Microsoft and Activision say they will appeal merger obstruction

Microsoft remains "fully committed to this acquisition"

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Oh boy good luck Microsoft might not go well.

[Eonjay]

Just think of the games they could have made with that $70 billion. If Microsoft wants to fight this for the next 3 years then it will be another missed opportunity.

[ABizzel1]

All that time money, energy, and resources wasted with still very few games announced and released, but honestly this is good news for the health of the industry and hopefully the end of the publisher buying war for ALL COMPANIES.

Hopefully, MS will focus on putting on a big Showcase in the next month or two, with actual release dates for all the games we've been seeing the last 3 years, otherwise, they can just go. It's been 10 years of mid, decent, solid, and underwhelming moves by team Xbox, made even more sad when a portion of their fanbase greatest hope is for the parent company MS to buyout former 3rd party developers to remove their games from other platforms (specifically PS), just to attempt to compete, rather than cultivating talent and creating their own new IPS and reinventing their current IPs.

The crazy thing is if this is completely blocked, Activision still gets billions from MS for the failed merger, just like T-mobile did when AT&T originally tried to purchase them, and how T-mobile turned around and bought Sprint, basically on AT&T's dime. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Bobby gets his golden parachute out of Activision once these billions hit the bank account, and then Activision goes on to purchase another major 3rd party publisher themselves and become one of the following:

Activision-Blizzard-Warner
Acitivision-Blizzard-Ubisoft (the most likely IMO, considering how quite they've been and the report selling)
Activision-Blizzard-Embrace Group (Tomb Raider)
Activision-Blizzard-Some established PC brand like Corsair.

And it's unlikely, but there's even the possibility of Take-2 or EA.

[Eonjay]

Microsoft's and Sonys stock are both about to skyrocket. Sony stock will go up because the deal is blocked. Microsoft's stock will go up because without the $70 billion charge off their next financial result will in fact include profit to speak of.

Activision stock is about the plummet though.

[ABizzel1]

@Eonjay

MS stock is likely to fall a bit after this, bad news often comes with a stock drop, and MS likely has to pay $7 billion to Activision for the failed merger, the same way AT&T had to pay T-mobile $4 billion for it's failed merger after trying to acquire them for $39 billion.

Activision stock might be shaky for just a moment, but it should skyrocket once the dust settles and they have a $7 billion sitting in the bank. As much as Bobby and others were acting as if this was do or die for them, they were going to profit regardless of the outcome. I wouldn't even be surprised if Bobby was on TV saying Sony needs to get out of the way, and then hop into a Sony board meeting right after and truthfully say we honestly don't care if this goes through or not we're getting billions one way or another regardless of the outcome.

Bobby fits right in with the snake-oil Politicians running the country.

[Eonjay]

@ABizzel1

Very good call.

[Christopher]

***but honestly this is good news for the health of the industry and hopefully the end of the publisher buying war for ALL COMPANIES.***

Amen! I get people will disagree for their own reasons, but this is the most valuable take from this and I hope it is maintained. The health of the industry relies on not buying up competition to reduce said competition and create more walls on content access.

[Hofstaderman]

Microsoft been missing opportunities since before this acquisition of was a twinkle in Phil’s and Kotick’s eyes.

[Wintersun616]

"Just think of the games they could have made with that $70 billion." This reminds of some old E3 maybe during Xbox One era, when Phil Spencer boasted that they're investing one billion to first party game development. All the xbots across the world were announcing God of War and Uncharted killers left and right. Literally NOTHING remarkable came out of that 1 billion dollars. I don't know, 70 billion times zero is still zero.

[darthv72]

It wont take 3 years. MS will just offer more concessions to get it done.

[Binarycode]

Microsoft has never been interested in the fight with Sony/Nintendo.

They should be making studios and pumping out amazing exclusives. But Do you remember that show where they said.

TV TV TV. Nobody gives a crap about a Halo series and never will.

