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Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?

  • Yes, will be approved without changes.

    Votes: 221 24.9%

  • Yes, will be approved but with structural changes to ABK.

    Votes: 102 11.5%

  • Yes, will be approved but only with behavioral concessions.

    Votes: 262 29.6%

  • No, will not be approved.

    Votes: 301 34.0%
  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
James Sawyer Ford said:
No the only difference is not “scale”

Stellar Blade looks better everytime we see it, and it may have not gotten its budget and extended dev time without Sony

Call of Duty is getting made at the same quality with no risk to profitability or studio life support whether MS buys ATVI or not
Click to expand...
All games look better every time you see it. All Korean big budget games have phenomenal graphics.

The person I was talking to before you went on this tangent was talking about games being okay as timed exclusives because they can come to other systems later. This never will. Talking about graphics is literally not related to anything I was even talking about.

This isn't even a controversial point where I'm arguing an opinion of mine. This is just literally establishing objective reality that both Sony and MS buy IP and studios and exclusives. The only difference with this acquisition is its bigger. That wasn't meant to be some radical hot take. Its objectively true. Talking about anything on here is exhausting.
 
Mr Moose

Mr Moose

Member
James Sawyer Ford said:
No the only difference is not “scale”

Stellar Blade looks better everytime we see it, and it may have not gotten its budget and extended dev time without Sony

Call of Duty is getting made at the same quality with no risk to profitability or studio life support whether MS buys ATVI or not
Click to expand...
They aren't making it for PS4/Xbox One any more, which it was originally announced for under the name Project Eve.


Punished Miku said:
All games look better every time you see it. All Korean big budget games have phenomenal graphics.

The person I was talking to before you went on this tangent was talking about games being okay as timed exclusives because they can come to other systems later. This never will. Talking about graphics is literally not related to anything I was even talking about.

This isn't even a controversial point where I'm arguing an opinion of mine. This is just literally establishing objective reality that both Sony and MS buy IP and studios and exclusives. The only difference with this acquisition is its bigger. That wasn't meant to be some radical hot take. Its objectively true. Talking about anything on here is exhausting.
Click to expand...
It was never announced for Xbox Series consoles, and there is no longer a PS4/Xbox One version.
 
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Spitfire098

Spitfire098

Member
Pelta88 said:
WTF?



giphy.gif
Click to expand...

I want to live in this timeline.
 
T

Three

Member
.
cireza said:
Unless you can predict the future, you can't tell if these games will ever make it elsewhere at some moment. Crash Bandicoot games eventually made it to other consoles than PS. You can't even tell if MS themselves are not going to continue publishing them on PS/Nintendo...
Click to expand...

What you fail to realise is that Crash Bandicoot was owned by a third party even from the beginning. That's why it came to other consoles. If it weren't it likely wouldn't have. Sony didn't sell it. It was owned by Universal along with ND the studio. Sony signed a deal with Universal to create a new IP with exclusivity that Universal owned. This is more like the ME and EA example you're arguing against than you know.

dotnotbot said:
Crash was a case of selling successful IP which I believe is extremely rare these days. Certainly a better chance of releasing elsewhere if the IP is not owned by competition.
Click to expand...
Not that rare because it's happened with Beat Saber, Rocket League, Tomb raider, Minecraft, COD, Diablo, Elder Scrolls, Fallout etc. What's rare is a platform holder selling a successful IP. That hasn't really happened since maybe, no pun intended, Rare. Suprise, surprise guess who bought those IPs and made them exclusive to their platform too.
 
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James Sawyer Ford

James Sawyer Ford

Member
Punished Miku said:
This is just literally establishing objective reality that both Sony and MS buy IP and studios and exclusives. The only difference with this acquisition is its bigger. That wasn't meant to be some radical hot take. Its objectively true. Talking about anything on here is exhausting.
Click to expand...

Yes, and certainly a property with literally 1000x the scale of some no name new IP is going affect a lot more people and they should rightly be more concerned about it.

Whataboutism is exhausting when we are discussing orders of magnitude more impact.

