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Gotta be Sony?
Would Valve brother commenting? Also it says multiple so I'll throw maybes of Google & Amazon.
Amazing work as always.
Interesting info in this document.
This is a good guess.
Yeah....like I said, some interesting info in this document, lol.
Google or Amazon would no doubt be negative on it because they compete with Microsoft in Cloud, Apps and Services. They would absolutely not want it to happen. Azure, Mobile gaming, Ecosystem.
I knew it, Gabe Newell, after all his friendly words, is secretly against it. He has been orchestrating the whole thing behind the scenes. Or as those in the know like to call him, Darth Valve.
I would bet that most publishers view Nintendo in a different space from MS and Sony.
I was assuming they meant platform holder(Online stores) in this case. I think these are the parties and how they voted.
Sony (Against)
Nintendo (Did not oppose)
Valve (Did not Oppose)
Apple (Against)
Google (Against)
Nvidia or Amazon (was not sure)
Sony (Against)
Nintendo (Did not oppose)
Valve (Did not Oppose)
Apple (Against)
Google (Against)
Nvidia or Amazon (was not sure)
This is probably it, Google and Apple are only going to make Microsoft want to crack open those app stores even more and that is a MUCH bigger deal than this, they'll be screwed if they have to open up.
You can see why CMA did what they did and why they are iffy. Out of six they interviewed, three were against it, one was unsure, and two were fine. I imagine Call of Duty came up many times as a potential leverage Microsot could use, so CMA proposed simply taking that from them. Microsoft themselves have seemed to stress that King is the more valuable of the purchases, so in a way CMA is just suggesting a remedy that kind of satisfies all parties while leaving no one absolutely happy.
It will not. Consolidation is happening regardless of the outcome of this acquisition.
Eh, I think companies will be iffy about buying a big publisher if the deal falls through. Imagine if someone tried to buy EA right now, they would potentially have both Sony and Microsoft against the deal. Smaller companies sure, but it is a lot of money to spend on something that is currently being side eyed.
It will not slow down because this deal doesn't pass, microsoft for instance still needs a mobile presence and pc presence, which was what ABK would give them. It would cause the bigger ones to slow down. If anything is going to slow down consolidation it will be because of the current uncertainty with economy. I can still see microsoft going after other studios if this deal fails, just smaller ones.
Idas you're a legend!
I think it's getting more and more obvious MS will need to offer remedies for both COD and cloud gaming. I don't see why behavioural remedies should not be able to satisfy those demands, as long as MS is willing to sign heavily binding contracts.
I'm getting positive about the deal again (perhaps because I'm in green again on Activision stock lol)
I think it's getting more and more obvious MS will need to offer remedies for both COD and cloud gaming. I don't see why behavioural remedies should not be able to satisfy those demands, as long as MS is willing to sign heavily binding contracts.
I'm getting positive about the deal again (perhaps because I'm in green again on Activision stock lol)
I think the biggest roadblock to behavioral remedies is the CMA not wanting to have to monitor them. So MS has to propose remedies that are sufficiently long and sufficiently self governing. Also I could see them never being able to be cloud exclusive with the ABK licenses.
What studio though? Most of the other big mobile games are owned by companies who are not selling for sure. Like Tencent, Netease, Bandai, Sony, etc etc. its hard to see where they go in the mobile market without Activision, unless they go for much smaller and build them out.
There's a great post below explaining it.
And it would need to be done in a way that protects not only current players, but also future market entrants, too.
Mergers are often cost-cutting measures for the acquirer, and financial security measures for the company being acquired.
The Linked in example was interesting. MS funded an independent body of EC choosing to monitor their handling of the asset. Seems like a sensible comprise.
Anyone can say anything. What matters is cold hard facts to prove it, the only thing that matters here is the law, and past precidents. And on those fronts, this is the first high profile case regulators are applying these brand new theories on. They are literally so new that Microsoft with the Bethesda Aquisition not even a year earlier was operating under old rules.
In fact there is zero guarantees that had Bethesda went under the same regulatory environment as today, it would have passed. Lina Khan was appointed after that deal was completed, and the CMA completed their regulatory rewrite after it was completed. Not only that, but the FTC under Khan has also made statements alluding to how she wouldn't have passed Bethesda.
