UK watchdog recommends Xbox Activision deal for ‘in-depth investigation’ amid competition concerns

From VGC: "The UK competition regulator’s inquiry into Microsoft‘s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard may be expanded over competition concerns.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) confirmed last month that it had opened an investigation into the $68.7 billion deal—the game industry’s biggest ever by far—to determine whether it’s a fair one.

After gathering feedback from third parties with an interest in the proposed deal, the CMA said on Thursday that it has a number of outstanding concerns that must be addressed."

[sparky77]

Surprising that government regulators and Sony themselves believe that no COD is enough to kill the Playstation brand. Crazy to think Sony's 1st party games are that insignificant.

[SoulWarrior]

And MS' 1st party was that insignificant they spent an eye watering 80 billion, buying them up from others as they hadn't created their own hit IP for I don't know how long.

[sparky77]

Exactly that, before Bethesda they were lacking.

Now with Bethesda + ABK they will easily become number 1 and Sony/regulators know that.

[tehpees3]

Their exclusive quality was actually lacking before X1. It was towards the tail end of the 360 where they were obviously falling behind everybody. In regards to buying IPs, sure they have bigger names but only time will tell if the development talent pays off, since that is what truly matters in the long run.

[ChasterMies]

Where did you read that anyone said that losing CoD will kill the PlayStation brand? Divert sales, yes. That’s the power of exclusivity. Or more importantly for the market, concentrate more game sales with one publisher and giving that publisher too much power over the market. Just think of all the other markets that are controlled by only a few companies and how much that sucks for consumers.

[Aloymetal]

I'm collecting these kind of comments to review again by the end of this gen. What would the excuses if after all the zillions spent and all those ''significant'' ; IP's bought the xbox brand still manage to get a distant 3rd place.
What a major embarrassment that will be. Can't wait to hear them...

[thesoftware730]

It's more embarrassing that you plan to get off on collecting people's opinions so that you can gloat later. You are way too connected to something you are not connected to.

Btw, just a question and a thought, what metric of 3rd are you using...unit sales? let us say at the end, they have 60mill or more GP subs, but fewer physical consoles sold, did they fail? or will you be stuck in your shortsighted view?

[Hofstaderman]

I’m calling it they coming in at third place again this gen. Bethesda and Activision can’t make up for the fact that they have lacklustre games. I’m personally not affected by the buyout, I don’t play Call of Duty and the only Bethesda game I’ve ever completed was Skyrim. People buy a PlayStation because they know where the exclusives are at. And they may come to PC yes, but that happens three to four years down the line.

[Aloymetal]

@thesoftware730
You're already spinning and making excuses because of the inevitable so thanks for the input.
Excuse/comment # 39 collected.

[Gamingsince1981]

@jimmy289

Let us know when they have some success first.

[HardKnockKid24]

@Aloymetal….. dude why are you like this? Lol

[babadivad]

Such cringe...

[Tedakin]

Cod isn't getting taken away from anyone. That's made up drama.

[brewin]

Exactly. I feel like Sony is just trying to delay the deal from going thru before MW2 comes out because they dont want to have Xbox having it on Gamepass day 1 while it has a $70 price on PS5.

With PS5 hard to obtain still, there are a lot of people that would see thats its part of Gamepass and choose the Xbox over the PS5 because of that alone. It would definitely move the needle for a lot of CoD fans to have it on Gamepass on Day 1. Thats unlikely to happen now because of the investigation, so smart move by Sony to delay it as much as possible

[derek]

@Brewin Sony ain't controlling this.

[Profchaos]

I think we all know the quality of Sony's first party games is high but commercially they don't reach the level of cod.

Without games like cod Sony wouldn't be able to make the investment in games like ghost of tsushima because they help fund those hits ans fails via publishing fees.

[Dirty_Lemons]

Who the fook is this guy?

[Orchard]

Won’t stop the deal going through obviously and they still have a window to respond and address their concerns to avoid going to the in depth review.

But I think they handled it perfectly by just responding with that other blog post they put out.

[1Victor]

Microsoft can have a big pass by allowing/ offering game pass ( no pun intended) on other consoles by doing that they can prove they’re not going to monopolize those mayor 3rd party developers/publishers and put the heat on the other consoles.

[Tedakin]

Sony will never in a billion years allow Gamepass on Playstation, directly competing with its own services and users.

[shinoff2183]

I think gamepass will be on ps at some point. Whether late this gen or next

[Gamingsince1981]

Gamepass will be on playstation when MS leaves the console business and is only a game streaming company like Amazon which won't be to far away considering how badly xbox sells world wide even with the billions MS keeps shoving into it.

[porkChop]

They already offered to put Game Pass on PS and PS refused. Sony also blocked EA Play for the longest time. Sony doesn't like sharing profits or allowing competing services.

[MadLad]

@gaming81

Xbox is selling better than ever. They're even starting to overtake Sony in markets they were never even close in.
They're only a few million behind PlayStation overall.

So if that's bad, wouldn't that make PlayStation sales sub-par, at best?

Let's also talk about subscription services. Gamepass made PS Now look abysmal. At least until they just hid the numbers and implemented it into the PS Plus numbers.

[mkis007]

"Obviously "does not really belong there. This is exactly the type of thing that could lead to it being blocked.

Personally I hope it goes through. Ms doesnt have the ability to aquire any more pubs after this. They would all be blocked.

[porkChop]

This won't lead to it being blocked. The major concern revolves around Call of Duty being taken away from PS. MS has already committed, multiple times, to keeping Call of Duty multiplatform. They've likened it to their acquisition of Mojang and how all Minecraft games continue to be released for all platforms.

[derek]

@orchard, don't be so sure, I can see American regulators having the same concerns. Microsoft has a long history of anticompetitive practices no matter how rosy a picture the paint of this purchase.

[1Victor]

@tedakin
That same was said in 1995 of a sonic game on a Nintendo console and 2001 of PlayStation games showing on PC 🤷🏿 add to that the next gen is going to be the last gen for consoles 🤦🏿
Bottom line is 💩 happens, wind shifts and weather changes nothing last forever.

Would you had believed that bungie would be owned by Sony if someone told you 15+ years ago?

[JayRyu]

Exactly!
Will not stop the acquisition from going through. I believe that this deal will be done by late fall early winter right in time for the Christmas holiday right when MW2 drops and will be added to Game Pass.

[Gamingsince1981]

The deal at its earliest is next year so that's not happening.

[tay8701]

yah that deal isnt happening this yr. it will finally go through probably middle of next yr.

[Profchaos]

But it could in theory. Microsoft will obviously fire back and defend the deal. It doesn't mean the UK will agree with them.

[darkrider]

Fair? That will be hard to prove. It's one of the biggest publishers

[MadLad]

So anyways, then the deal went through.

[Father__Merrin]

Sony should just come out and say that call of duty is in good hands on and that call of duty will day 1 be available to all players it should speed up the merger.

COD remains on PlayStation Phil reiterated it again

[Profchaos]

Sony don't own it and can't guarantee that after 3 years they won't have the rug pulled out and have cod removed from their systems. Why would they commit to that statement

[MadLad]

I think we both know it's not going to be on anything besides PC and Xbox a couple years after the acquisition is officiated.

Unless Sony and Nintendo allow Gamepass on their systems by then.

[brewin]

There shouldnt be any issues upon investigation. Theyve stated time and time again that they will continue to release CoD everywhere, They gain nothing by making it exclusive. To have it on Gamepass is the differentiator. You will have to buy it on PlayStation but can get it as part of the Gamepass sub. There is no anti-competitive issues there at all. And Sony saying they cant make something like CoD? Really!? They just bought Bungie and theyre that worried over CoD?

Personally, I havent played CoD in years and couldnt care less. But I will check out the campaign mode of any new CoD if its on Gamepass. Otherwise its a hard pass.

[LoveSpuds]

Sony never said the couldn't make something better than COD. They said that COD is so dominant in the gaming sector that it would be impossible to make an FPS franchise that could compete with it. They went on to say that they could never compete with the annual release cycle due to the amount of studios making the games. That is different from saying they couldn't make a better game!

They have also said that if COD were to become exclusive it would dramatically impact consumers purchasing choice given the unassailable position COD enjoys.

Personally, I don't believe a word out of any MS exec's mouth, they have been in the business of lying to xbox gamers for 20+ years. Anyone who thinks MS would be true to their word are nieve in the extreme.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

I see this deal will be delayed because of the uk maybe?

[MrDead]

About time, monopolies only benefit monopolies and shareholders, everyone else loses. Grabbing entire publishers to kill competition is not for gamers or for the benefit of the industry, I'm tired of these tax dodging mega corporations like MS taking everything.

[kindi_boy]

True, good thing MS+AB is not a monopoly.

[TheColbertinator]

Doesn't matter. By next year Activision will be Microsoft and Sony will begin a slow death

[tay8701]

lol cod games are absolute trash. they will not cause the death of playstation. sony is just concerned they will lose some of their market dominance if they were to onto gamepass. it certainly isnt going to kill them them when it does eventually go through. its almost comical how bad MS is at developing studios that they have to spend almost 70 billion dollars to try to level the the playing field. sony has FAR FAR more talented studios who priduce way higher quality games and that is not even debateable. MS highly overestimates their gamepass alure. playstation fans arent going to buy an xbox to play it for "free" unlike xbox fans we have zero issues actually buying games. it will be fun to see xbox lose all kinds of money on this deal, because xbox players arent going to buy it. certainly some sony fans will, other will move on with all the live service games they are bringing out. sony now owns bungie and haven, they will most likely be acquiring deviation games soon as well. they have a deal with firewalk studios not to mention their other 1st party studios are working on multiplayer games. insomniac, sony london, firesprite, guerilla, and naughty dog are all working on gaas games. odds are that at least a couple of the scheduled 10 plus gass games are going to very sucessfull, which will no doubt effect the number of non xbox players of cod.

