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Nintendo was not as dominant in gaming as you are suggesting. They had effectively no arcade or computer gaming presence when they pivoted to consoles and NES and SNES were outsold by competitors in certain regions throughout the world several years in both gens. They only really truly dominated with handhelds and most of those sales did not come until Pokemon when there was just no serious competition interested anymore anyways. Almost every market gap Microsoft has in gaming will be covered by this purchase, meanwhile Nintendo is still not even seemingly interested in several key markets or genres. The scale at which Microsoft is competing here now is genuinely incomprehensible within the gaming sphere of those eras, that and a lot of the key IPs you referenced were still in their infancy too really.
Something unique of Microsoft purchasing ABK is that overnight it would potentially make Microsoft the #1 publisher on the PlayStation ecosystem with just Call of Duty and Minecraft. Sony obviously makes money from those copies sold too, but a detail like that probably makes them uncomfortable considering Microsoft intends to continue growing.
It really is a shame. Could you imagine the type of vile comments Yamauchi would have made if 80s or early 90s competition for Nintendo was competing at this level?!
The biggest hurdle still remains the UK regulator, right? So all this sweet talking and lobbying to the FTC is fine and all, but it'll all be for nothing if the CMA blocks it. And we've got no new news or indication about whether their "we must protect Sony's market position at all costs" stance from Phase 1 has carried over to Phase 2, right?
So we're still in for months of this will it, won't it stuff.
So we're still in for months of this will it, won't it stuff.
It's honestly probably a poll untouched by console warriors on either side of the spectrum I would imagine.
Which at least gives an interesting look at what people think outside of the gaming sphere. Then again I haven't checked the comments and could be way off.
The UK will look very silly if they're the sole voice against it.
But we constantly have looked really silly for well over 5 years at this point, so who even knows.
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List of Zenimax studios whose QA teams will vote to unionise:
View: https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1599951164828962816?s=20&t=vihjvWvwQKpdMQfdhWGFaA
But the CMA will publish in January (probably first week of the month) their provisional findings. That's like a draft of the final decision. That draft can change after new feedback from the parties (we would see those changes in the final report in March), but the changes are normally small, nothing drastic.
So, in January we'll also know what the CMA really thinks about the case.
View: https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1599951164828962816?s=20&t=vihjvWvwQKpdMQfdhWGFaA
But the CMA will publish in January (probably first week of the month) their provisional findings. That's like a draft of the final decision. That draft can change after new feedback from the parties (we would see those changes in the final report in March), but the changes are normally small, nothing drastic.
So, in January we'll also know what the CMA really thinks about the case.
It's in terms of revenue. Nintendo doesn't have the platform and services revenue of the other two because Nintendo online isn't very popular + it's cheaper. also the third party presence isn't as pronounced- especially those with MTs and DLC
I mean, not really? They're judging based on different laws. It's hardly like you'd expect everything to be the same legally speaking between jurisdictions, and the comments of the CMA lead were very clear on the fact that the metric they're interested in taking into account is the legality with respect to the legal framework of the CMA.
Yeah it's kinda crazy how efficient Nintendo's business is. In terms of profit, they are way ahead of the other two despite being 3rd place in revenue.
If switch could run the bigger 3rd party ports, Nintendo would run away with the show.
If they could run bigger third party ports, margins on hardware, and profit by extension would be down.
Nintendo chose a path that has some advantages and some disadvantages. They allowed themselves to carve out a niche not possible if hardware was competitive. No way you have a handheld function with competitive hardware.
So, just all the studios in the US, then? Any studios missing?
Gotcha. Ok, that makes more sense (wonder how they're calculating these numbers for just the US, though? Or are they just comparing global revenue? But then, how do they distinguish all the non-console revenue. Don't both companies kinda lump them together? Iono.). Yea, that makes sense and the disparity is kinda crazy. Interesting that Nintendo finds more efficient success, even without nearly so large an influx of the lifeblood of the other consoles : a cut of MTX. Makes me wonder whether tying up with MS to bring those sorts of games to the Switch (such as through competent cloud implementation) wouldn't be appealing to Nintendo. But maybe not haha, what they're doing clearly works.