So yeah. This is all brand new. Nobody would know what form they would take. Nobody could have expected the FTC to straight up lie in their reports and exclude fucking Nintendo from the Gaming Industry. And nobody could have expected that the CMA with all the research they did, would come to the conclusion that a fraction of a percentage of users moving from the dominant market leader to a market loser is anything but good for competition while implying that a single game franchise is so important the industry can't survive without it.
Are we still pretending that's what the regulators said? Or that it isn't how Microsoft literally views the industry?
That's what I don't understand, most of the regulators are protecting Sony and excluding Nintendo.
Sony is by far the leader of the Market at least in "high performance consoles",
Microsoft is really far away from them.
Indeed a small fraction of consumers moving to Xbox would at the opposite be good for the market because it would mean that Sony should even be a better competitor like in prices for exemple.
Sony signs a lot of deals for exclusivity which they can do ofc but it's anti-consumer!
Regulators don't even take this kind of things into account.
Seems like a joke!
I think all of this is only because Microsoft is part of the Gafam and a lot of people hate big business and the control they can have.
Sony is by far the leader of the Market at least in "high performance consoles",
Microsoft is really far away from them.
Indeed a small fraction of consumers moving to Xbox would at the opposite be good for the market because it would mean that Sony should even be a better competitor like in prices for exemple.
Sony signs a lot of deals for exclusivity which they can do ofc but it's anti-consumer!
Regulators don't even take this kind of things into account.
Seems like a joke!
I think all of this is only because Microsoft is part of the Gafam and a lot of people hate big business and the control they can have.
Also after seeing the latest document....I really dont see how anyone can just solely blame regulators for thinking that.
We know two of the parties opposed are Sony and Google, I think the third might be Nvidia since they've been negative about the deal in public as well.
Though, as a side note, I love how I can kinda figure out from those statements which party said what.
Valve with Proton as the only one who would really care about that. All the negative comments are a mixture of Sony and Google and read exactly like their PR, and then cloud comes up and Nvidia squeaks in for the honorable mention
It's editoralizing for sure. But it's not wrong. The FTC literally stated that Nintendo platforms are in a completely different gaming market all on their own that they hold a Monopoly in. And sure, we can debate that Mobile Gaming could be a different market from Console Gaming, but the FTC never bothered to actually flesh out that distinction and explain why that Is the case. And they drew the lines so stupidly at "Consoles with good hardware" and "Consoles with bad hardware". And even within that same report the FTC ended up contradicting itself by including Nintendo in some comtexts and ignoring them in kthers
The CMAs report is much better in that regards, but the FTCs holds absolutely no truth in how it's presented.
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I would say the CMA is much better with the Nintendo question because they seem to be using third party information along with MS and ABK's internal information that seems to all show Nintendo being in a separate competitive category at least. I can see why they would use that to justify just looking at Sony and MS alone.
Legally speaking, because of this Aquisition Activision literally isn't allowed to implement any cost saving measures because they have to continue operating the business as is the usual, as of the day of the deal being signed. Which was a bit over a year ago, well before the current layoff fad hit the Industry.
And yes it is a fad. Layoffs are contagious to companies and they're literally only doing it because everyone else is, even though it makes so sense for the vast majority of them to do it.
Should this deal fall through, that's when you'll see Activision enter the ring and start slashing it's own workforce. Not because they "want to", but because shareholders demand it out of all tech companies. But also because Bobby is a dick and will want to attack the workers trying to unionize during this period where it's much harder to stop them enmasse.
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To me, Nintendo isn't a main console due to its lack of third party support. My Switch (and future Nintendo hardware) is dedicated solely to Nintendo's games. My PlayStation, PC, and PC handheld are for everything else. I know I'm not alone with this sentiment.
That being said, sometime in the future, I'm considering making a high-end PC handheld like the Aya Neo 2 my go to for Nintendo software via emulation while still legally owning the game, just not playing it on Nintendo hardware.
Mergers and acquisitions aren't positioned in the same way as employees when it comes to corporate cost cutting. Depending on the company, an acquisition can be looked at as an investments for future stability, revenue and profit. But it is a case by case situation. Even when Sony was having a hard financial time during the PS3 era, they made smart investments that later paid off. Microsoft has done this in the past as well.
