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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.
G

Godot25

Banned
One interesting point
Microsoft is forbidden from acquiring Ubisoft or shares of Ubisoft for the next 10 years because of this modified deal.
 
R

reksveks

Member
Heisenberg007 said:
Microsoft can't buy Ubisoft for at least the next 15 years.
Click to expand...
10 years if I am reading this right

6GrMWYE.jpg
 
G

Godot25

Banned
GHG said:
Yeh that "and" suggests it's not just for cloud streaming but that it essentially gives Ubisoft publishing rights for activision's games.
Click to expand...
Nope. That would be dumb. Ubisoft will ONLY cover cloud stuff. Not standard distribution of physical or digital games. And not MGS.
Meaning that if Sony wants Call of Duty native on PS Plus they need to talk to Microsoft
If they want Call of Duty streaming (and only streaming) on PS Plus, they need to talk to Ubisoft outside of European market where they still need to talk to Microsoft.
 
ChuckeRearmed

ChuckeRearmed

Member
So it is essentially over. Shame that CMA dragged that for so long. But what a week!



reksveks said:
Only Tencent wants them for some reason.
Click to expand...
The side effect of that the potentially bidding price will be lower for Ubisoft if Ubi would decide to sell. Granted it is hard to predict where Ubisoft will be in the next 10 years.
 
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Banjo64

Banjo64

cumsessed
GHG said:
Would you say it's more behavioural?

My view is that it's somewhere in between but it's more towards a structural change considering the fact that they are offloading a significant business area to a different company.



Yeh I took one look at that abomination of a post history and decided not to waste my time. He won't be here for long.
Click to expand...
Yeah it’s behavioural IMO. CMA have said they’ll have to monitor. They’re selling 15 years worth of content rights (not even in doing that in the EU). I don’t consider it to be structural.
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
Godot25 said:
Nope. That would be dumb. Ubisoft will ONLY cover cloud stuff. Not standard distribution of physical or digital games. And not MGS.
Meaning that if Sony wants Call of Duty native on PS Plus they need to talk to Microsoft
If they want Call of Duty streaming (and only streaming) on PS Plus, they need to talk to Ubisoft outside of European market where they still need to talk to Microsoft.
Click to expand...

Yeh that's just my interpretation of the excerpt Heisenberg007 Heisenberg007 posted, I'm yet to read the document in full.

Regardless it wouldn't make any difference from the B2P publishing standpoint since Microsoft have already committed to putting future COD games on Playstation and Nintendo consoles for 10 years.
 
Whitecrow

Whitecrow

Banned
Antony1992 said:
Hi guys, I have always read this topic without posting anything, hiding behind the wall, while also having a look at the corresponding one on Resetera. I must admit that even though I found valuable people here explaining things in detail, I also noticed the lack of critical discussion from other guys, who are just enjoying attacking Microsoft at all costs, whilst this does not happen on Resetera.
I hope this is not common in other topics, and I will have a proper look to find out.
I hope most of you will be able to recover from the latest news :messenger_smiling_with_eyes:
Click to expand...
With freedom of speech comes freedom of being jerks.
Pick your poison.
 
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
Godot25 said:
I mean. Why would they want Ubisoft in the first place? :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Click to expand...
Well uhm right now, if they buy Ubisoft, they get all the cloud rights back that they would otherwise not have for 15 years.

It remains to be seen if CMA is actually smart enough to stipulate that MS is not allowed to buy Ubisoft for 15 years, or if MS will just announce their acquisition of Ubisoft in November after the acquisition of ABK closes in October.

My guess is they'll try to buy Ubisoft first, then they'll go after Embracer since that one is going bankrupt super fast and they'll be looking to sell to anyone who comes knocking. After that, I'm not sure if they'll tackle buying EA next, or go for someone smaller first like CDPR or Square Enix.
 
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GHG

GHG

Gold Member
Unknown Soldier said:
Well uhm right now, if they buy Ubisoft, they get all the cloud rights back that they would otherwise not have for 15 years.

It remains to be seen if CMA is actually smart enough to stipulate that MS is not allowed to buy Ubisoft for 15 years, or if MS will just announce their acquisition of Ubisoft in November after the acquisition of ABK closes in October.
Click to expand...

They have, but for 10 years.
 
G

Godot25

Banned
Unknown Soldier said:
Well uhm right now, if they buy Ubisoft, they get all the cloud rights back that they would otherwise not have for 15 years.

