contract for eternity). And lowering the quality anywhere would hurt sales. lol. They're trying to sell more games not less. Absolutely absurd comment.

MS has kept or expanded where you can play Minecraft after the purchase of Mojang
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We have seen this story before many times, as part of consolidations. No worries we will make it available, and then gets a step child treatment. Nothing is preventing MS prioritizing Xbox for upgrades or having special features over other platforms. It is available doesn’t mean MS is going to treat every competing platform the same.
Don’t even get me started on MS track record.
 
macsimcon said:
After forty years of sitting idly by while scores of mergers drive up consumer prices, it’s nice to see regulators finally doing their jobs.
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But we are discussing a gaming industry merger, not paying your power bill, cost of medicine, or putting food on the table. If anything this is about just entertainment only, something that really needs regulation or IMHO better games to be played? I choose the latter.
 
JuicyGoomba said:
And yes as others have said, Sony bought most of their studios. Difference being, they slowly bought them and helped develop them into behemoths with investment. Microsoft are literally trying to buy the gaming equivalent of a production ready Tesla factory (massive profits, questionable quality products).
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Buying IP and locking it to your own ecosystem is an issue regardless of the scale of the acquisition.
 
JuicyGoomba said:
Pretty sure they did this as a direct response to the MS announcement.

It's easy to forget they have shareholders to appease to as well, regardless of Sony's divisions mostly operating as separate businesses. Letting a rival spend big money on an entire publisher full of development studios and doing nothing in return can easily be seen as a sign of weakness. Buying a single but household studio for a large sum shores up investor beleif, and in turn Sony's stock value.
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I mean there’s simply no way they cobbled together a 5bn dollar deal as a response. Those deals take a long time with due diligence etc. Sony has always had a plan to buy up talent, been doing so for a long time now.
 
JuicyGoomba said:
And how did they get to that point? By purchasing a multi billion dollar publisher to have pre-made profit and desirable games from the get-go?

Sony could have easily collapsed with the PS3, Nintendo with the Wii U. They did not, and they kept investing into studios under their umbrella to create IPs that people actually want to play and are willing to side with a particular console to do so.

During the last 20 years Microsoft have only ever been competitive with the 360. They sat on their hands and let people become bored of Halo and Gears, they cancelled new IP such as Scalebound which actually had a large amount of interest, and instead we're getting Gears 13, Halo 10, and Forza 17. All will typically be chocked to the brim with microtransactions so that the fleeting interest in those games will be fully monopolised.

But sure.
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i agree MS has done badly since 360, and yes MS is using its financial muscle to try and get back in the game, but it’s exactly what anyone would do to get back in the game so to speak.

investing/acquisitions call it what you want, but sony does the same just on a different scale because they don’t have the cash on hand.
 
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TechnoMonk said:
Now this is a move I can get behind. Microsoft could have used the leverage to restrict quality games on other platforms. Google should have never been allowed to buy doubleclick and YouTube. Let independent studios develop for platforms of their choice.
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YouTube probably would not have survived without the acquisition from someone. Too much growth, too fast, not enough money, etc.

They truly needed the infrastructure backing of a huge tech player at the time.
 
akdag2014 said:
Most all of Sony's studios were either homegrown or they were 2nd party/exclusive relationships that they developed before buying them. Just a few examples...

Naughty Dog: Crash Bandicoot 1-3 and Crash Team Racing (all exclusives funded by Sony), then purchased by Sony.
Sucker Punch: Sly Cooper 1-3 and Infamous 1 (all exclusives funded by Sony), then purchased by Sony.
Insomniac: Spyro 1-3, 11 Ratchet & Clank games, 3 Resistance games, and Spiderman (all exclusives funded by Sony), then purchased by Sony. They even went off and worked with Microsoft on an exclusive (Sunset Overdrive) but ended up coming back to Sony.

Comparing how Sony cultivated their 1st party studios to what Microsoft has done is absurd. Also it's worth noting that in this case, they're attempting to buy one of the largest publishers in the world. That's just a bit different than buying the team that made Crash Bandicoot. Microsoft has been buying up studios -- and publishers -- left and right, but if you look at the actual output of their studios (not including games that were already well into development before acquisition), it's obvious that they have not been good at managing their studios and their IP. Just look at Halo alone.
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Nice write up but all wrong as well. PlayStation’s very existence is the spawn of a fallout with Nintendo because Sony was doing bad business. Read up about the whole SNES PlayStation canceled console debacle from the early 90s. Sony is not what you think it is.
 
