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

Do you believe the deal will be approved?


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    886
  • Poll closed .
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Bernoulli

M2 slut
To make a dollar per share?

You can't be serious?
it's the only way to stop it, when i buy something this is what happens

Working Stock Market GIF by Adult Swim
 

marjo

Member
Does Ubisoft getting cloud rights to Activision titles only apply to the UK or is it true for other regions as well?
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Does Ubisoft getting cloud rights to Activision titles only apply to the UK or is it true for other regions as well?

Everywhere. Actually, not sure about the rest of Europe and how those deals are affected.
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Much rather this take too long and they get it right than simply rubber stamp a deal like this like much of the rest of world did.
I still think this deal is shittier for consumers than the original. CMA backed themselves into a corner and we end up with something that blunts a weapon that MS were unlikely to ever wield at the expense of actual gamers.
 
Yeah, that's where I am it.

This proposal does not meet the criterion set by the CMA in their previous Phase 2 findings. They asked for the divestment of COD and Activision, which would have been permanent. This new deal will temporarily divest cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft and then Microsoft regains 100% control after 15 years.

Having said that, it seems like this deal will be approved now.
I know the whole deal is not popular around here and I get that, but with the CMA and their initial block a lot of companies have benefited more than they would have which is great.

As for the deal almost certainly going through now you have remember what the CMA had issues with. The cloud gaming market and what Microsoft would gain in that market with Activisions games and its potential dominance. The CMA were concerned that any companies wouldn't be able to compete in the future. Microsoft rather cleverly have waived the cloud rights to all Activision games past, present and future (for 15yrs). That effectively removed the CMA's concerns completely and made them powerless in blocking this deal.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Going to make zero difference to anything now considering the only game Activision make on console with any sort of pull is call of duty, which is going to stay multi platform

There is diablo 4... graned it's in a terrible state now, but... I'd like to continue playing the seasons and expansions, at least for a bit see if it improves.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
For sure. It's had some brilliant moments. At the back of my mind though, I think we ain't seen nothing yet - can you imagine the thread when they try to go for Valve or Nintendo. I'm laughing now just thinking about it.
Millions of proxy fanboys for MS will shift and they'll all of a sudden feel their wrath. There isn't enough PR in the world to control that onslaught.
 
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I personally think as an addition to Gamepass this acquisition is pretty underwhelming.

All signs point to this not being about Gamepass or Playstation. Even Jim Ryan said so, saying this is "a bigger play" and I'm inclined to believe him.

You're right that Gamepass could benefit significantly from this money being used to outright buy games (Ryan estimated that $5bn would buy a few years of COD exclusivity, iirc). For that reason, I'm inclined to believe that Microsoft aren't driven by wanting to bolster Gamepass, they know how many games they could buy up for the same money and the effect that it would have their competition, if that was the idea, they could have bought up COD, various EA Sports, Ass Creed, etc. Etc. For maybe a generation and spent less.

I do think this is about game pass but they want to bring in more people from other platforms. i.e. mobile. I've seen enough data on GP to make me think MS is headed down the wrong road and I don't think this is going to work out for them. They aren't even hitting their projections for this year. By 2030 they expected 100 million lol that's a joke and they'll be lucky to be at 50 million by then.

I've wondered for a long time if there was enough people out there willing to pay monthly to play games and I think the answer is no. Sub services across all industries has stagnated. GP just barely got going and to already be stagnating is horrible for them. No growth in most of 2022? That's a horrible sign for them. I think the software engineer who was concerned about his job if GP doesn't work out was very telling.
 

The Pleasure

Gold Member
Imagine Obsidian making a new Quest for Glory

  • Blur
  • Caesar
  • Call of Duty
  • Candy Crush
  • Crash Bandicoot
  • Diablo
  • DJ Hero
  • Empire Earth
  • Gabriel Knight
  • Geometry Wars
  • Guitar Hero
  • Gun
  • Hearthstone
  • Heroes of the Storm
  • Hexen
  • Interstate ’76
  • King’s Quest
  • The Lost Vikings
  • Overwatch
  • Phantasmagoria
  • Pitfall
  • Police Quest
  • Prototype
  • Quest for Glory
  • Singularity
  • Skylanders
  • Solider of Fortune
  • Space Quest
  • Spyro the Dragon
  • StarCraft
  • Tenchu
  • TimeShift
  • Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
  • True Crime
  • World of Warcraft
My grandpapa will be hyped for a new quest for glory. Hope hos hand can still move the mouse cursor.
 