Microsoft lie all the time, When have they ever done what they promised. They should just pull out of the gaming universe altogether. They aren't needed.

[RpgSama]

This is perfect for them, another 3 years of appeals NOT spending 70 billion dollars and having Xbox fans singing praises to another 3 years of the waiting game.

[Sonic1881]

So far the FTC is fighting, the CMA has blocked, and the EU is a question mark. And they need all three. So I think it’s pretty unlikely this passes in the future

[Binarycode]

Exactly.

[Silly Mammo]

"Just wait until the Activision acquisition!"

Will be the new rallying cry of the MS crowd

[RpgSama]

@Silly Mammo

EXACTLY.

[Sonic1881]

Microsoft will probably acquire another Publisher. I'm just getting that feeling. Maybe they'll go after a lot of developers

[TiredGamer]

MS was really, really, really after that sweet COD revenue. Essentially rent-seeking without having to do any work on their own, aside from making the merger happen. Not sure that there is any other franchise that smells that much of money from them to get too interested in after this.

[Aloymetal]

Besides Bethesda, Remedy and CD Projekt Red have always been on bed with MS so those 2 are a big possibility.

[Sonic1881]

@Aloymetal

Interesting that you say CDPR. Didn't CDPR help develop Horizon open world? There were also articles and rumors that Sony was trying to acquire CDPR multiple times late last year 🤔

https://exputer.com/news/in...

[-Foxtrot]

Wouldn't this put them of doing that? Maybe slap some sense into them that despite all your money the rules still apply to you and you can't buy your way out of your problems

Do people really want the publisher wars

[Necr0philiac]

MS and Activision are about to make COD a timed console exclusive as payback

[Profchaos]

@aloymetal Sony and remedy have been rather buddy buddy lately I believe remedy is working on a PlayStation exclusive at the moment to.

not that it hasn't stopped ms before look at Bethesda Sony had two exclusive ps5 game deals with them and ms swooped in and acquired them during development

[Profchaos]

@necro
No chance cod will be exclusive Activision couldn't bankroll that and it's punishing half their player base also Sony wasn't the cause 9f the block it was cloud gaming

[SICKINDIVIDUAL]

Kotick is in deep doo doo... lmaoooo
Phil go make games you clown.

[neutralgamer1992]

What else would we expect them to say? This deal isn’t going through unless CMA changes it’s mind. And this move by CMA helps FTC’s case too. EU has yet to decide

If this deal falls through Microsoft is still on the hook for more than $2 billion so regardless, Activision is going to get paid. The right thing to do here is to block off all publisher acquisitions by any company who is also selling their own hardware

There are so many smaller developers available, who would definitely be helped if Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo, were to buy them

As far as legal opinion is concerned, CMA does not rules in the judicial process. Even though they are independent of their federal government. Courts also don’t like going against CMA because CMA does it’s investigation really well before making a decision

[shinoff2183]

Sony for sure Nintendo also buys smaller studios that haven't really done anything.

[Bathyj]

They should do it
This is the most fun Xbox has given me in a decade.

[Masterchief_thegoat]

Can ms actually win the appeal? Good luck

[Alos88]

Only if the CMA changes their minds, which they generally don't do. MS would likely have to alter the terms of the whole acquisition in ways that wouldn't benefit them to the point of rendering such a purchase pointless to begin with- it's probably going to be a long, expensive dead end for them.

[DeathTouch]

Activision is so big that some title concessions such as keeping CoD multiplat and having some key titles remain multiplat as well would still benefit MS greatly. Specially since they would profit from software sales and deals on other platforms, not only PS. But hey, greedy much.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

I hope their appeal isn't successful. Blocking the deal was the correct choice. Zenimax is enough. They don't need another publisher. They should just focus on getting games out from the studios they have right now, maybe acquire another promising studio or two down the line, but buying up the industry via one major publisher after another should not be encouraged or accepted.

[Aloymetal]

MS/Phil will probably buy the whole CMA...

[Hofstaderman]

I see what you did there ;)

[badz149]

would have been cheaper. they don't have CoD and Candy Crush

[bleedsoe9mm]

They can negotiate a deal

[derek]

Any appeal would be a form of judicial review. I'm not sure if the review would be limited to only checking for procedural fairness or a substantive review where the actual decision is examined and open to being changed. From the sounds of things the scope is very limited, that's why the cma would be the ones the decision is sent back to if the appeal is successful. Good luck, I think Microsoft/Activision will decide to move on, especially if the EU follows the cma decision.

[mandf]

The arrogance and confidence is hilarious. Talk about counting your chickens before they hatch

[Flawlessmic]

Cma= cancelling Microsoft's acquisitions lolll

[Aloymetal]

flawlees, now that I see your profile pic got me thinking, Bethesda needs to come thru now more than ever.

[PapaBop]

Even funnier today, as an expression us English use, the toys are well truly thrown out the pram. Both Microsoft and Activision are acting like an entitled petulant child.

[Bathyj]

Yeah spend more money on something besides games.

[Redemption-64]

I am actually shocked by this. All the Twitter lawyers said this was going through. Anyway, I just want this deal approved, so I stop hearing about it

[mandf]

It was a viral campaign trying to influence the outcome. Classic corporate tactics.

[Eonjay]

This. That's all it ever was.

[Nitrowolf2]

I mean key people from xbox and activison have been very vocal on twitter

They're clearly trying to get the public behind them and use social power to get the deal pished

[shinoff2183]

Idk why the most of the public doesn't care I'd imagine most that do don't wont to see it happen.

[BandarHub]

This deal was supposed to go through but is being dragged out.
What funny is most of Sony's argument about unfair competition is laid to rest as CMA deems competition within consoles as okay.
The argument has shifted into the cloud gaming realm. MS is being penalised for being ahead of the game with cloud gaming. The rest of the competitors wheres were made deals to introduce their Activision games on their cloud services.

If I am to predict it has been blocked so that more concessions can be made, they are trying to make Microsoft yield as much as they can until it is approved.
CMA argument here is really flimsy, what do we do wait for the market to even out so that there is a fair share of market share of cloud gaming? What arethe competitions because they have been really under the radar.
If these deals won't go through all of the concessions that Microsoft made don't go through either that means those cloud services don't get the Activision blizzard games.

[CS7]

I dont care what anyone says. Microsoft mismanaged studios for over a decade and now want to use big tech money to buy: Elder Scrolls, Doom, Fallout, Starfield, Wolfenstien, Diablo, COD, Warcraft, Starcraft, Overwatch, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro & Tony Hawk.

That’s insane and should not be allowed. These were all third party, non exclusive games.

Use your money to make new games MS and stop spending money to exclude gamers from gaming’s biggest multiplatform franchises.

And yes, the biggest cloud gaming platforms would still get the games without MS. Get real.

[BandarHub]

Sony does the same thing by money-hatting games like Final Fantasy 16, Street Fighter 5, FF 7 remake and SIlent Hill 2 remake.
A recent CMA report has shown that they stopped Square from dealing with Xbox and well as Capcom for resident Evil Village to appear on gamepass. They at a lot of Sony shady deals like that, why is KOTOR exclusive to PlayStation despite it being a legacy Xbox exclusive.
Also, why did Sony get stellar Blade as an exclusive despite it being announced for Xbox in its first trailer?
Have the same energy here as well and call them out for the business tactics that they pull off.

Xbox buying these publishers is protecting them from these shady manoeuvres. Sony can easily fon to a publisher and tell them that they won't release their game on their system unless they make it exclusive.

Speaking of mismanagement.
Care to explain what is happening over at media Molecule....Would that be an example of mismanagement?

[Shadowsteal]

@BandarHub

Money-hatting" and buying out entire developers/publishers are nowhere near the same thing.