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cmward_nyc said:
Sony buying IP is the same thing, just because bungee isn’t the same scale as Bethesda doesn’t make it any less worse for consumers when there is less choice.
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Sony bought Bungie, not any of their IP. And when they announced the acquisition, literally the first thing in their statement was "Bungie games will not be exclusive to PlayStation." Therefore, Sony caused no less choice for consumers.

Other developers that Sony has bought, the vast majority of them were already working exclusively for PS consoles (with Sony funding them), so when Sony bought them, they didn't take any choice away from consumers.

Sony has made exclusivity deals for certain games with certain publishers (as have Microsoft and Nintendo), but a big factor for some of them (like Final Fantasy) is that those games are very popular in Japan but Xbox isn't. So it would make sense for Square Enix to be interested in an exclusivity deal with Sony or Nintendo and not have to develop an Xbox version of games that won't sell nearly as much anyway.

Microsoft, on the other hand, announced plans to buy Bethesda (the publisher, not just the main studio with the same name) and Activision (also a publisher), and were/are consistently cagey about the exclusivity of any games from those publishers' studios. To use Bethesda as an example, Starfield was well into development pre-acquisition, and then the PlayStation version was canned. Pretty sure that's a much more direct version of taking away consumer choice.
 
akdag2014 said:
Sony bought Bungie, not any of their IP. And when they announced the acquisition, literally the first thing in their statement was "Bungie games will not be exclusive to PlayStation." Therefore, Sony caused no less choice for consumers.
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And Microsoft have said the same thing about CoD. They offered Steam a 10 year contract and Steam turned it down because they knew Microsoft would not make CoD exclusive to the XBOX platform. I believe Microsoft which they have repeatedly said, would be a "stupid move" to block other platforms from having CoD. CoD is a money maker for Activision as is MUT or FUT for EA Sports. Sony is just throwing spaghetti at the wall just trying to find something to stick.
 
Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
I'm a PC elitist Sony Pony.

Just for calling me an Xbox fanboy we're taking another one of your precious exclusives. Ghost of Tsushima is gonna look pretty sweet in 4K 144 FPS.

1*es0U2cDVtOnO_XLOVafbyA.jpeg
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Adorable. 😂
 
TechnoMonk said:
Now this is a move I can get behind. Microsoft could have used the leverage to restrict quality games on other platforms. Google should have never been allowed to buy doubleclick and YouTube. Let independent studios develop for platforms of their choice.
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Why can’t I get God of War or Horizon Forbidden West on Xbox? What you state is already happening. And Microsoft was pushing to get Call of Duty on Nintendo hardware again.
 
Ethosik said:
Why can’t I get God of War or Horizon Forbidden West on Xbox? What you state is already happening. And Microsoft was pushing to get Call of Duty on Nintendo hardware again.
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Tell me about it, I purchased a PS5 just to play 3 or 4 games when I really can't stand consoles. What should be illegal are exclusives in general.
 
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Bokito said:
Good news for people playing Blizzard games on a Mac. Although not all recent titles made it to the Mac I think Microsoft would've axed WoW and Hearthstone for the Mac at some point.
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I highly doubt Microsoft cares about the Mac being a threat to its gaming wing. Blizzard stopped making most of its games for the Mac after the transition to Apple Silicone. I doubt they will bother porting those games over even if the sale is blocked.

It's too bad. I'll miss playing SC2 and Heart of the Storm once I replace my Intel Macbook Pro.
 
erikkfi said:
Preventing huge mergers like this is exactly what governments should be doing to prevent unnecessary consolidation. I don't understand why people are so upset about this when Call of Duty and all other Activision Blizzard titles will continue to remain available on Xbox platforms.
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From a purely selfish financial point of view, here in NZ, Xbox GamePass Ultimate (Console, PC + Cloud) is now $40 NZD/month for you and FOUR friends (5 People in total, $8 each per month, on the newly-released ‘friends and family plan’).

It costs more than a years subscription for a single copy of Call of Duty! Having that series go ‘in-house’ and being financially supported by Microsoft’s other enterprises while on GamePass is a little bit appealing.
 
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