[Hofstaderman]

Once again, subscribers for how long? Microsoft can brag they have many so people who subscribed. The question is do these people renew their subscription or do they only renew when a games that tickles their fancy is released on GamePass? I’m really convinced subscription services have a ceiling and once reached it becomes non tenable.

[MadLad]

They typically state active user numbers with Gamepass.
Not just accounts set up.
That number is only growing. So even if there are people unsubscribing, that means there's more taking their place on the regular.

[Cosmoplayer84]

Their greedy movement with consumers or players will seal their slow death . Sony before was " FOR THE PLAYERS" now sony is " FOR THE PAYERS".

[MadLad]

And that's the issue with how they're acting all this generation.
All they've done is raise prices across the board, and the dedicated fanbase keep telling me that's just to fund a bunch of new IP.

I know a lot of GaaS titles are coming down the line; something that is supposed to be a boogie man result of Gamepass (Gamepass never resulted in mainly GaaS titles by the way).
Yet I know there's a bunch of quality games, from quality developers, being developed like your typical releases, coming down the pipeline from devs underneath Microsoft.

I haven't seen all these price increases coincide with a bunch of announcements of the big new, high quality IP that supposedly makes Sony games Sony games.

[Tetsujin]

MS is moving goal posts again. "Can't beat 'em, buy 'em!"

Nintendo, Sony, and Steam found that making good games is what brings in customers. I'd make a wish for MS to drop out so Sega can come back as a console again so we have good competition and not who has the biggest checkbook.

[Rdeal]

steam making good games? they hardly ever make a game, and Sony is buying exclusive content all over the place, what a deluded pony you are

[Profchaos]

Hl3 confirmed

[Tetsujin]

@Tedakin

Sega went 3rd party because of miscommunication between the East and West. I remember when the Saturn was said to be ready day of reveal instead of the planned release date to jump ahead of the competition which led to massive amounts of bad games and a short lifespan. Dreamcast had potential but gave up in the West and in the East was still going on for a while.

@Profchaos

HL3 Confirmed!

@Rdeal

Try harder next time.

[Tedakin]

Sega made 2 failure consoles in a row, plus the 32x and Sega CD. No one wanted them then, why would they want them now?

[Orchard]

This comment would only make sense if Sony had founded and not purchased Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Guerrilla, Bungie, Firesprite, Housemarque, Bend, Bluepoint, SD studio, Sucker Punch, Media Molecule to name but a few.

Turns out all corporations splash the cash to gain share in the market 🤦‍♂️

[tay8701]

true although many of those studios you listed were already pretty much exclusive to sony anyways. that is not apples to apples comparison. sony was actually in strong partnerships for years with studios like naughty dog, insomniac, housemarque and blue point. those studios were almost 2nd party sony studios. quantic dreams who just got bought is another example. i know i might be in the minority but i dgaf about bethesda or activision games. they are very mediocre. now obviously i would be more upset if they were to seize a quality publisher like capcom, take 2, or a studio like from software.

[1nsomniac]

Again, once they’ve got some kind of kickback arranged it’ll pass like the wind.

UK watchdog investigations have meant diddly squat for years now. The only defence we ever had was from the laws provided by the EU forced upon us for our own good.

[Machina]

Is the EU going to block the deal?

[masterfox]

the game industry quality is going down the drain for giving such importance to games like CoD , even sadder that Sony gives such importance to that average FPS.

PS1, PS2, PS3 didnt have Cod in their time and they manage to be the best in this game industry. Sony is forgetting its roots and this will have bad economic consequences to them.

[Profchaos]

Umm ps3 had cod its where it became the behemoth it is today. even ps2 had it in its early incarnation but during the ps2 era Sci fi shooters where in vouge killzone and halo as example

[derek]

What if doesn't go thru, the fallout would be priceless.

[PapaBop]

Honestly how can the UK have so much influence between business from American companies?

[Gamingsince1981]

They are global companies....

[LordoftheCritics]

MS needs this deal baaaad.

[Orchard]

So does Activision and their employees.

[TheLigX]

Unlike the US, other countries take monopolies and consumer protections seriously.

[Profchaos]

US is also questioning the deal

[lcslick]

I think the combination of Microsoft buying both Activision and Bethesda might be contributing to this. Buying small developing studios is one thing. But, buying these large ones that are known for making popular multiplatform games is another. It is like they want to corner the market. It's not like they have to stop. They could continue on to buy the likes of square enix, Konami and whoever else in the future. By then it would be too late to stop the monopoly.

[Ristul]

Microsoft will just bribe this deal through, corruption and politics go hand in hand.

[Father__Merrin]

Call of Duty stays on PlayStation I know people are hurt that playstation will still receive call of duty they are really hurt as when this was announced... Because they have no other new they all said goodbye ps5 no more cod memes were shared.... No matter what they do it always comes back to them its been a joy to watch them shoot themselfs in foot ever since the "who needs bluray" "who needs WiFi" "ps3 sux" brigade