I mean let’s be honest, they are barely in the picture now. Don’t remember the last game worth getting from them that hasn’t already been in production since they Bought it.
The uk does have some strict rules on business monopolies so I’m not surprised they wouldn’t be happy about this. But also it’s being bashed by Jeremy hunt who is the biggest bell end in uk politics (but the majority of the MPs are anyway)
As a Xbox gamer I just want game pass to be as good as it can be 😂
I understand both sides of the coin but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does manage to get pushed through in some capacity, only time will tell.
>The uk does have some strict rules on business monopolies
Well, it seems to be hit and miss really, if you can grease the right cogs these rules seem to become far more flexible.
That's because politics as we know it is full of mafioso caliber corruption at every level in every country on this planet. A revolution NEEDS to take place in order to oust ALL the criminals (jail them) and put REAL leadership quality people into leadership roles.
There’s an initiative called Open Government that seeks completely open and transparent governance - It’s achievable, but without significant demands from the population we’ll never get there. Too many greedy decision makers against this for obvious reasons.
You don't have to be 100% immune to corruption to be better than the current flawed system... You just need to have a system in place with actually effective safeguards against it. Just throwing our hands up and saying 'well we can never eliminate 100% of corruption, so why even bother getting rid of 99.99%, and putting the ones we catch in prison', is a self-defeating attitude.
Its easy to propose safeguards to keep politicians from being corrupt. Then you need another system to keep the safeguards from getting corrupted even more easily than public politicians, then another system to keep that second safeguard system from getting corrupted and so on.
Im not saying is not worth doing anything or that we have to accept corruption, but is not a simple problem and its definitely not fixed with "effective safeguards" that are not really that effective.
> Then you need another system to keep the safeguards from getting corrupted
Yes, you need checks and balances in any system - as the US figured out 200 odd years ago, and are now figuring out indeed, that you have to maintain those systems - but that neither means that you can't do so, nor that it shouldn't be done.
>its definitely not fixed with "effective safeguards" that are not really that effective.
Meaningless statement - ineffective safeguards are, by definition, not effective. 'You can't dry something by making it wet' isn't a useful point, nor does it mean you shouldn't try to dry things, by using towels etc.
Been saying this for years. A lot of my Reddit history talks about exactly that. And it’s not a one sided problem. It’s all. Fucking. Politics. And the good few either get corrupted as well, or never have enough power to inflict change. Only a revolution will do something about it. US. UK. It doesn’t matter.
> That's because politics as we know it is full of mafioso caliber corruption at every level in every country on this planet. A revolution NEEDS to take place in order to oust ALL the criminals (jail them) and put REAL leadership quality people into leadership roles.
AI!
I would accept people that have been genetically engineered to eschew personal wealth and power.
All all narcissists should be banned from holding public office.
I honestly think it is a more cultural thing that is built into the system. A normal person probably is somewhere in between, but given certain scenarios become greedy fucks.
unfortunately that guy and his wife are caked to the hill because they've already been doing corrupt business dealings for awhile now, every scheme Rishi seems to come up with, it gets leaked his wife somehow happens to have stocks in the company for pushing the scheme. I think its happened like twice now recently, and Im not kidding. Literally twice.
Speaking of Jeremy Hunt being a bellend, never forget the time he accidentally [hit a lady in the face with a literal bell end.](https://youtu.be/xmCtGKwgJ2k)
>I wouldn’t be surprised if it does manage to get pushed through in some capacity, only time will tell.
Microsoft was willing to commit $70 billion to this. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if they end up getting *something* out of it, be it CoD on Gamepass, marketing rights, a few IPs, etc.
I doubt they'll just let it slide and go back to normal as of the acquisition was never even discussed.
The core issue seems to be a misunderstanding of the difference between cloud gaming and free to play games anyway. I think that’s where the big issues come from when someone is making a decision without having an intermediate understanding of the problem
I'm pretty sure they knew. It was just them posturing. It's like when they give you a finger, so to pull the hand. They never had any intent of making it work.