It remains to be seen if CMA is actually smart enough to stipulate that MS is not allowed to buy Ubisoft for 15 years, or if MS will just announce their acquisition of Ubisoft in November after the acquisition of ABK closes in October.

My guess is they'll try to buy Ubisoft first, then they'll go after Embracer since that one is going bankrupt super fast and they'll be looking to sell to anyone who comes knocking. After that, I'm not sure if they'll tackle buying EA next, or go for someone smaller first like CDPR or Square Enix.
Click to expand...
Microsoft was okay to sell cloud rights because they see that cloud gaming market is currently going nowhere. So why in hell spend 8 billion dollars for Ubisoft? Hellscape of a company that employs 20k people without revenue to boot it up?

IF Microsoft would go after another publisher (which I doubt, because regulatory pressure is starting to be real), SEGA is making way more sense for Microsoft.
 
F

FireFly

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
Well uhm right now, if they buy Ubisoft, they get all the cloud rights back that they would otherwise not have for 15 years.

It remains to be seen if CMA is actually smart enough to stipulate that MS is not allowed to buy Ubisoft for 15 years, or if MS will just announce their acquisition of Ubisoft in November after the acquisition of ABK closes in October.

My guess is they'll try to buy Ubisoft first, then they'll go after Embracer since that one is going bankrupt super fast and they'll be looking to sell to anyone who comes knocking. After that, I'm not sure if they'll tackle buying EA next, or go for someone smaller first like CDPR or Square Enix.
Click to expand...
Any Ubisoft acquisition would also need to be cleared by the CMA, so I don't see how that would solve anything for MS.
 
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
GHG said:
Looks like it's finally done.

Ubisoft are a big winner in all of this at the moment. What I'd like to know though is out of all the possible partners they could have selected to offload this to, why them?
Click to expand...
Because Ubisoft has the lowest value of the "major" publishers/studios right now. EA is worth a lot more. WB Games is part of a huge media conglomerate. Square Enix is in Japan and would be difficult to acquire. CD Project Red and Rockstar are both more valuable than Ubisoft right now because of how much Ubisoft has been fucking around. So Ubisoft is dirt cheap for MS to acquire after the ABK deal closes, then they get all their cloud rights back and can laugh about the 15 year agreement they have with what is now their subsidiary company.
 
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
FireFly said:
Any Ubisoft acquisition would also need to be cleared by the CMA, so I don't see how that would solve anything for MS.
Click to expand...
At this point we know the CMA will clear anything as long as the deal for whatever is minimum 10 or 15 years. That's the threshold now. MS can buy anything they want as long as they promise to not make it exclusive for 10 or 15 years.
 
Schmick

Schmick

Member
reksveks said:
More word that suggests it's just cloud streaming rights

wQOzQqs.jpg


Also know that some were/are concerned about the time element (this does seem rather normal)

wxOPqI4.jpg

Same source as the pdf linked above.
Click to expand...
So after 10 years how does MS get back the streaming rights?

Also, it seems that perhaps its not all of ABK games that will be included. Maybe the ones that are delisted from current store fronts because of expired licenses.
 
Last edited:
F

FireFly

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
At this point we know the CMA will clear anything as long as the deal for whatever is minimum 10 or 15 years. That's the threshold now. MS can buy anything they want as long as they promise to not make it exclusive for 10 or 15 years.
Click to expand...
If they buy Ubisoft, the CMA will force them to divest the streaming rights to another company for the 15 year period. So they won't be able to get the streaming rights back that way.
 
R

reksveks

Member
Schmick said:
So after 10 years how does MS get back the streaming rights?

Also, it seems that perhaps its not all of ABK games that will be included. Maybe the ones that are delisted from current store fronts because of expired licenses.
Click to expand...

The rights that they have sold are all existing ABK (non-mobile) games and games in the next 15 years.

The CMA can obviously extended that.

Year 16, those old games rights are still with ubisoft. But a new ABK game released in that year is with MS assuming the CMA doesn't extend the time period.
 
nowhat

nowhat

Member
Killjoy-NL said:
I don't know too much about how all this works, but it doesn't seem like it's going to have much of an impact for the next 10-15 years then. Unless I'm missing something?
Click to expand...
Isn't the deal only for COD? So maybe Activision or Blizzard could come up with something else many people would want to play?

...who am I kidding.
 
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