Sony co-funded SF5 with Capcom. They didn't buy Capcom.
Sony made deals for Final Fantasy, they didn't buy Square Enix. JRPGs don't do well on Xbox anyways.

Silent Hill and KOTOR are timed exclusives. Microsoft does the same thing.

Microsoft is buying out developers and publishers just to rip away franchises that have been thriving on Playstation for years. Tell me one example where Playstation has done that. And don't say Spider-Man, Marvel went to Microsoft first and they declined.

In addition way to pick at straws regarding mismanagement.

343 Industries completely destroyed Halo with Infinite to they point they're being relegated to a Media Management Company.

Rare created a new IP with some beautiful visuals being Everwild, yet they still don't know what type of game it is.

The Initiative lost a lot of key staff and needed to bring in Crystal Dynamics to support development.

Playground Games similarly involved Eidos-Montreal to aid in development for Fable.

Need I go on?

[shinoff2183]

Ms mishandling studios goes back to the last 3 years or so of the Xbox 360 imo

Bandar wtf dude ms has 3rd party exclusives. Most timed not out of the goodness of their heart. Its cause yall don't buy games no developer is gonna wanna be stuck somewhere like that. Ms conditioned their base for this now they are seeing in game sales the negative affect.

[Eonjay]

Perhaps read the CMA decision and try to understand it.

[BandarHub]

I understand it, and it is a flimsy argument.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

Starting to think you're someone's alt account... 🧐

[SurgicalMenace]

🤣🤣

[repsahj]

lol, come to think of it. I guess your right.

[Hofstaderman]

Orch….

[Chevalier]

Does it rhyme with Pork Hard?

[Hofstaderman]

Somebody has at least 34 other alt accounts based in the consistent number of disagrees. This person has serious mental health issues and I’m urging that he seeks urgent attention.

[SonyStyled]

It’s Obscures alt account. It’s not Orchard

[SurgicalMenace]

All the dislikes make it painfully obvious...

[meanmallard]

hmm?

[Hofstaderman]

One can only consume so much copium per day. You need to be cut off.

[Aloymetal]

What happened to @Obscure, haven't seen him here, he probably took a short vacation.

[Hofstaderman]

@Aloymetal Obscure prepping to storm CMA offices. Man ran out out of copium.

[BandarHub]

"Money-hatting" and buying out entire developers/publishers are nowhere near the same thing."

It is the same thing, because in context its the value of the Ip that was removed from the. Final fantasy, street fighter, and Silent are not tiny IP they have a community that supports it. Taking that away from Xbox is removing value away from Xbox. If you don't see that it is an issue then your just being bias.

"Sony co-funded SF5 with Capcom. They didn't buy Capcom."
You missed the part where it was not released on the console where fighters were most popular. The controller that fighting game fans prefers for their games. That a substantial amount of gamers have converted into from that move is big. Again it the value that was taken away from Xbox.

Sony made deals for Final Fantasy, they didn't buy Square Enix. JRPGs don't do well on Xbox anyways.
I love the fact that you lot keep saying that jrpg do not do well on Xbox so that mean it should release on the system. And you wonder why Xbox is buying studios. Again to reiterate keeping a big franchise like Final Fantasy is staving those gamers from experiencing and creating a fanbase on that system.
Quite a flimsy argument there.

Why did you skip the Stellar blade example?
They clearly took the game off Xbox when it was clearly advertised for it.

"Silent Hill and KOTOR are timed exclusives. Microsoft does the same thing."
Again to reiterate for the forth time....its the value that being removed from Xbox and timed exclusivity plays a huge factor.
Xbox does but not with big IP that Sony are money hatting.

"Microsoft is buying out developers and publishers just to rip away franchises that have been thriving on Playstation for years. Tell me one example where Playstation has done that. And don't say Spider-Man, Marvel went to Microsoft first and they declined."