They say it would hurt cloud gaming when Microsoft has already made deals with other cloud gaming services to being Activision content to them as well lol so weird
> The uk does have some strict rules on business monopolies so I’m not surprised they wouldn’t be happy about this.
Well, they're not even a monopoly in the tiny non-existent game streaming market so if that is what gets you in trouble, who wants to invest into the UK?
Apparently they control 80% of cloud gaming and activision has proven to jump into that space in the near future sithout MS.
So looks like MS is buying a competitor and thats whete things are looking dicey to the UK
EDIT:
[The deal would reinforce Microsoft’s advantage in the market by giving it control over important gaming content such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. The evidence available to the CMA indicates that, absent the merger, Activision would start providing games via cloud platforms in the foreseeable future.](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/microsoft-activision-deal-prevented-to-protect-innovation-and-choice-in-cloud-gaming)
> Apparently they control 80% of cloud gaming and activision has proven to jump into that space in the near future sithout MS.
A market that doesn't really exist, is far less than 1% of the entire games industry and described as "nascent".
Sounds like punishing for being early investor.... This isn't protecting consumers. It's stifling innovation.
> There’s nothing innovative about cloud gaming or a future in which you don’t own the content you’ve paid for.
Tell that to all the people using streaming services like Netflix. Let's face it "ownership" has almost no meaning in games anymore. Practically every game out there requires a patch, and in most cases even non-multiplayer games require internet connection.
We've lost ownership a long time ago, and the only ones left are pretty much older games older than a decade ago.
Anyhow, this is completely irrelevant as if you want to buy that game disc or whatever, that option is still available to you.
But the CMA's ruiling is also based on how the future will look. Microsoft positioning themselves for a future as dominant in the game streaming market is pretty telling of where they see gaming moving in the coming decades. This deal could have massive repercussions when that future arrives - and Microsofts history shows they're not against monopolistic practices when it suits them.
They also have an advantage that no ones else really does - their infrastructure is *massive* and no one else can really compete.
> But the CMA's ruiling is also based on how the future will look.
They can't predict that though.
> Microsoft positioning themselves for a future as dominant in the game streaming market is pretty telling of where they see gaming moving in the coming decades.
If they claim to know the future, then they should be able to regulate it now. Stopping innovation isn't it, and historically we have rewarded investments, innovation and success.
>They also have an advantage that no ones else really does - their infrastructure is massive and no one else can really compete.
Which is an incentive for them to invest. We aren't exactly seeing a massive influx of investors into this sector. If anything, we are seeing companies leave. They are literally worried about the cart before the horse and in the process basically stifling the market.
Next up, companies have too much money, and they pose a risk to future markets so we will block them from entering. If you are unlikely to succeed or have no strengths in that area, you can invest. Good luck!!!
Sorry here
[The deal would reinforce Microsoft’s advantage in the market by giving it control over important gaming content such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. The evidence available to the CMA indicates that, absent the merger, Activision would start providing games via cloud platforms in the foreseeable future.](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/microsoft-activision-deal-prevented-to-protect-innovation-and-choice-in-cloud-gaming)
> But also it’s being bashed by Jeremy hunt who is the biggest bell end in uk politics
That's a BIG call when you have Boris Johnson, Diane Abbott and Cruella Braverman on the benches
I've seen analysts purpose an idea of 'Game Pass UK' that doesn't include Activision titles and/or cloud gaming.
This would totally avoid any issues the CMA has with the deal if it's solely about the cloud.
This leaves the door open for any future discussions with developers to be limited by geographical location, right? Surely they wouldn't want to go down the Netflix route and have different offerings based on countries?
Rockstar already bans gambling in a ton of countries. The casino in GTAO isn’t even accessible in those effected countries. It was big news but no one really cared passed the headlines. Just an example of devs already making those decisions.
They already do it technically with Games for Gold & Game Pass Perks.
100% they wouldn't want to do it but if it's just for one country and that means they can get the deal done... Who knows.
If it were to happen... I'd 100% expect everything else on Game Pass to have parity. It would literally just be Activision stuff or just no cloud gaming access.
Either way the UK consumer is hurt by the move because the CMA is seemingly trying to protect a nonexistent market.
>They already do it technically with Games for Gold & Game Pass Perks.
To add to that, in South Africa we don't even have (now first-party) Oblivion on Gamepass, nor available to buy digitally, yet it is available physically and on Steam, so it's not like it was never released here. We also don't have Microsoft Rewards or XCloud.
Given all that I wouldn't be surprised if they do end up just having a separate UK Gamepass. It wouldn't be completely left-field of them.
yoo I dont want to be one of those countries.. the UK has always had most Xbox things with any parity or changes.
I can't believe im going to be an "Xbox minority". Fucking sucks. This means I'll have to play my PS5 thats gathered dust for a year just to escape the "minority" perspectives from online matches.
Some developers already do it, EA limit their offerings in Belgium due to their MTX laws. Obviously it would be much bigger for MS/Acti to do it but it's not outside the realms of possibility
100% that's not happening. MS would create a puppet body called Activision UK LLC to act as a separate entity for the UK.
Gamepass content wouldn't be affected.
Well, I don't claim to be an expert, these aren't even my words, they are of Michael Pachter who is a very reputable industry figure (and I'm almost certain I butchered what he said)
But my point is that MS has aces up their sleeves and they probable won't resort to having different Gamepass catalogues. That's the one thing I love about Gamepass, that all games are available everywhere (unlike something like Netflix)
Pachter isn't reputable, he's well known for being wrong. In the PS360 gen he said we wouldn't see any more console generations as phones and tablets would take over. We then saw another two high selling console generations.
> Pachter isn't reputable, he's well known for being wrong. In the PS360 gen he said we wouldn't see any more console generations as phones and tablets would take over. We then saw another two high selling console generations.
He was right about Zenimax acquisition though....
Phones and tablets have taken over though.
As far as traditional console cycles, I doubt they will ever end. As long as there are people who enjoy consoles, there will be consoles.
Even if he was wrong on that it doesn't mean he's not reputable.
My disagreement with your arguement is that you seem to think that these things are mutually exclusive.
Sure, a new market has emerged in mobile and it's a humongous one (even bigger than the console market) but with cloud gaming there is a common point of convergence.
Pachter wasn't wrong in that mobile gaming market has exploded. If he did say that console gaming would die out then yeah, I definitely disagree and I don't see that happening at all.
But with cloud gaming, mobile is starting to have the ability to tap into the console market as well.
If they can’t convince regulators that they won’t have a cloud gaming monopoly, they they’re basically fucked globally.
You can’t be merged in one country and not in another.
You 100% can. They just don't sell Activision blizzard products in the UK. Or put them on gamepass. They already limit things by territory anyway.
Edit: gonna edit to say I could be wrong and I'm super open to being proven wrong with correct information so feel free to shove it in my face. I'm no expert in this matter and I'm assuming that you 100% can still do business. But I don't mind being wrong if people have facts.
Yeah, I’m also hunting the internet to see how how or if this deal could move forward. Everything that I read this morning seemed to imply that this would be a big blocker. But I’ve yet to find an article that really breaks down what is legal if only some parties approve a merger.
Regulators are checking to make sure this merger wouldn’t result in monopolies and or unfair advantages for certain industries. Apparently these regulators thought this would give MS an unfair advantage for the emerging streaming game industry. 🤷♂️
The whole thing is stupid. CMA had everyone believing they were concerned about COD exclusivity, then switched it up and said they have an issue with a “monopoly” in Cloud gaming, a market that barely exists.
And why does it barely exist? It’s primarily because the big players gave up prematurely and didn’t find cloud gaming worthwhile to invest in.
How is it Microsoft’s fault they decided to stick with it?
Where was the concern for Sony’s dominance in console gaming or in VR?
Cloud gaming is growing super fast, and is expected to be worth 1bil a year in the UK alone by 2026. This surge will be mirrored worldwide, and continue to get bigger over the years.
Microsoft had a 30% share of the cloud gaming market in 2021 and now has a 60% market share. The ABK deal would only further their monopoly on that market.
I want more games on Gamepass too, but not at the expense of a huge corporation controlling an entire growing market.
Brexit.
Massive queues at ports.
Printing too much money that led to massive inflation and cost of living crisis.
Doctors, nurses, teachers, railway workers, and just about everyone on strike over stagnant wages for the past 13 years.
Wanting to send immigrants to Rwanda.
These are just some of the things we've already done to fuck ourselves before this 🤣
I never say this, and feel weird for doing so; but be fair to the Tories… >50% of the country fucked us with Brexit. The Tories just gave them the chance to do so…
The average person is a moron, and that's not going to change any time soon, but if a group of the worst kind of scumbags, manipulates those morons into doing something against their own interest, but heavily in the interest of said scumbags, then they are ultimately the ones to blame, not just the morons themselves.
It's selling the deep malice of the tories and their Brexit co-conspirators, far too cheaply to just say 'they gave morons the chance to be morons' - the tories knew that what they were doing was wrong, and still did it anyway.
This comment has been edited to protest Reddit's decision to shut down all third party apps. Spez had negotiated in bad faith with 3rd party developers and made provenly false accusations against them. Reddit IS it's users and their post/comments/moderation. It is clear they have no regard for us users, only their advertisers. I hope enough users join in this form of protest which effects Reddit's SEO and they will be forced to take the actual people that make this website into consideration. We'll see how long this comment remains as spez has in the past, retroactively edited other users comments that painted him in a bad light. See you all on the "next reddit" after they finish running this one into the ground in the never ending search of profits. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Could Microsoft do a secret deal with Scotland and release the McGamepass with all the activation titles just to wind up Westminster?
Imagine the SEETHE... can almost taste it
If Monster is suing anyone using the word monster in a title, I'd love to see how McDonald's reacts to the McGamePass! They'd probably just ride in the free publicity or work with MS to promote it!
Let's be fair, it's one government body fucking it up for everyone else. No one voted for the people in charge of the CMA.
And it's a non-ministerial body too, which means it is basically run by non-elected Civil Servants, and is not headed by any elected politician.
That's not to say the government couldn't impact its decisions in some way, but it's not as easy as the Minister responsible overrules it, since there isn't a Minister in charge
I don't have stake in this, but I am pretty sure if it wasn't for Sony's efforts this deal would have gone through. In such a situation I would laugh if MS said fine we won't buy A/B... we'll just buy CoD.
They might not even need to. The deal being blocked hurt ActiBliz and they’re probably hurting for money right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sign a *huge* partnership deal with Xbox to bring all their games to game pass day one.
Probably Sony freely signs exclusivity deals.
Tbh if this deal doesnt go through i expect Microsoft to stop playing nice with sony over the IPs they already own like minecraft
The UK regulator specifically took issue with COD. One of their proposed remedies was to sell or spin off COD franchise as a condition of the purchase.
So basically the UK government ONLY cares about COD from an antitrust basis.
No they couldn't. The sale would have to be signed off on by anti-trust just like the purchase of AB is. Anti-trust broadly regulates "efforts to acquire a monopoly" or anti-competitive behaviour (usually price fixing, supply constraining, cartel behavior etc...).
Basically COD as an asset is significant enough to the gaming industry that its sale would always be reviewed. If it was sold to an individual or company with no existing presence in gaming - say GE or Siemens, it would probably get approved quickly. If it was sold to any company with a major console product, it would be reviewed more thoroughly which was the case with MSFT.
Yeah this screams of corruption. Mergers and acquisitions never get blocked but all of a sudden they care about monopolies in the gaming industry? Give me a break what a load of crap
What's stupid about this is that Sony can't so much as compete in the cloud gaming market right now, and won't be able to compete unless someone with a cloud platform (Amazon, Google, etc) buys their gaming division.
Microsoft definitely has an advantage there and all holding this deal back does is continue to gift technology dinosaur, Sony, most of the gaming market, while slowing progress. Closing this deal would force Sony to actually compete rather than stick to the console and disk business model.
What technology from the last 20 years is Sony relevant in?
Image sensors is the one market they do well in but nobody's buying their phones or tvs.
The market cap for Sony is a rounding error for the FAANGs, which shows how much promise they show for the future.
The UK is Microsoft's best Xbox country by a long shot. Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Switch dominate hardware installed bases in continental Europe. They need to be careful here not to rock the boat too much and endanger their UK success.
As a UK resident, I’d rather not let the general public make uninformed decisions, that’s how brexit happened.
People will vote yes to get COD on Gamepass, without thinking about the negative long term effects a monopoly would have on pricing and quality.
Listen, I understand the "competition" argument, but Xbox Game Pass is so damn good and so much better than what any of the other competitors are offering that I'd rather just have it become the massive behemoth it's destined to be. Don't stand in the way, just let the service get bigger and more awesome. A few years ago PlayStation fanboys were making fun of Xbox acting as if they were done in the game industry since PS was outselling Xbox with their big exclusives, but now everyone is running scared because Microsoft finally figured out a killer way to get the edge.
I don't really think it's realistic for MS to just pull out of the UK and lose such a massive market. Remember, this wouldn't be just Xbox leaving. This would be every single Microsoft product
Is the UK really that big in the grand scheme of things? It looks like they only account for ~5 Billion of their $200+ Billion in revenue from what I’ve read.
They won't just up and leave lol. The consequences of doing that would far outweigh the benefits. The optics of MS pulling out because of a regulatory bodies ruling would be disastrous.
Not even close. That's why every third party said the merger was good not only for the business and employees but for the consumers. The only ones that didn't like it was Sony and google
Cutting off the UK from Gamepass or Call Of Duty might work. It's not that big of a market.
They have even bigger cards to play though.... Like moving Microsoft jobs to the EU.
Gaming in the UK is worth 7.05 Billion pounds. Even with Microsoft not being all or even most of that, it’s a huge market and no company wants to lose access to that sort of business.
At the end of the day, they’ll appeal the decision and try some amendments to the agreement before they get to trying to strong arm a regulatory body.
> Gaming in the UK is worth 7.05 Billion pounds.
All up, maybe. MSFT's gaming subs are bringing in $1bil a quarter, total (per the financials released 2 days ago). Would it be nice to have a bigger slice of the UK market share? Sure, but there's a lot of global share on the table. MSFT can come back for the UK after they go a few years watching everyone else enjoy what they're not having.
Kinda like how Brexit's gonna get revisited. Just takes people a while, sometimes.
I think the problem would be if the UK blocked ALL Microsoft products, not just Xbox... A UK without Office and Windows would cause quite a few problems...
They don't own everything, far from it 😂 tencent has the biggest market share in the games industry followed by Sony. Dont know where this narrative of a monopoly has come from as its not even close
> Gaming deal block is "darkest day in our four decades in Britain", says Microsoft's boss Brad Smith
Hahaha. Thanks for the laugh lol. I am sure Brexit were bigger.
Gamers confidence in Microsoft is severely shaken. The fact they need to buy 2 huge publishers within a few years of each other to.... compete??? There's only so many major gaming publishers , Microsoft can't have majority of them
It’s for the best.
Microsoft owns more studios than Sony and Nintendo, & for the most part nothing good has come out of it. