You're misunderstanding Orchard. What Microsoft is saying is that they will force the FTC to seek injunctive relief in court if the cma and EU grant approval with or without concessions.
Did anyone understood the article? Basically it say if Europe gets resolved before their ftc court date they will offer the same “ remedies “ to the ftc 👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 Wilkinson also stated that if the company works out any remedies with the European Commission (EC) of Europe or the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) of the United Kingdom, it will also offer the same remedies to the FTC.
“The deal is undergoing review over in Europe and the UK and we are hoping that they will be resolved and if there are remedies that are appropriate we can come back to … the FTC to talk about a resolution.”
To prepare for the potential development to federal court, Microsoft and ABK have agreed to expedite the discovery schedule with the FTC, due to the deal’s termination date being on July 18, 2023.
For reference, FTC’s in-house trial is scheduled for August 2, 2023 🤦🏿no where it’s stated that Microsoft will go ahead without the approval of the FTC 🤷🏿 🤣 Also notice how the deadline for the purchase is July 18 and the court day is August 2 meaning if they want to fix this Europe is their only hope for them to bring some settlement with the FTC before July 18 otherwise the deal will fall through and they’ll have to pay the penalty.
They're saying if the FTC doesn't come up with a resolution/remedies or any good reason to block the Activision deal MS will go ahead and close the deal and go to the next phase. Which is near the final phase at this point.
25-30 billion.... Thats not even possible for sony.... Seems you dont know much in the subject Well i will give you some free info: Sony as a company worth around 90 billion with 22 billion cash and a yearly profit of 5 to 9 billion But sony is in trouble with more than 1 trillion in debt!!!!!
In comparison MS is worth 2 trillion with 128 billion cash on hand and yearly profit of 135 billion a year and debt of 120 billion...
Bro money wise sony is smarter to dl what they are doing.... Buying talented studios.. If they went wild square unix is great for them as it worth 5 billion thats mean 7 billions close the deal
I think Sony will release every game on PC and rightfully so because that's more money
onisama
Capcom 8.3 billion Square enix 5.8 billion Sega is 3.6 billion
That's 18 billion. As of September 2022 they had more than 10 billion for acquisitions and growth. In 2023 this number was going to go way up. That 10 billion is just for PlayStation by the way. In 2023 they will add 5-8 billion more in their pool
Sony also operates as a bank in Japan. If this Activision deal goes through you will see square enix deal announced the same week and Capcom will follow soon after
Sega have been business buddies with Microsoft since the late 90s. I highly doubt they would go with Sony before they made an offer to Microsoft. I still highly doubt Square Enix is even looking to sell and, honestly, I find it a whole lot more realistic them just selling their main IP to Nintendo if at all. They're easily the most relevant of the big three in the Eastern market. Though they'll probably just sell to Tencent if the time came.
Capcom seems the most realistic, honestly.
Sony doesn't concentrate on non Western focused releases. I really don't get this idea they're interested in Square. If Sony wanted to buy, and Square was looking to sell, that would have been before they sold away all their prevalent western studios.
Bto how old are you? Lol You know what is +1trillion of debt?? And you want them to spend all the money on bank??? So how they will keep their studios going paying debts and what about their electronic divisions and tv entertainment???? Sony as a hole made 7billion net income in 2022 They are marely keeping think under control... If they do what your saying sony will be bankrupt in 1 month
Be reasonable.. Taking a risk (economically) buying square enix will be their "wild" journey
@israi I kinda have things for numbers as i study economic and the gaming industry entertain me both in playing games and also in the economic sense also have all platfroms for now (XBX-PS4-switch-PC) so I don't really care
Their games already don't skip PlayStation and it's more overhead for large publishers.
Don't feed into the "revenge acquisition" stuff.
Acquiring them doesn't make any sense. Microsoft is known for their corporate imperialism and it makes sense for them—they are far and away the least creative with the least inspired products where they throw money and subs at their problems. They've literally made 220+ acquisitions in about 35 years which is insane. Granted, Sony has a near monopoly on anime content distribution which is a problem in itself for a different message board.
I digress. If the purpose of buying those publishers is to stop those games from NOT being on PlayStation...I guess that makes sense, but Square et al would probably decline an acquisition from Microsoft, so why do it?
The one thing about this ABK acquisition that I would probably want to see is when it [likely] goes through and Microsoft goes after more publishers, their fans are still going to deny Microsoft's clear intention of creating a monopoly.
Fair warning to the naive lot: they bought Skype when there was not really any competition for it. There still isn't much competition to LinkedIn either since it has more than three quarters of the recruitment market share. If you think they're against cornering a market, you're dumb, blissfully ignorant, or just don't care because your team is doing well.