Explained to me why Obsidian decided to make a new Ip then with Avowed, Why is Ninja Theory making a new Ip with Project Mara, and Why is Tango making a new Jrpg for XBox.
Microsoft now owns those franchises but the developers are making new Ip too.

In addition way to pick at straws regarding mismanagement.

"343 Industries completely destroyed Halo with Infinite to they point they're being relegated to a Media Management Company."

343i destroyed Halo? What a joke? 343i are fully dedicated to Halo. People hijack Halo fans argument about the series and pretend its their own options. The halo fans argument are different from the regular gamers' argument.
Halo Infinite is a highly supported game and fans like it. They just do not like the progression system and thee store...that's it. Taking about destroyed...
Where do you get your facts from Dreamcast guy

"The Initiative lost a lot of key staff and needed to bring in Crystal Dynamics to support development."
They lost one key staff does not mean the game is doom...What a joke of a statement? The game is still in development and if you know about it you know what the latest technology they are using.

"Playground Games similarly involved Eidos-Montreal to aid in development for Fable."
So what

So you think that getting other studios to help out with development means they are incompetent?
Many studios in the industry do that, COD gets help from multiple studios

"Need I go on?"
Go on about what you have proven nothing at all.

[MrDead]

Chill out Orchard, your dreams of gamers losing access to multiplatform games might still happen elsewhere... just not today, today gamers get the win against the anti-competitive activities of Microsoft!

Thank you CMA for standing up for the consumer and the gaming industry for once.

[shinoff2183]

That's the thing Ms isn't simply just buying studios theybare buying top publishers and studios. . Bethsada and Activision. Hell ms has got a pretty good lock on wrpg, why shouldnt sony have jrpg(dont forget nintendo gets jrpgs to. So maybe its a ms thing. Guy from windowscentral said its rumored theres issue between square and ms and it sounds like ms is to blame. . Sony meanwhile is buying studios like firewalk(who) huge difference

[shinoff2183]

Weed is being legalized around the country and in alot of states medicinal. In my area alone I see 3 corporate ass weed companies. Personally I feel they should give the option to for lack of a better term mom and pop shops before the corporations run everything and it's only them. Ms is the weed corporation

[Hofstaderman]

And their fan base is smoking waaaay to much of their product.

[OWCY]

Now Activision can juat keep their games off other platforms of there own choice, as punishment. CMA cant force them to sell their games on playstation ect

[SoulWarrior]

Yeah, Activision are going to sacrifice 70% of the their CoD console base and biggest revenue generator because of this regulators decision when they didn't even use any of Sony's arguments for the decision basis, I'm sure everyone and all shareholders at Activision will go for that.

[porkChop]

They aren't going to stop selling games on PS. But Sony is not their biggest revenue generator. They only count for like 10-12% at this point. The vast majority of Activision's revenue comes from Android and iOS. We saw Activision's financials come out.

The only thing I see happening regarding PS is the end of their exclusive deals for COD. That's pretty obvious, but aside from that it'll be business as usual.

[derek]

@Pork, I doubt it. Activision is a publically traded company with duties to maximize profit not act vengeful. They will continue to make the same deals with Sony because they generate way more money from them then from Xbox.

[repsahj]

Activision: "Easy $3B baby!" XD

[Eonjay]

So let me get this right. In order to satisfy the salt and hate of fanatics, Activision will sacrifice sales from its biggest customer.

I don't care how strong your hate is... the only one being punished are those who sought joy through the sadness of others.

[mandf]

Very well put in the last paragraph

[EvertonFC]

The penny will drop one day lol

[tay8701]

Lmao you xbots truly live in alternate universe. They aren't keeping any games off of other platforms. You know why, $ activision isnt going to make their games exclusive to xbox, xbots dont buy games. That would be business Suicide. ABK and specifically Bobby can be mad all they want, doesn't change the fact that playstation helps keep their lights on. They contribute far
More to ABKs bottom line than xbox does.