"So all this sweet talking and lobbying to the FTC is fine and all, but it'll all be for nothing if the CMA blocks it"
If FTC & EU passes it's unlikely CMA would be against it. CMA have been aligned with EU since the beginning, I doubt they'd have strong case against it for UK market that hasn't been addressed by EU report.
If FTC & EU passes it's unlikely CMA would be against it. CMA have been aligned with EU since the beginning, I doubt they'd have strong case against it for UK market that hasn't been addressed by EU report.
The timeline is really jumbled in my mind. Do we know yet that the US & EU will decide before the UK?
CWA is an American based union so it would only cover US studios.
They are contained in the Enterprise Act 2002.
There is a good summary of the process here by Clifford Chance and gov website has a reference page here.
So what part of law is this acquisition falling foul of? Did CMA release something I can look over? This thread is massive.
Nintendo didn't really form great relationships with third party like Sony did. Sony needed third party to fall back on (and still does) while Nintendo would market their own games above them. It's a totally different strategy and Sony (Microsoft as well) continues to run much like large scale retail stores who use mass sales with low margins. Nintendo for example does not believe as much as selling hardware at a loss or is pushing grahpics and technology as much. I doubt their capital is anywhere near that of Sony's (and now Microsoft's).
The other thing that is different are the times. Back in those days you lose someone like EA and it's games over. Just ask Sega and the Dreamcast. There was not a lot of publishers back then and when Sony bought Psygnosis it was a big deal back then too. They were a pretty big publisher at the time. Now compared to today look at how many games get released. You can even release a game on your own at the indie level or get crowd funding. So all this hoopla about CoD and how Sony cannot compete as well is just pure fear mongering. They have spent the last 30 years wheeling and dealing with third party to get to where they are so they certainly don't want to move backwards wih a big publisher like Activision, and thet certainly don't want to have to deal with Microsoft instead.
The theory that the CMA seems to be leaning most towards is that the Subscription and Streaming market are separate from the packaged product market. If you look at it in that light then this purchase could give MS an overwhelming advantage in both of those markets.
Next Key Dates
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I've a created a timeline of future events. I'll update it as soon as we have new info:
NEXT KEY DATES:
- October 9/10th: final decision from the CMA?
- October 12/13th: MS officially closing the acquisition?
- October 18th: new outside date; the merger agreement can be terminated by then if the parties agree or the merger has not been consummated prior to 11:59 p.m. (Pacific time).
- December 2023: oral arguments in front of Ninth Circuit in the FTC appeal.
- January/February 2024: the FTC resumes the administrative process.
- February 5th 2024: placeholder trial date for the gamers' lawsuit.
NEXT KEY DATES:
- October 9/10th: final decision from the CMA?
- October 12/13th: MS officially closing the acquisition?
- October 18th: new outside date; the merger agreement can be terminated by then if the parties agree or the merger has not been consummated prior to 11:59 p.m. (Pacific time).
- December 2023: oral arguments in front of Ninth Circuit in the FTC appeal.
- January/February 2024: the FTC resumes the administrative process.
- February 5th 2024: placeholder trial date for the gamers' lawsuit.
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Thanks! Everything is moving so quickly haha, the dates are super jumbled now. And anything could get upended if EU decides to publish early, right?
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Yes, if the remedies offered to the EC solve the competition concerns that they may have, they won't wait until April 11th for a decision. In that case, the decision from the European Commission could happen as soon as January.
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Microsoft Eyes ‘Super App’ to Break Apple and Google’s Hold on Mobile Search
Microsoft recently considered building a “super app” that could combine shopping, messaging, web search, news feeds and other services in a one-stop smartphone app, in what would be an ambitious move by the software giant to expand further into consumer services, according to people with direct ...www.theinformation.com
There is more, like for example how Microsoft has periodically bid on Apple's mobile search contract but Google has won the deal every time or how the ABK acquisition would help them to expand in the consumer market.
Phil tweeted their intent to honour the existing agreement.