I don’t think anyone objects when MS funds a struggling studio or buys them outright and ensures they can keep making games, such as the case of Double Fine.
 
Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
James Sawyer Ford said:
Yes, and certainly a property with literally 1000x the scale of some no name new IP is going affect a lot more people and they should rightly be more concerned about it.

Whataboutism is exhausting when we are discussing orders of magnitude more impact.

I don’t think anyone objects when MS funds a struggling studio or buys them outright and ensures they can keep making games, such as the case of Double Fine.
Click to expand...
Stellar Blade isn't struggling. They're one of the biggest mobile devs and just got bought by Tencent I think.
 
FoxMcChief

FoxMcChief

Gold Member
Heisenberg007 said:
Why would there be an exclusivity deal backup plan if Xbox doesn't even want to make COD exclusive after the acquisition in the first place? 🤔
Click to expand...
Because I’m sure folks at Activision wants to get paid. Through acquisition or exclusivity deals. I never meant that the exclusivity deal would be cheap. Just as costly as the acquisition, I would imagine.
 
James Sawyer Ford

James Sawyer Ford

Member
Punished Miku said:
Because Sony is nearing a monopoly.
Click to expand...

How are they nearing a monopoly?

Even MS’s most direct competitor, Sony, allegedly has 70% share compared to their 30%

Add PC and add Nintendo and mobile. Where is this supposed Sony monopoly?

You've been drinking the Microsoft kool aid from last week if you honestly think Sony is nearing a monopoly
 
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Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
James Sawyer Ford said:
How are they nearing a monopoly?

Even their most direct competitor, Sony, allegedly only has 70% share

Add PC and add Nintendo and mobile. Where is this supposed Sony monopoly?

You've been drinking the Microsoft kool aid from last week if you honestly think Sony is nearing a monopoly
Click to expand...
I dont listen to what MS is saying. If you just look at the current trends from PS4 to PS5 you can see where things are going. There aren't a lot of other companies even capable of competing at that level. MS would already be finished a while ago if they didn't have plenty of reserves. No one else is coming to compete in consoles.
 
sainraja

sainraja

Member
James Sawyer Ford said:
No the only difference is not “scale”

Stellar Blade looks better everytime we see it, and it may have not gotten its budget and extended dev time without Sony

Call of Duty is getting made at the same quality with no risk to profitability or studio life support whether MS buys ATVI or not
Click to expand...
The only point he makes, and I believe it is a reasonable one, is that Sony, in the case of Steller Blade, has purchased the IP, and as a result, it will no longer be available to Xbox customers. So unless he is misrepresenting and presenting a timed exclusivity as that, he has a point there, but as far as I know, most studios that Sony acquired were either working with Sony as a second-party or did not own IP of their own before being bought by Sony. If that is the only example he has, Sony has not completely removed games from other systems, as MS will now have done after both Bethesda and Activision. (Both engage in timed exclusivity so faulting one over the other for it is silly)

But for me, it is a stupid argument anyway. Like it or not, MS is in the situation that it is in, not Sony. Saying Sony has done similar things at a smaller scale has no bearing on how this deal will be looked at, well maybe, kind of. Hell, he's acknowledging that Sony does it at a smaller scale, which showcases how MS is using their muscle to carve out a space here, making his entire point a bit silly when you have to highlight how one is doing it at a smaller scale vs the other lol.

EDIT
I think someone else made this point better than I will... but if you have no issues with MS doing what they are. Just acknowledge it straight up. No need to hide behind your words. They are either making cut-throat moves or they are doing it for the benefit of all gamers. It's not both. Arguing that expanding their ecosystem (PC, Xbox, Cloud) allows more gamers to play while removing content from one system is somehow better for everyone is stupid and deceptive! Sure, on paper that might be true but it is still being taken away from a specific group of customers. Also, just because you have more channels for people to engage with you does not mean that ALL of them are already on those channels, so that entire argument, in my opinion, is made in bad faith.
 