I think this true in the AAA space but Nintendo is very relevant in the indie one, which I think basically ignored in a lot of this regulatory meetings.
The indie space doesn't really move the industry like a Grand Theft Auto, God of War, Call of Duty. Go to a high school student and ask them about either Spelunky or Hades and you'll get a blank stare by most. I think this is the same with your average Joe Schmoe adult who isn't an enthusiast gamer. Also, I'm guessing PC and PlayStation are where indies sell the most on average based on the software sales and software sales revenue reported by Sony and Nintendo (Nintendo reports that, right?). So, outside of the hardcore Nintendo base, I think Nintendo isn't taken as seriously as Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.
I think the CMA recognizes that they are competitors, just not as direct… currently.
the lines of competition are constantly being blurred by overlapping software access, hardware priorities and distribution methods like BC and cloud.
Most indies actually focus on Nintendo and PC at this point if I remember right.
PC then Switch is what I usually see from Indies and Kickstarters so that was what I was going with. PC is definitely the lead because there is so few barriers to entries but then Switch always seems to be the number 2 platform.
Yep, Microsoft themselves, multiple times, have said they do not compete with Nintendo as directly as they do with Sony (or when they're being smug, not as directly as they compete with Google and Amazon).
And it's not just Microsoft, everyone, including huge swaths of the gaming community here and elsewhere, view Nintendo as being in a sort of their own area of the industry and only care to compare numbers and releases between Playstation and Xbox.
We'll just pretend we don't do that when it's convenient, I guess.
I think there's no platform that comes close to PC for indies (most of them are exclusive to PC). PlayStation sells more multiplatform third party titles when compared to any other platform.
OP
OP
MS says that Sony's motion should be denied and provides 10 pages of arguments. MS says that:
- Sony has unleashed its executives and high-priced economists to petition the Commission, as well as regulators around the world, to block the transaction. MS mentions 4 redacted examples.
- Sony's campaign has worked because the Commission's theory of harm relies almost exclusively on the facially implausible claim that the acquisition is anticompetitive because Microsoft will withhold from Sony a single game (Call of Duty).
- Despite leading the charge to stop the transaction, Sony claims it should not be required to produce documents on the very topics it has put at issue.
- Sony should produce documents from Lin Tao and Hideaki Nishino because Tao is the key custodian with information about SIE's financial health and plans and Nishino is the head of SIE's hardware business, another topic of central importance.
- Sony relies on blanket assertions of privilege and the burden of reviewing McCurdy's files because he is a lawyer. But, according to his job posting, McCurdy is also responsible for SIE's public policy engagement.
- Sony has refused to provide a predecessor custodian for Christian Svensson, who manages SIE's relationship with Activision, even though Svensson has only been in his position since 2021. MS says that that relationship is of the upmost importance, and SIE has not supported its assertion that Svensson's manager would have the same documents as Svensson's predecessor.
- Regarding the requests for data about the performance of SIE's gaming business, Sony has not explained why pulling and producing data from its central files, without any need for responsiveness or privilege review, would be unduly burdensome.
- Requests 14(d) and 19 are about specific documents—valuations, board documents, and regulatory submissions—related to SIE's cloud-gaming acquisitions of Gaikai in 2012 and OnLive in 2015. MS says that providing targeted information about SIE's own cloud-gaming efforts is relevant to assessing the viability of that claim and is not unduly burdensome.
- Microsoft seeks performance reviews for SIE custodians. Microsoft is not seeking to embarrass SIE's leadership; it seeks to understand the metrics on which SIE's executives and business are evaluated.
- Request 35 seeks executed copies of content-licensing agreements between SIE and third- party gaming publishers. MS says that these contracts are relevant. Microsoft says that they are aware that PlayStation requires many third-party publishers to agree to exclusivity provisions, including preventing the publishers from putting their games on Xbox's multi-game subscription service. But that they do not fully understand the extent of SIE's arrangements or how they impact the industry's competitiveness.
- Microsoft requests that Sony produce documents that SIE submitted to these regulatory authorities in connection with this transaction. SIE has refused, agreeing only to produce submissions to the European Commission and United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority, based on claims of burden.