[shinoff2183]

Acti can't afford to keep off ps especially if their doing as bad as they so bullsittedly claimed

[frostypants]

You think shareholders would be cool with that? That's not how this works.

[Chevalier]

"But Sony is not their biggest revenue generator"

For Consoles they are.

[ocelot07]

This is why your a n4g lawyer not a real one.

I'm pretty sure Activision's investors wouldn't be happy big bobby got upset and stopped selling cod on Playstation out of spite 🤣

[Scissorman82]

I would love to know how much money MS spent on all those subways ads touting how great this acquisition was going to be.

[Hofstaderman]

Enough to plug into a Redfall to get it to 60fps

[Majin-vegeta]

💀

[tay8701]

Lol, man xbox just keeps finding ways to lose.

[Tedakin]

They have 2 trillion dollars. They made it back in interest in 5 minutes.

[frostypants]

LOL no they don't. That's their market
cap, and market cap does not represent how much money they have. That's just how much all of their outstanding stock shares are worth. Not remotely the same thing. Cmon dude...

[Iberius]

Well I’ll be…..

[Soulsborne]

Yeah, you do that bud. We will be waiting on the other side, knowing full well how this will end.

[talocaca]

If only they were this commuted to making quality games 🙄

[Flakegriffin]

It’s crazy how much Microsoft is relying on this buy out to help them.

[Hofstaderman]

I keep on saying that even if the acquisition goes through it’s not really going to do anything for them. They need to clear house from the top and reevaluate the model.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

There isn’t anything new here. How was this approved?

[dumahim]

They issued a statement about 4 hours ago that they're seeking an appeal. How is it not new?

[MrSec84]

Today was the first time the UK blocked this deal, so how could Activision and Microsoft appeal it any time before today?

The deal is toast and Microsoft will have to pay Activision $3B, it's probably what Activision wanted all along, just another way to generate money, because the likelihood of the deal being allowed was very slim.

[Sonic1881]

Microsoft Activision Blizzard appeal: what happens next?

- CMA has won vast majority of appeals
- Very high bar for appeal to be successful
- Will almost certainly push into 2024
- If appeal succeeds it goes BACK to CMA for final word LoL 😆 😂

[ghostrider32]

Those idiots could have used that money to form several studios, and gain more talent. Xbox would have been a better brand, if it was founded by Samsung.

[Aloymetal]

Even Bezos could do a better job.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

ABK is several studios

[frostypants]

Or helped build up and acquire smaller studios, like Sony generally does.

[Thundercat77]

If Microsoft had the same passion for making games as their passion to pursue this deal, they would be on a better position right now.

They can appeal but chances of reverting it are almost impossible. They should rather focus on their Xbox division.

They also have to pay 3 billion to Activision for the case being blocked.

[Petebloodyonion]

Not surprising!
Wondering if the FTC case will affect an appeal.

[gold_drake]

its gonna be a tough road ahead ha.

the CMA is not known to change their judgments.

[PadrePio]

They should take their $3b get out of jail free card and move on. This was a dumb acquisition from the outset at $70b. Best thing for xbox and gaming is for them to invest in their own studios of which they have plenty.

[XxSPIDEYxX]

Fire Phil Spencer Please.

[Aloymetal]

That's right, People always seem to forget that Phil Spencer was GM of Microsoft Game Studios starting in 2008, became the VP in 2009. He was in charge of their games. He is to blame just as much as anyone else for this mess.

[Futureshark]

"this decision appears to reflect a flawed understanding of this market and the way the relevant cloud technology actually works."

Actually they saw through the MS smokescreen about consoles and CoD, and actually recognised the real future prize that MS wanted to secure regarding Cloud.
CMA ain't stupid you know.

[ModsDoBetter]

Hmmm, they’ve invested a lot and would probably want to push as to not lose that initial investment; however, when the result comes back the same, they’ll kick themselves as those millions could’ve been used to bolster their struggling game development.