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James Sawyer Ford

James Sawyer Ford

Member
Punished Miku said:
I dont listen to what MS is saying. If you just look at the current trends from PS4 to PS5 you can see where things are going. There aren't a lot of other companies even capable of competing at that level. MS would already be finished a while ago if they didn't have plenty of reserves. No one else is coming to compete in consoles.
Click to expand...

That’s not a monopoly. People game on Switch and PC

If MS exits the business, well that’s their decision to make and likely their own fault for not being able to compete on terms they feel are a success, but that wouldn’t place Sony in a monopolistic position
 
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ToadMan

ToadMan

Member
Punished Miku said:
Because Sony is nearing a monopoly. I don't know why you guys are that surprised. Im not. This what I argued from the start. Can you not imagine 10 years into the future with current trends? Google, Amazon, MS are all going to eventually get tired of lighting money on fire.
Click to expand...

Regulators aren’t there to oppose “naturally forming” monopolies.

They’re there to avoid monopolies forming through anti competitive means - acquisitions like MS-ABK for instance.
 
R

reksveks

Member
Sure this is a repeated point

Who would buy 'xbox' and what would they buy? The hardware division? The studios? The store/os?

But enough of a random speculative comment from me on a speculative tweet that I think isn't going to go anywhere (it would be an interesting world)
 
ToadMan

ToadMan

Member
reksveks said:
Sure this is a repeated point

Who would buy 'xbox' and what would they buy? The hardware division? The studios? The store/os?

But enough of a random speculative comment from me on a speculative tweet that I think isn't going to go anywhere (it would be an interesting world)
Click to expand...

ABK may buy it and we can have the whole show in reverse.
 
Astray

Astray

Member
I don't think Xbox will be sold as an entire division, but I do think that MS stepping out of the console game is a nonzero possibility.
 
E

El Pistolero

Banned
DenchDeckard said:
If there is no competition for Sony, we are fucked.
Click to expand...

1) Blame MS for having been terrible at managing their worldwide brand appeal, their localization efforts, their distribution network, their overall marketing campaigns, their hardware manufacturing pipeline and their first party output. Sony has nothing to do with it.

2) Nintendo is an incredibly successful firm, so there could not possibly be a monopoly.

3) Sony dominating is a less scary perspective than one where MS imposes its will and buys out the different publishers to make GP the industry standard by force.
 
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knocksky

knocksky

Banned
Loxus said:
How so?, when Sony is the only one that's pushing gaming forward.
Click to expand...
And just how far or hard do you think that they will push should the fanboys wet dream become reality and Microsoft quit th'e console business?

We'll get decade long, underpowered console cycles, so that they can milk the hardware for max profit. Game prices will increase because there won't be any competition, ps+, their sub services too. And all the forum drones that sit and touch themselves in the "I love that Sony makes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA games" threads will have gotten exactly what they deserve, but never thought that they would because they were too blind to see it.

You should pray that Microsoft remain
 
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Loxus

Loxus

Member
knocksky said:
And just how far or hard do you think that they will push should the fanboys wet dream become reality and Microsoft quit th'e console business?

We'll get decade long, underpowered console cycles, so that they can milk the hardware for max profit. Game prices will increase because there won't be any competition, ps+, their sub services too. And all the forum drones that sit and touch themselves in the "I love that Sony makes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA games" threads will have gotten exactly what they deserve, but never thought that they would because they were too blind to see it.

You should pray that Microsoft remain
Click to expand...
You know there's many more ways to game than just on consoles, you know that right?
 
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demigod

demigod

Member
knocksky said:
And just how far or hard do you think that they will push should the fanboys wet dream become reality and Microsoft quit th'e console business?

We'll get decade long, underpowered console cycles, so that they can milk the hardware for max profit. Game prices will increase because there won't be any competition, ps+, their sub services too. And all the forum drones that sit and touch themselves in the "I love that Sony makes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA games" threads will have gotten exactly what they deserve, but never thought that they would because they were too blind to see it.

You should pray that Microsoft remain
Click to expand...
This is wrong thinking. There is still Nintendo if they decide to up their game. Also you have to remember that Sony is “also” competing with PC. They can’t fall too far behind or folks will just switch over to PC.
 
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