- Contrary to the allegation that Microsoft will make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox, since announcing the deal, Microsoft has repeatedly offered to enter into an agreement to license Call of Duty to SIE—first for five years (this is new!) and then for ten, an unheard-of duration in the industry. SIE has refused. Microsoft seeks documents about these negotiations, including SIE's internal consideration of Microsoft's offers and why it has refused them.
- Request 14(f) seeks information about SIE's investment in virtual reality technology for its console, which SIE executives have highlighted as a strategic imperative and "a giant leap forward in the way we play games.
And done! A lot of drama potentially coming :s
- Sony has unleashed its executives and high-priced economists to petition the Commission, as well as regulators around the world, to block the transaction. MS mentions 4 redacted examples.
- Sony's campaign has worked because the Commission's theory of harm relies almost exclusively on the facially implausible claim that the acquisition is anticompetitive because Microsoft will withhold from Sony a single game (Call of Duty).
- Despite leading the charge to stop the transaction, Sony claims it should not be required to produce documents on the very topics it has put at issue.
- Sony should produce documents from Lin Tao and Hideaki Nishino because Tao is the key custodian with information about SIE's financial health and plans and Nishino is the head of SIE's hardware business, another topic of central importance.
- Sony relies on blanket assertions of privilege and the burden of reviewing McCurdy's files because he is a lawyer. But, according to his job posting, McCurdy is also responsible for SIE's public policy engagement.
- Sony has refused to provide a predecessor custodian for Christian Svensson, who manages SIE's relationship with Activision, even though Svensson has only been in his position since 2021. MS says that that relationship is of the upmost importance, and SIE has not supported its assertion that Svensson's manager would have the same documents as Svensson's predecessor.
- Regarding the requests for data about the performance of SIE's gaming business, Sony has not explained why pulling and producing data from its central files, without any need for responsiveness or privilege review, would be unduly burdensome.
- Requests 14(d) and 19 are about specific documents—valuations, board documents, and regulatory submissions—related to SIE's cloud-gaming acquisitions of Gaikai in 2012 and OnLive in 2015. MS says that providing targeted information about SIE's own cloud-gaming efforts is relevant to assessing the viability of that claim and is not unduly burdensome.
- Microsoft seeks performance reviews for SIE custodians. Microsoft is not seeking to embarrass SIE's leadership; it seeks to understand the metrics on which SIE's executives and business are evaluated.
- Request 35 seeks executed copies of content-licensing agreements between SIE and third- party gaming publishers. MS says that these contracts are relevant. Microsoft says that they are aware that PlayStation requires many third-party publishers to agree to exclusivity provisions, including preventing the publishers from putting their games on Xbox's multi-game subscription service. But that they do not fully understand the extent of SIE's arrangements or how they impact the industry's competitiveness.
- Microsoft requests that Sony produce documents that SIE submitted to these regulatory authorities in connection with this transaction. SIE has refused, agreeing only to produce submissions to the European Commission and United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority, based on claims of burden.
- Contrary to the allegation that Microsoft will make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox, since announcing the deal, Microsoft has repeatedly offered to enter into an agreement to license Call of Duty to SIE—first for five years (this is new!) and then for ten, an unheard-of duration in the industry. SIE has refused. Microsoft seeks documents about these negotiations, including SIE's internal consideration of Microsoft's offers and why it has refused them.
- Request 14(f) seeks information about SIE's investment in virtual reality technology for its console, which SIE executives have highlighted as a strategic imperative and "a giant leap forward in the way we play games.
And done! A lot of drama potentially coming :s
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I needed some spice in my morning. Microsoft's summary is basically, "Put up or shut up." It only seems fair that the party claiming the most damage be required to provide proof, especially when they're clearly the market leader. Wonder what the judge thinks, though...
Yup. I also have a hard time believing that MS would ever succeed in buying a Japanese publisher on Sony and Nintendo's home turf. There's no way that they both wouldn't hypothetically lobby against any sort of acquisition.
I mean, they're asking of the documentation that support Sony's claims to hold its safe position, right?
Some of these requests I agree with, some I don't. The cloud related stuff is important; Sony should let MS see those documents.
Odd that MS wants to see PSVR stuff? Why would that matter? I know Bethesda likes making VR games but I thought ABK wasn't doing VR titles/modes.
Odd that MS wants to see PSVR stuff? Why would that matter? I know Bethesda likes making VR games but I thought ABK wasn't doing VR titles/modes.