It's just a joke, point is Sony isn't hurting Xbox in Japan at all, Xbox is doing that all on their own.
Sony could literally stop selling games and consoles in Japan and literally nothing would change for Xbox in that region.
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It's just a joke, point is Sony isn't hurting Xbox in Japan at all, Xbox is doing that all on their own.
Sony could literally stop selling games and consoles in Japan and literally nothing would change for Xbox in that region.
It's odd to me that Sony would pay to make games like MHW and Destiny exclusive to PlayStation in Asia because I'm just not sure if either of these titles would make a meaningful difference for Xbox in the region. It's a bit like the argument for buying Square Enix; if you already have Final Fantasy then why bother. How many copies of Monster Hunter World on Xbox would realistically have been sold in Japan?
Maybe I'm missing something.
Maybe I'm missing something.
Approved in Japan
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Yes, Japan has approved the deal:
Receiving notifications regarding the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc. ("Activision Blizzard" headquartered in the U.S.) by Microsoft Corporation (JCN8700150090374) ("Microsoft" headquartered in the U.S.; and Activision Blizzard and Microsoft are hereinafter collectively referred to as the "Parties"), the Japan Fair Trade Commission (hereinafter referred to as the "JFTC") reviewed the transaction and reached the conclusion that the transaction is unlikely to result in substantially restraining competition in any particular fields of trade. Accordingly, the JFTC has notified the Parties that the JFTC will not issue a cease and desist order, resulting in the completion of its review.
- Press release (in English)
- Decision in Japanese (43 pages)
- Decision in English (automatic translation)
- Infographic of the case (in English)
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It's all happening very fast. Someone's editing that "here's to the journey" video right now.
They were waiting for cma or eu for it? Or they don't Care and work on their own ? ( To see if they have more information than us and this is why it got their approval ).
How long before the deal closes in you opinion? And is the FTC irrelevant at this point? That seems to be the consensus around here anyway.
People still think the FTC will take it court even with an almost guaranteed loss. Mostly because it isn't that far away at this point.
To meaningfully stop it the ftc has to sue in an actual court
The discovery stuff they are doing now isn't gonna cut it
Great writeup. We're seeing exactly this play out with FTC subpoenas. Sony internal communication with senior leadership and all deals struck over the past 4 years has got to be worrying for them.
I guess they concluded that Sony had a monopoly in JP for high end console market to pass it so quickly :D
I know they're posting mostly statements but is this twitter account actually relevant or did they just buy themselves a blue tick to make them see more credible?
I see they used this thread as a source lol
Have a feeling now that the smaller regulators see that CMA will probably go through we are just going to start getting a lot more of these.
Yup. Once this wonky market definition is used to decide a $70 billion acquisition it won't magically disappear. It becomes case/legal history. Sony can't put that genie back in the bottle.
I don't agree that it is "out of the bag" and we need to pretend the market definition has any merit just because some ill-informed regulators think it does. Hoeg is a lawyer and I think he'll only give it any respect if it held up in court, which it wouldn't. Regardless of what the FTC thinks the market is, it'll eventually be decided in court (if they don't give up before then.) An expert economist witness would destroy its validity quite easily, I'd imagine. For Microsoft or Sony.
funny that ms is on the verge of purchasing a company that's 2/3rds the size of Sony by market cap in addition to recently buying Bethesda but the narrative is about what is Sony doing to harm MS lol It's so wacky and far from truth when MS have made so many mistakes over the years and they own way more studios than Sony. If you have a compelling product Japanese consumers will purchase your product. Just look at apple
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I wouldn't say that the FTC is irrelevant, I think that they are easier to handle than other regulators (in this acquisition).
In any case, if the FTC is in the mood for a fight, they can delay things quite a bit.
What I'm expecting:
- Decisions from the majority of smaller regulators in 3-5 weeks (almost all of them will be approvals without remedies).
- Decisions from the CMA, EC and SAMR in late April - early May. The CMA is still the main obstacle there, but things look easier now.
- If everyone approves it, I think that MS will offer the same remedies to the FTC to sign a consent decree and be done with this merger by late June. An interesting topic is what remedies MS would offer, because if the CMA and EC approve the deal, the issues about the console market are non existent. But the FTC had concerns about the console, subscription services and cloud gaming markets. So, does MS offer remedies to the FTC only about cloud gaming or the rest too?
- Then the big question mark: the FTC accepts the remedies or rejects them and goes to court? Yesterday, Lisa Khan said that bad precedent is better than non precedent at all. Was the bad precedent from the Meta case enough or they need more?
Important to remember that the FTC Staff didn't recommend to challenge the Meta case, but Khan overruled them and went ahead. Something similar could happen here, I guess.
The idea is that even if the FTC has potentially a weak case, if they are in the mood for more "bad precedent", we are going to be here until late 2023 - early 2024. Meanwhile, MS will need to change the merger agreement to close the deal without them (the approval from the FTC is a requirement to close the deal).
So, the FTC is not a huge obstacle in theory, but they are not irrelevant because they can delay the whole process 6-9 extra months. Of course, those extra months would provide more insights about the industry and the case.
We'll see what's happens.
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Point is that using your large marketshare advantage to further squeeze out your smaller competitors is actually the kind of thing these regulatory bodies are built to stop. Sony's tactics ensure that there can be no other "high end" console successes in Japan, because they've been paying to starve their competitors of content for years.
Microsoft making many mistakes and Sony limiting Microsoft's ability to compete can both be true simultaneously.