D

Deleted member 848825

Unconfirmed Member
Millions of proxy fanboys for MS will shift and they'll all of a sudden feel their wrath. There isn't enough PR in the world to control that onslaught.
Yep. It'd be truly stunning on so many levels. Its almost beyond comprehension.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
So it's true for all regions, with the possible exception of Europe? That seems odd.

Microsoft already had deals in place for several cloud providers for Europe coming out of the EC remedies. Not sure if this excludes Ubisoft from Europe or simply adds them to the list of providers. Either way, Ubisoft is the only provider that has permanent ownership of these rights.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
??? This deal will be huge for Gamepass.

But, the deal was primarily about MS buying a profitable business with one of the highest rates of return in the entire industry.

So, when I say "personally" I mean "to me, as a Gamepass subscriber" not "as an amateur business analyst." If Microsoft said "Right, we're going to spend a vast amount of money, what would you like to see on Gamepass?" COD would not be high on my list. There are maany, many things they could have bought for less. That's why I say to me personally, I don't really care or think that it massively improves Gamepass for me. Sure, I'll play it, but I tend to only pick up COD every few years.

I agree with you 100% that this is definitely a move to buy a profitable business though, unlike M mayham2199 who says:

I do think this is about game pass but they want to bring in more people from other platforms. i.e. mobile.

If their primary aim was wanting to bring more people in from other platforms, as I said in my post earlier (and in this one), they could have made Gamepass far, far, far more attractive to the public with $70bn than by buying COD and Candy Crush. They could have secured 10+ giant multiplatform games for gamepass for 10 years for that. As Jim Ryan says, they could have spent $5bn to get 3 years of COD. How about 10Bn for most of the generation? And Assassin's Creed, and FIFA, and Madden, and Battlefield, And Star Wars, and Resident Evil, and Street Fighter, etc. And all the first party stuff. And all the third party deals they're doing anyway. That would make Gamepass absolutely indispensible and would cost less than $70Bn. If Microsoft decided to make gamepass the default way for people to play games, they could do it for long enough that their competitors couldn't compete for less money.

Microsoft will get the benefit of putting the games they acquired on Gamepass, of course, but that definitely is not the primary driver.
 



While the CMA has identified limited residual concerns with the new deal, Microsoft has put forward remedies which the CMA has provisionally concluded should address these issues.

The CMA is now consulting on the remedies before making a final decision


Dunno why we had to go through this song and dance when they already had a deal months ago and the CMA was called out on their collusion by the appeals court
 
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If their primary aim was wanting to bring more people in from other platforms, as I said in my post earlier (and in this one), they could have made Gamepass far, far, far more attractive to the public with $70bn than by buying COD and Candy Crush. They could have secured 10+ giant multiplatform games for gamepass for 10 years for that. As Jim Ryan says, they could have spent $5bn to get 3 years of COD. How about 10Bn for most of the generation? And Assassin's Creed, and FIFA, and Madden, and Battlefield, And Star Wars, and Resident Evil, and Street Fighter, etc. And all the first party stuff. And all the third party deals they're doing anyway. That would make Gamepass absolutely indispensible and would cost less than $70Bn. If Microsoft decided to make gamepass the default way for people to play games, they could do it for long enough that their competitors couldn't compete for less money.

Microsoft will get the benefit of putting the games they acquired on Gamepass, of course, but that definitely is not the primary driver.

They don't just want the content though they want the developers and studios and IPs so they can continue to create games and pump out content for GP. They are going for the Netflix model trying to make as much stuff in house as they can. It will save them money in the long term. On top of that Activision actually makes money and is profitable so just buying the company will also help them slowly start making their money back.
 
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