The US-based Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has announced that Activision-Blizzard and Tencent have joined the trade association, raising the membership to 37 companies. Both companies join Microsoft, Sony, Deep Silver, Square-Enix, Konami, and Electronic Arts, among others, as members of the Association.
Swedish Arrowhead is behind the successful game Helldivers and made a profit of 729 million kronor last year after its latest launch. In addition, Chinese Tencent has bought just over 15 percent of the shares at a valuation of just over 5 billion.
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May 7 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a legal challenge by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to Microsoft's (MSFT.O), opens new tab $69 billion purchase of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower judge's order that said the FTC was not entitled to a preliminary injunction blocking the deal, which closed in 2023.
Final nail in FTC´s coffin!
It was a lost cause from the start and a waste of taxpayers money!
Indeed. When sony got exposed with some of their deals it was pretty much game over.
That's not at all how this works. Sony made deals Microsoft, the trillion dollar company couldn't? You think that's what won them this case?
This wasn't seen as a act of attempting to monopolize the industry. Plain and simple.
"Indeed. When sony got exposed with some of their deals it was pretty much game over."
And now that MS is releasing all of its Xbox games for all platforms, Phil is free to buy whatever studio or publisher he wants and FTC won´t have a case to say sh!t.
Like I said; It´s final nail in their coffin!
"exposed with some of their deals"
Says the company who said their plan was to "spend Sony out of business", you know a year before they bought Zenimax.
What deals and what "exposed"? Sony did nothing that Microsoft didn't already do during the 360 era. You seem to have a selective memory.
@Reaper22
What? Exposed? Deals? Stop talking gibberish.
On topic:
Hope MS’s xbox continues to go down the drain for this. I love how this deal was the nail in xbox’s coffin when some of the corporation worshippers here were hoping MS would deprive others from games that otherwise everyone would be able to play. Instead, MS was forced to put its own games on other platforms to pay for the billions they spent on this mergers/acquisitions. Hope they choke on it.
It was a lost cause once ms went multiplat, they cant be anti competitive if they release on everything......
No bud this is an appeal, they already failed the first go and the FTC seeked to block the deal way before MS showed any signs of making their games multiplatform. Like most of the courts rulings, it just wasn't seen as the monopoly.
Right. And they stated from the beginning that their intent was not to keep games off of plastation. Microsoft served subpoenas on Sony to produce documents and testimony related to the lawsuit, and the FTC ordered Sony to disclose information about its third-party exclusivity deals. And it exposed their dealings with other publishers to keep games off xbox and Gamepass. That is what helped them most in securing the deal.
Right, however 10 years from now (gen after next) ms could very well reverse that and get away with it. They'd already have made their money back from the purchase, any contract deal they signed would've be honored and finally expired
Let’s not rewrite history though. They only went multi platform because they were forced to. They failed to compete so badly it was that or close Xbox completely.
lol, celebrating consolidation. Good thing this is the deal that broke Microsoft’s back and made them go the 3rd party route on every platform.
No. FTC has multiple appeals since then. It was very unlikely they would win any, but they still had them. People claiming it was over with the first judge ruling don't understand how the law works and what avenues the FTC had available to them even though appeals are quite normal.
It goes like this in the USA first trial the court of appeals it can be a partial court of judges if so after you got another appeal to the full court then after goes the supreme with a non full court after it’s another appeal to the full court when the full court decide on it then it’s over till then anything can happen.
Edit I forgot to say that this is a simplified version of things it can take multiple years to get through all the appeals on both sides
This FTC case provided fascinating insight into gamers' views on economics/politics. It's very common for gamers to blame capitalism for many of the negative trends in the industry, but as soon as the U.S. government started exercising one of the most recognized limitations on capitalism (monopoly regulation), most gamers turned into libertarians and starting spouting Republican talking points (or at least pre-Trump era Republican talking points, lol) on "government staying out of the way of private businesses."
They weren't told how to think on this topic so it let them use their brains without being told what to think about a topic. They ended up being reasonable and rational.
I remember when certain people here were saying they weren't going third party, guessing to recoup that 69 billion they are doing just that.
@TriniOutsider
MLB The Show. But arguably that is a special case. The seemingly accepted story behind that is that MLB told Sony they had to start making the game multiplatform to keep the MLB license. I haven't ever read definitive proof that happened, but assuming that (or something like it) is true, that isn't really indicative of a multiplatform trend in the same way that MS's recent launches on PS5 are.
The only PlayStation owned games on XB is Destiny 2 which was already multiplatform & MLB The Show & that's because it's licensed by the MLB & wanted the game multiplatform. XB first party legendary exclusives are going multiplatform as well as the new games that were supposed to be exclusive to the XB gaming console. It looks though the XB gaming console will have minimal timed exclusives to no exclusives at all.
@TriniOutsider
Get those gloves ready my boy. Gonna need em to move those goal posts. Think with your brain not your gamer heart. You think sony sees ms making all this money and says.. ok get that without us. Help me out here my guy! Sony charged you for psn, then they put their games on pc. What do you think is going to happen next?
Well said, hahahaha that’s so smart and intelligent and not gaslighty my man. you can now definitely play a lot of Ps games on Xbox. That’s the argument. That’s the point. Well done. PS is going third party. Wow, congratulations, no one realised it. Emphasis again on: it’s PlayStation making the moves to put games on Xbox AND PC. I can’t think of another publisher that’s actually doing that…. Mmmmmmm…. Anyway. Only Sony is doing that and not anyone else, not at all.
They also lost money on activision in the last few quarters too dont forget, ms make money hand over fist, that's not new, but I highly doubt the investment has paid off yet.
To be honest as a long time ps gamer, this deal initially made me panic.
but if I had known that it make MS u-turn on exclusive strategy, I would have happily joined xbox fans supporting the acquisition.
They never made a u-turn. Initially Microsoft offered sony a 10 year deal but they turned it down but eventually they agreed. They've always said they wouldn't keep games away from playstation. But that is something Sony was doing to them.
That's the thing. They said they did not aim to take games away from the competition with the acquisitions and that they weren't taking games away from PlayStation. But then they try to get Sony to sign a 10 year deal just to show to a court that they aren't keeping games away. Sony saw this as a tactic to make their acquisitions look like good faith but in reality they don't need to sign that 10 year contract. They just gotta keep developing games for the console. Then they still excluded games from Sony anyways which is what they wanted while saying they didn't. They are only now going third party because they couldn't monopolize the hardware side of things and they ruined their software sales by trying to make everything a service and now we see them continuously bumping the price and changing policies to stop losing money.
Yes they did. I mean I was worried about Elder Scrolls series leaving playstation those days, but now I can play Forza horizon and Gears of War on ps5… this is a crazy turn of events
@Reaper22
You are 💯 correct however we also have to consider these companies lie all the time. Or make plans and change them
Ubisoft has created a subsidiary company based on its Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six brands, with a €1.16 billion (approx. $1.25 billion) investment from Chinese megacorp Tencent.
It’s definitely one of the games of all time. One of the games that i’ll try out when it’s free on PS plus which is probably gonna be sooner rather than later, or pick it up when it’s 10 bucks. And all that still is a big maybe.
Im being sarcastic, I wouldn’t touch this slop with a ten foot pole. But apparently Assassins Creed is now all of a sudden the franchise we need to defend with our lives online. I’m simply just summarising the online sentiment around this game and reporting it back to you guys here
It’s the Feudal Japan Assassins creed game we all dreamed about 10 years ago and it’s a massive success, who cares if the story sucks ass (online sentiment)
To be fair, this feels a lot like a preventive measure to ensure the survival of their IPs and help with funding of them via outside support while also giving up part of the profits. While these games aren't going away, this isn't a good sign for Ubisoft to have to make these deals.
THIS. That smells like asset protection, won't surprise me one bit if it turns out Yves and his brothers are named personally along with Ubisoft and Tencent as beneficiaries of this joint venture, so they can retain some control and/or profit participation for those IPs even if they were to loose control over Ubisoft (or, like, to stop such a move from happening as therein lies most of the value of the company)... I guess we could say the Guillemots are building a nest egg (I'll see myself out).
Bro no one ACTUALLY wants Ubi to disappear. They aren't actually any worse than every major publisher in the industry. That'd be horrible for way too many devs. It's just that their decisions don't give much hope that they'd stay in business.
Exactly people love Ubisoft they just want them to pull their head in and go back to the drawing board and bring back the classics like splinter cell
"They just sold a quarter stake to Tencent how does this end well for them"
Same way it ended well to Kadokawa which sold even more to both Sony AND Tencent.
Ubisoft still *owns* their IPs! They still are *independent*! They´d just managed and avoided any possible hostile takeover from EA or MS while retaining their IPs.
Analysts and the gaming market reacted positively to both AC Shadow´s launch and the new deal with Tencent as Ubisoft shares climbed more than 11%.
https://www.wsj.com/busines...
https://finance.yahoo.com/n...
But hey, don´t let me stop you from your doom and gloom narrative.
I enjoy most Ubisoft games so I'm hopeful for future plans. Looking forward to the next Division game.
Hopefully, China's involvement will improve their IP development going forward.
tencent already owned 11% of ubi along with 599 other companies. I did not know they owned 100% of RIOT games however. they have their hands in a lot of cookie jars...
Maybe it's time for them to get rids of all the long running IPs and actually start being creative. I still have hopes for the new Heroes of Might and Magic game.