It's even funnier when you mention that Microsoft doesn't need Activision in order to compete and could easily gain marketshare by actually having marketing and being available in more countries (and localization for that matter - a lot of this was done in the 360 era). People here act like buying Activision after buying Bethesda is the only way for Microsoft to compete, which is laughable, but it shows how good Microsoft is at controlling the narrative (and Sony is poor at that).
Limiting what ability though? They have almost no presence inside of Japan. Why release Japanese versions of games with almost no presence? We just seen the uk RE4 split and it's 80/20 Sony and is this Sonys fault too? It's just a weird argument. What would be the argument in the uk?
At this point, Jim should *have just penned a bunch of offers with Microsoft, accepting stuff like COD day one on PS+ etc. Make a contract to assure some titles will still be multiplatform for 10 years or try their luck for 20 years or something and be done with it.
(Yes I know they talked about 10 years)
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(Yes I know they talked about 10 years)
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UK is boxed sales no? For whatever reason Sony fans prefer physical over there. Xbox is mostly digital
That strategy would have made sense when every regulator was concerned about the console market but that time has passed. Sony refused to negotiate and instead opted to only see the deal blocked which in hindsight wasn't very smart
I don't think MS has to offer them anything anymore though.
The argument would be why do you need to pay for games to skip Xbox and/or gamepass if they have no presence there anyways? Thus, is Sony preventing them from ever having a chance to compete there and form a presence by hamstringing a console from titles that excel in that market when it has almost no presence already.
Couple of largely irrelevant articles.
https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/Sha...semitteilungen/2023/28_03_2023_Microsoft.html
The Germans are funny but it's not really important yet. Just basically the Germans trying to confirm MS is a big important company that could implement anticompetitive actions. Google and Meta already went through this process.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/take-two-acquires-mobile-games-subscription-service-gameclub
Take-Two buys a mobile subscription service.
https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/Sha...semitteilungen/2023/28_03_2023_Microsoft.html
The Germans are funny but it's not really important yet. Just basically the Germans trying to confirm MS is a big important company that could implement anticompetitive actions. Google and Meta already went through this process.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/take-two-acquires-mobile-games-subscription-service-gameclub
Take-Two buys a mobile subscription service.
Microsoft would do day one ps+ in a second. Sony won't though. They could never afford a title like that day one on their service. The cost would be astronomical.
And, why would Microsoft ever do a 20 year deal with Sony? They have no obligation to make any deal with Sony now. You think they would double they rejected deal they no longer have to offer now? Not happening. They may give Sony the same 10 year offer for call of duty only, but that's about it.
What about the size of the deal? MS has set a huge bar, what precedents does this set? So now Deals below 70 billion, are they given the same scrutiny or could anyone argue "well if MS can buy for 70 why can't we buy smaller for 15, 20 etc?"
I'm genuinely asking because I don't know how this works.
Yes, my bad, I meant *should have penned* a deal.
They could be done with it and move forward.
I think you need to detach the idea of narrative from the legal reality.
Microsoft have undoubtedly made mistakes up to this point and it's their own fault for doing so.
But Xbox's performance isn't really whats being tested here. It's a legal standard that's being tested, as it has been throughout the process, nobody (legally) cares about how MS botched the Xbox one launch.
Let's not misrepresent the entire thread with generalisations like in the above.
People don't think buying ABK is the only way for MS to compete.
People like me understand that consolidation in this industry is inevitable at this point as gaming is a mature market. So when consolidation does come around and it has the potential to balance the console market its seen as opportunity.
I doubt anyone thinks this is the only way compete, but its the best possible option to attempt to bring some balance to a market that leans heavily toward Sony and would potentially lead even more towards Sony before MS could spin up the operations needed to grow 'organically'. The reason the acquisition is the route MS is taking is because it takes less time and is much lower risk when it comes to acquiring the staff and getting/building the content.
Do you really think that the prevailing narrative is that Sony is "harming" Microsoft? I think most people are just amused that the theory of harm only exists because of the market definition Sony pushed for.
Also what does market cap have to do with anything? Are you implying that Xbox is immune to input foreclosure because they are buying a big company?
That applies only to a handful of countries and Microsoft has shown over the past 20 years that they don't really care about markets other than the big Western countries.
Who says it's the only way to compete?
People are simply arguing that it's legal and won't result it significant lessening of competition. whether or not there are other options available is completely irrelevant- it's the option they chose.
I can't imagine Microsoft being able to compete without Bethesda and ABK. Just look how barren last year was for them or how soft their launch lineup was.
If it weren't for their acquisitions their biggest game this year would probably be yet another Forza. They needed these buyouts.
I still think they need a few more like Sega, Capcom etc before they even have a chance of catching up.
Well, look below, lmao
And look at threads where people speculate who's going to be bought next by Microsoft.
In a theoretical Sony wants to buy EA case (lol), which would be probably less then half of ABK(??) by quickly googling, what would be the basis of blocking such a deal after a 70 billion deal is approved with similar players involved?
Seems to me who follows this very partially and only via Era that the floodgates will open soon.
The basis would be Sony are the market leader and it would be unfair to the competition to let them buy such a big publisher.
Basically this, considering the "high end performance" market is gonna have legal precedent following this deal. Sony trying to buy the publisher of Madden/FIFA/Apex would naturally draw ire in Europe for example where they hold the 4/1 ratio lead based on this market definition
Those speculations keep happening because MS has said numerous times they will continue. It's always going to be topic of discussion