View: https://twitter.com/XboxP3/status/1484273335139651585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1484273335139651585%7Ctwgr%5E3a4a0777e002807deb830b7a285ffb65753dc474%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nme.com%2Fen_asia%2Fnews%2Fgaming-news%2Fmicrosoft-confirms-its-intent-to-keep-call-of-duty-on-playstation-3143530
Microsoft also commented on it - https://www.videogameschronicle.com...says-we-want-to-bring-call-of-duty-to-switch/
VCG said:
They said they will honour the existing agreement and look to extend the deal. There's no way Sony would have known it's 3 years, unless Microsoft was talking to Sony about the deal prior to it being announced. I mean that would be pretty alarming, announcing the buyout and making public a 3 year deal on the same day. Seems doubtful (please feel free to steer my ship though).
I don't follow Xbox news. I've seen mentions here about Game Pass not meeting internal growth expectations from a few years ago. I've also seen mentions that current growth is limited by console hardware. My question is, in recent years have Xbox console sales met expectations and therefore GP missed same, or were console sales below expectations and that partly or fully explains GP missing?
Game Pass growth targets (seemingly mainly for executive bonus targets, unclear about realistic targets but they did use these lofty goals in the CMA response letter) were at 35M and they are currently at 25ish million. Game Pass isn't "limited" by console hardware, rather Phil commented that at a certain point on console anyone who wants to be subscribed would be. Like if there's an 80% attachment rate limit, that's going to remain constant. So the more consoles sold means more GP subs, but they won't hit 90-100% subscription attachment. PC is a much more ripe avenue for growth and that's where they are looking to expand next. Mobile would be the biggest growth segment, but it's a much harder nut to crack than the PC audience.
I think console sales are above or meeting expectations given how quickly they are selling and all that. Especially compared to Xbox One.
It's a little of everything. They're selling as many systems as they can make but they're not making as many as expected. Their first party software has been weaker than expected. Xcloud, even as a public beta, was expected to draw more subscribers than it has. Their growth targets were very aggressive and may not have been feasible even if everything went right.
Interesting... Super apps have typically not done quite as well in the US as they have in Asia or apparently with Yandex. There's a reason Google and Amazon and Apple don't combine all their apps into one (usability, for example). But perhaps. It's definitely their only chance to meaningfully break the mobile store walls. Since Teams, Office, etc aren't enough on their own to get huge adoption. Well, it's interesting. Would love to see it work.
Yea, as everyone else has said, people are referring to the year-end bonus that Satya Nadella gets for certain metrics. One of them is Game Pass growth. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these targets are very high. Like 70-80% growth YOY. They're not necessarily the same as what MS actually "expects" from the growth. Though, they did miss substantially (like 40%, instead of 70% - course.. 40% pretty good, actually). They missed in 2020, but those targets were from before the pandemic. Missed in 2021, but those targets were from before delays of Starfield and other games. It is what it is. It's not nothing though. We can get the sense that xCloud grew more slowly than they'd like, especially with big moves like Fortnite free on xCloud. But, at the same time, cloud was always going to be a slow burn with a lot of risk (one of the reasons people are so skeptical of CMA trying to regulate it literally to death right now).
And vixolus is right about how people keep misunderstanding Phil's statements. He didn't say they had hit the absolute limit of Game Pass growth on console, just that the proportion of the business attributable to Game Pass would not grow forever - as in the traditional pay to own model isn't going anywhere (an obvious statement meant for regulators, but also self-evident in a lot of ways). I don't necessarily buy that either one has really hit a ceiling yet, though. You could definitely see how all of that could easily shift with the addition of COD, for example.
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It shouldn't have any relevancy for the case, but as a curiosity: Lina Khan is expecting a baby in January.
She said that she will take a short parental leave, but will quickly resume her duties.
She said that she will take a short parental leave, but will quickly resume her duties.
User Banned (1 Month): Sexist Commentary
Feel like it's perfect for microsoft right ? she don't want to be angry about the job when she is getting a baby etc....and perhaps she is going to let it pass more easily.
