Microsoft to showcase at No 10 as Activison ruling lands

The tech behemoth will take part in a games industry event in Downing Street next week on the same day that the CMA is due to rule on its takeover of the Call of Duty maker, Sky News understands.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Whelp the publisher wars will start thanks Microsoft.

[InUrFoxHole]

Perhaps you will be at ease with a tall glass of your tears? Enjoy love.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Lol I'm sad because I rather not have a publisher war lol

[MrDead]

I have a feeling M$ and the Tory Party will get on very, very well

[-Foxtrot]

Hey throw a bunch of money at any Tory MP and they'll love you for life.

[Knushwood Butt]

Depends if their spouses own shares in MS.

[LoveSpuds]

Quite how anyone can disagree with your comment boggles my mind. How many scandles have their been with Tories and lobbying or the awarding lucrative contracts to friends and donors over the last 5 years?

[Pocahontas]

I thought Microsoft loved the whacky dems? They’re essentially the most woke to play the game.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Sony probably gets a long very well with Japanese politicians

What is your point? You think only MSFT donates campaign funds to politicians?

[MrDead]

Microsoft is one of the worlds most aggressive companies when it comes to lobbying and coercing governments to be favourable to them thanks to their vast wealth

MS is one of the few companies in the world where you can't throw out similar comparisons because only a handful of companies have the wealth of MS, Sony has little to no influence when it comes to lobbying, MS has and it does so in continents such as Africa, Europe and the US and has been called to be broken up because of the sway it has when it comes to lobbying.

...and also saying because others do it still doesn't make it ok.

[Gamerscore2077]

It’s going to be extremely interesting to see how MS is going to sustain all of the studios that they’re about to own now?

I was looking forward to seeing what the devs were going to produce at the Initiative, but we don’t even know if that studio exist anymore.

I was hoping Bethesda games were going to take advantage of the Series X system with titles like Deathloop & Ghostwire, but those titles are even the same or worst on the X.

I hope I’m wrong, but it looks like MS is biting off more than they can chew.

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

Sustain?
Lmao the first thing they'll do is fire 1000 people at ABK.
That's what companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft do when they acquire a new company.
Doesn't help that they fored 10000 people a few months ago.

[Wikkid666]

Yes, a lot of mergers cause layoffs because they eliminate redundant positions. That's not going to happen with the ABK purchase. They aren't merging ABK into Xbox it's going to be subsidiary under the Microsoft Gaming umbrella. They will keep ABK whole with their own publishing, marketing, business, development teams, etc. This is the exact approach they did with Zenimax.

[shinoff2183]

Well if that's true about keeping them separate. Why when ms layed off 10k people it was reported some of those jobs were from bethsada. How separate are they truly

[Wikkid666]

@shinoff2183
They're still owned by Microsoft. The difference is MS won't tell them to lay off anyone, they just tell them what their operating budget is. The Zenimax team needs to sit down and figure the numbers out and where to make the cuts.

[Tacoboto]

But we do know that The Initiative still exists... we know it because they can't make their own game, they need the help from Crystal Dynamics, which just so happens to be where the studio head of TI was from.

He and MS were so bad at forming a new team he needed his old one.

[Extermin8or3_]

Over half the team most of them senior leadership have reportedly left.

[ChasterMies]

How do I fund all these studios I’m about to own now?

That's the neat part, you don't.

[IamTylerDurden1]

The new cheap Elite as the thumb? Ok. Honestly it looks cheap. The regular Elites look elite, this looks like a regular controller with grip sleeves. Visually. Oh, and industry consolidation is bad. Yes. Bad.

[Tacoboto]

That Elite is using customizations from Xbox Design Lab. If you're gonna complain, know what you're complaining about.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

I think they overpaid for CoD.

They are selling loading screens now… if people are paying attention, then they might FINALLY be treated with the decline they deserve.

[SICKINDIVIDUAL]

COD is done for me and has been for 7 years now.

XDefiant looks better to me anyway once that releases and it's f2p. 😎

Go Ubisoft!!!!

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

I’m hoping for more tactical shooters myself. I usually like Rainbow Six enough to not even care about CoD existing, but I feel like Siege is a little too untactical with its Hero system, all for the sake of long-term monetization.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

Imagine if BK used lottery tickets, not food revenue, to buy up ALL of McDs and Wendy’s potato fields worldwide; that way, if we, the consumers, wanted to have fries with our burger, then we’d need to go to BK: the home of historically THE worst fast food fries.

That’s what M$ is doing with the gaming industry: they are taking revenue from outside the gaming market (ie worldwide Office subscription revenue), and using it to artificially limit what their competitors in the gaming sector can offer. They do this to compete instead of outputting GREAT games every year like Sony and Nintendo.

Gaming makes up 8% of revenue for M$, and about 80% or revenue for Sony, just for context.

M$ is not innovating or improving CoD in any way: they are only acquiring it to gate access, and drive people to Game Pass.

That just doesn’t feel like capitalism to me…. Or maybe it is the very definition of capitalism?

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

…. No follow-up comment?

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

…really? Zero thoughts you wanna share?

[Knushwood Butt]

I like BK fries.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

Lol, no you don’t.

[Asplundh]

Well AKB is one of the biggest potatos, but MS is no where close to owning all the potato fields.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

In this analogy, fries are the best selling 3rd party franchises, not all game developers. 1st party developers would be cheeseburgers…?

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

*edit/analogy update

1st party games usually are like fast food entrees; nobody buys them all, but most buy at least one.

3rd party hits like CoD are like fries; they are the only fast-food side option that literally everyone gets, no matter what. There are no meaningful alternatives offered in the marketplace.

[shinoff2183]

This is the same sh that ms came under fire for in the 90s multiple times.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

Well, now it is impacting my favorite creative market, so I’m paying attention now…

[Extermin8or3_]

Oh you can see it too, good. Games pass is clearly a means to capture market share and attack their competitors revenue streams.

[Extermin8or3_]

It's broken capitalism. That's why you have regulators to regulate capitalism and control this kind if behaviour.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

Well, I guess those regulators don’t have friends that made them buy an Xbox for the last two gens for zero reason except that they are arbitrarily unwilling to play Madden on PlayStation…

That, and maybe a combination of bribes and indifference for video games.

[SoulWarrior]

MS and the Tories, truly a match made in heaven lol.

[GotGame818]

I could care less. I will buy games I want. Most of the complaints are people who are tied to a console. If people weren't tied to a particular console, it wouldn't be an issue. If Sony bought Capcom I would just play R Evil on PS5. I wouldn't be spewing idiotic comments. Don't like Xbox? Play pretty much anywhere, if you have decent internet. I have 300mps, streaming games has been great. My most anticipated game right now is TOTK. It runs at 30fps. Oh well. Hopefully the next Nintendo console can bump it up to 60fps. Yawn. This banter is so tired.

[jwillj2k4]

I can’t wait for them to ruin COD. It’s time to move on…