They will wait for CMA and EU comission to make a move. A fight with FTC after a block from CMA is useless and would cost too much money and time, it's all about EU and CMA.
Activision is a cancer to the game industry the FTC should tell them they can buy it if they break it up and sell off some of the companies Activision bought like Blizzard to mkae it less of a monopoly.
Activision Blizzard has Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Candy Crush etc. All are near or at the top of sales for PC, Consoles, and Mobile gaming. Them making those exclusive would make them a monopoly.
@Bobertt The apple store is a monopoly gamers can go else where without paying Microsoft a dime for games as long as steam is still around and playstation and nintendo saying its a monopoly are just people being salty.
@ganstared it has nothing to do with whether or not the acquisition would create a monopoly. Why do people keep saying this? The only issue being decided is whether the deal would create less competition in the market which in theory includes a whole bunch of possible scenarios as result of the deal.
"Them making those exclusive would make them a monopoly."
Absolutely positive that still wouldn't make it a monopoly. It's as if people never played the game and realize the goal of the game is what the word monopoly actually means.
@Derek "it has nothing to do with whether or not the acquisition would create a monopoly. Why do people keep saying this? "
Not sure why you're asking me this. The point is how the OP and others continue to use the word monopoly in the wrong way.
The deal wouldn't create less competition in the market considering the games would still be playable on most devices. The only threat would be to PlayStation.
When one company got more then double of the studio of the competition... And all those games are top seller in each category. All major fps except destiny are in their hands...
Not even Sony and Nintendo combined have more studios. And Phil told they aren't stopping with two publishers. This with the monopoly history of Microsoft, it's scary for us gamers, that want to have choice and not buy Microsoft consoles.
They can have 1 billion studios, still not a monopoly if you have other options for games. A monopoly requires the "exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.". If this was a true monopoly, the FTC would be going to court and would have a proper case, not seeking a settlement.
"And all those games are top seller in each category"
You're doing a disservice to other studios there, no? Are you saying Activision are better than EA at sports games? Better than Sony at single-player narrative experiences? Better than Nintendo at platformers? Clearly not, and Activision games are not top sellers in those areas.
"it's scary for us gamers, that want to have choice and not buy Microsoft consoles."
Microsoft buying Activision doesn't mean you can't buy a PS or Switch.
It doesn't make them a monopoly because of the amount of games they have under their belt.
"the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service."
That's the definition of a monopoly. So even with all those games they still don't have exclusive control of the gaming supply or trade. There's still Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, EA, Take 2, Tencent, and the list goes on. You don't have to like the merger or anything about it and that is completely fine but I really wish people would stop throwing around the word monopoly like it even remotely applies to this situation.
The only way Microsoft becomes a monopoly in the gaming space is if they buy Nintendo, Sony and Tencent. They're not even close to a monopoly after the Activision/Blizzard acquisition
The xbox community is again getting over confident about what is going to happen. The reality is these deals are more than likely to fail if they've gone this far down the road with regulators.
"The xbox community" ... easy there kid, everyone and their dog knows that Liza Khan is a deep state injected wannabe hard c*nt, placed there just to devalue the US economy and forward the depression narrative the democrats are trying to push forward with.
Now that Khan has managed to effectively piss-off big tech and the weapon industry all together, essentially dooming Biden as a being - not even simply as a politician, and the Republicans won the house ... we will see emails and conversation being leaked and the FTC will collapse. This is what happens when you f*** with google, apple, Microsoft, Amazon at the same time - you have your phone being spied on, the Alexa on your house turning on, your pc being harvested for data to incriminate in anything ... wait and see.
Should I also remind you how MS are best buddies with the NSA - CIA and they can put pressure directly from there?!
I didn’t even know they could do that. Makes sense though that way they wouldn’t have to pay the 3 billion fee to activision past the deadline.
I think they and everyone else are confident it will go through with concessions. There is no case to begin with the ftc know that this is all a farce.
So you think that the CMA and the EU also have no case to begin with and al that is also a farce? So you think that MS will decide what games from Activision Blizzard will be on wich platforms without any consessions from the FTC the CMA and the EU? You guys are think you are know how it works, but in reality you dont know sh*t about it. Time will tell how this shitshow ends for MS..... Many people on this site will eat they'r words in the near future.....
What kind of questions is that, prepare for more acquisitions, probably going after a mayor JP publisher or multiples or either important IPs… There is SE, Capcom, Sega, NB and a few others
I hope people here defending this conduct will keep the same attitude when others begin to buy up the industry and make multiplatform gaming and multiplatform games a shadow of years past.
Enjoy your bragging rights to call of duty xbox fans, this is the beginning of a new gaming future.
You make it sound as if this is something new. It may be the biggest gaming acquisition to date, but as you should know both MS and Sony have been buying studios for well over a decade now.