Now we got babies in the mix, I can't wait to watch the Netflix documentary on this in 5 years.
Edit: It's perfect for her and her family. That's about it.
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What? No, Nintendo was huge in arcades in the early 80s and Donkey Kong was a hit on the level only Taito (Space Invaders) or Namco (Pac Man) had ever previously managed. Hell, Famicom itself only existed initially as a format made to sell a "perfect" DK port to Japanese consumers, the console itself was literally designed to that spec. People forget though just how big Nintendo was in arcades pre-consoles, way bigger upfront than later 80s or 90s heavyweights like Sega, Capcom, Konami, Data East, Irem or SNK were at the time.
Nintendo had no real PC presence but they did work with licensors like Atari, Coleco or Hudson on porting their properties over to various computers. That generally stopped after Famicom really took off with SMB1, though Hudson still got some "conversions" through after due to their close working relationship with Nintendo.
I changed m'y post. I never wanted to said it in sexist way. More about family priority ( and even it was a dude).
Unless she is WFH, I feel like government employees should get and use 6 month of parental leave. Short parental leave is anything less than 10 weeks imo.
Excuse me? Is that another sexist comment I see after craven68's one? FFS folks, you need to stop that bullshit and don't involve people's personal lives in your acquisition war.
Some folks reeeeallly want Lina Khan out of this FTC investigation.
Hardware margins help but Nintendo's real profit driver is their own 1st party software. They're the biggest console games publisher by a wide margin and their Full Game revenue is in the range of eclipsing EA, ABK and T2 combined (who all rely much much more on Services and Recurring revenue). Digging through the financials is pretty eye opening.
FY21 comparisons:
*in $1B USD
EA
Console: 3.716
PC + other: 1.195
Mobile: 0.718
Live services + other: 4.016
Full game: 1.613
ABK
Mobile: 3.182
Console: 2.637
PC: 2.323
Other: 0.661
In-game, sub + other: 6.492
Product: 2.311
TT
Console: 2.516
PC + other: 0.855
Service + other: 2.281
Product: 1.091
Nintendo doesn't give give these kinds of splits but we do know they sold at least 102.99m games that year from their million sellers updates. Fuzzy math but if you figure a $45 ASP on that we get $4.635B revenue and that's not even their entire full game sales (no catalog sales under 1m units, no digital only games). It's a little crazy how dominant Nintendo is in this area and how unrecognized it goes, if they gave digital data to NPD, GfK, etc, the sales charts would probably look a lot more like Asia does (MC, Famistu).
This is more of a general point I want to make rather than anything directed specifically at you or anyone else here, but I think it's important to address: I've had conversations with my sister about the topic of maternity leave, and how often women have to make a choice between their professional lives or their personal ones - one example is that my sister's supervisor when she was doing a masters degree had children and my sister noted that for a lot of women going into research, it's difficult to find the time to raise a family and do everything the job role requires, so it often ends up being a case where they have to choose their career over starting a family, or vice versa. It sucks that this penalty exists in the first place, and "fixing" it requires people to sit up and acknowledge why a woman having a child should incur scrutiny on her ability to do her job, why they should be penalised for doing so, and why are things different when a male goes on paternity leave.
Anyway, no malicious intent on your behalf, and not to derail the thread. Just needed to put this out here.
Sounds like they're advocating for longer parental leave options for government workers. Unless I'm reading it wrong.
View: https://twitter.com/leah_nylen/status/1600174198827061248?s=20&t=RpfTaO9hAFgaGIhVeznnyg
This seems like a good example of the FTC taking action... suing a company for inappropriate sale of user location data (even the sale of identifiable location data in general..). This is the kind of action against tech I want from the FTC.
Lina Khan will most likely still be involved in the investigation process regardless of the expected childbirth. I don't understand why some folks appear eager about the possibiility of her unable to continue her duties because of it.
No, you read it correctly. There are posters who either have read it wrong, or whom are out for blood regardless for whatever reason.
Do you know that they were? You have to provide solid evidence for these kind of claims, otherwise it's just baseless nonsense.