Hope it works out either way but I could see this being the beginning of the end of the Xbox division with a shift to a cloud based GamePass service being the focus long term.

[Ryuk_2007]

M$ were mocked for years about the power of the cloud now its their undoing for actually investing in it when no one else would. You can't make this up 🤣

[frostypants]

They were mainly mocked for claiming the cloud would be used to provide massive processing power to Xbox One games, claiming it would boost its capabilities many times over...which never materialized, because such claims were always PR nonsense.

[bleedsoe9mm]

CMA did what they wanted stood up to big Tech now the real negotiations start.

[ironmonkey]

Awesome, you guys play the court cases and let the Xbox community play leftovers. Keep fighting that losing fight.

[Fuzzybacon]

Good for you at least you tried

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

“reflects a flawed understanding of the market”

What you don’t understand is that gamers like it when their console makes games to show off the hardware they dropped $500 on.

And M$ doesn’t get to throw money at that problem by trying to buy freaking CoD.

Go make maps for Halo Infinite. That game could be THE biggest game on the planet (the mechanics are mint), but they don’t have enough maps. Every MP shooter needs great maps for the mechanics to flourish on.

Throw money at THAT problem, M$.

[OWCY]

Anyone find it strange there are people out there that can stop you from selling your company? That's like stopping people from selling their houses or cars. You're forced to keep it.

[Mikeyy]

You got that wrong, Activision can still sell if they absolutely needed to, it just matters who the buyer is. These laws and oversight exists due to companies trying to form Monopolies. 1 single company can't buy up everything in sight. Especially in a specific market.

If Microsoft wanted to start making TVs like Sony does, no court would stop them from buying a juggernaut in the TV industry. Since they have no presence, and thus competition fairness doesn't apply yet.

[TheGoodestBoi]

“Wait till next year” Xbox motto not just for its games 😹

[pitythefool]

Can’t they just go and make their own COD competitors etc, it’s easy right.

[badz149]

they said it themselves too

[franwex]

Are we all forgetting that it was Activison who approached Microsoft?

If it’s blocked then who else will they go to? Tencent? Activison wants to sell.

[mandf]

At least we know tercent won't pull games from everyone they want every dollar

[Binarycode]

It's no benefit to anybody. Microsoft only made a gaming division to stop sony.

[Profchaos]

There's a clause in the deal that states they must pay a significant amount regardless of the deal not closing by a certain date which isn't far off.

So ms either rolls over eats that expense and carries on or the keep fighting.

Logically they will keep fighting however CMA is not likely to roll over either

[dmonee]

I don’t understand the big deal. Why are they being blocked from this acquisition

[Unknown_Gamer5794]

Yeah, good luck with that MS and Activision. You’d probably have an easier time getting Bobby to run a 25K marathon up a hill than getting the CMA to reverse its decision. I’m not surprised both companies are desperate to try anything as long as the odds of success are higher than zero, as the sunk-cost fallacy is going to bite them hard, but higher than zero doesn’t mean the odds aren’t long.

[Amplitude]

imagine trying to buy activision in the first place lmao

[Hofstaderman]

Lmao we have been for a year and four months. Imagine what MS could have done with that time and money if they chose to concentrate on actually delivering games. Another generation gone for them. And they deserve it.

[S2Killinit]

Glad these corporate suits are having a hard time. Hope it turns out terrible for them.

[tbagmonster]

activision can sell games to Microsoft one by one individually, or just one studio at a time overtime until this is resolved

[derek]

Brad Smith the generic corporate executive man with a million 10 year contracts in his back pocket ready to be signed, lol. He and the rest of Microsoft/Activision have behaved so arrogant in their pr campaigning over this deal, it was nice to see them lose to their surprise.

[jznrpg]

I still don’t understand why Xbox fans want this deal to go through so badly . That desperate ?You get games that are already there. Is it for bragging rights ? Naanaanaa we buy a box from a company that buys multiplat casual games and take them from you but we gain very little take that !?