Not developers, PUBLISHER. I don't know why people have so much difficulty with this.
But if that doesnt raise the red flag, maybe it will once other companies safe in the knowledge that Microsoft acquisition has set legal precedence, will be rushing to buy up the rest of the publishers. We will have a lot of service options soon.
Publisher vs Developer is arguing semantics. Makes no difference if you buy up 1 publisher w/ 20 developers or 20 developers individually. Same outcome.
"We will have a lot of service options soon."
Isn't that a good thing? Competition is healthy and options are important.
@orchard Lol you must be daft. More services at the expense of a smaller industry controlled by a smaller number of owners. Games everyone could enjoy before will be behind different paywalls.
MS is buying up multiplatform gaming publisher. This results in LESS competition genius. Not more.
MS is a shit company for doing this to the industry and others will now follow them in buying the rest of the industry. Once the shoe is on the other foot, I expect people like you to quickly change tunes.
Ps: a publisher is more than a collection of developers. I mean, either you are a paid shill, or just willfully ignorant. I dont know which is worst.
More services are better. It would be far worse to have everything locked behind one service, that would then be a literal monopoly and they could charge us any fee per month.
"MS is buying up multiplatform gaming publisher. This results in LESS competition genius" Does it? Nothing appears to be changing at all. COD isn’t going anywhere from PS.
“MS is a shit company for doing this to the industry and others will now follow them” This has been happening for years, decades even, before MS bought Activision. Look at how many companies Sony, Tencent, Embracer etc. have bought.
Activision wanted to sell, Microsoft were willing to pay. That is fair play.
“a publisher is more than a collection of developers.” Do explain to us how acquiring a publisher is somehow worse than acquiring many developers.
There is a big difference, Sony buys them when they are nothing or either when they are basically second party (studio that makes games mainly for them) … MS on the other hand acquire companies that are proved and are strong or important on the market most of the time to disband or run to the ground to slow down or stop competition (not in this case though lol )
@Asplundh Wow, “there is none” really? A publisher is the owner of what developers make, they own the rights to content for singers/artists/writers/develo pers that they fund. The publisher is not the content developer, its the contract holder. Do you think a publisher is different from a singer? Or a writer? How about a developer?
But if you insist that a publisher is just a collection of singers… lol then a publisher is just a collection of developers too…smh
Anyway fu&k Microsoft for how they run their game business. Instead of creating more they are depriving more.
@L2K You're stawmaning and still failed to show how buying a plublisher vs a group of developers is different. MS is a publisher themselves, they're buying Activision Blizzard for their developers and IPs, the same reason why they buy developers and nothing more. Same crap, bigger scale.
@anubus I'm for the acquisition, It's all fair game imo. But yeah even if they had just bought ips from Activision Blizzard people would still cry. The whole buying developers vs plublishers argument is just a way to try and separate what MS is doing from what Sony has done.
SE is like a second party at this point, Sony buying them would be just to secure Final Fantasy and a couple of RPG and Konami games are mostly dormant, Kojima doesnt want to work on a mgs, its better to let it die with mgsv; If i were Sony I’d go for NamcoBandai.
SE has never been a second party for Sony. They had an isolated moment in time where they simply couldn't fit their games on the N64. They found their stride with Nintendo. There have been more Final Fantasy releases on Nintendo than ever on Playstation. Sony just pays to keep their games off of Xbox. They don't fund their titles; they just pay the make sure you don't see any new releases on their direct competitor.
Exactly why them trying to block this acquisition is one of the most hypocritical things to happen in gaming in a long while.
*Laughs in PC MASTER-RACE, while I read your comment in my main 35inch ultrawide 144hz 4k curved monitor and owning almost every console exlcusive on steam*
"I hope people here defending this conduct will keep the same attitude when others begin to buy up the industry"
If you remove your head from xbox vs ps for just one second, you would see that the consolidation of the videogame industry has been going on for years. It started in 2011 when Tencent purchased Riot Games and since then, they have been on a spending spree to the point that they are now the biggest games company in the world.
When Microsoft said a few years back that Tencent, Google, and Alibaba were its most significant competitors due to them buying up the industry, you all shrugged.
Microsoft and Sony will continue to purchase studios to avoid these behemoths strangling them in regard to royalties. Think bigger and stop thinking it is all about Sony vs Microsoft.
Oof, if they did that it would cost them billions.
Just do it Microsoft. They are just making it look like they do something, FTC won’t let you be.
They will wait for CMA and EU comission to make a move. A fight with FTC after a block from CMA is useless and would cost too much money and time, it's all about EU and CMA.
Activision is a cancer to the game industry the FTC should tell them they can buy it if they break it up and sell off some of the companies Activision bought like Blizzard to mkae it less of a monopoly.
The FTC never had a case to begin with SMH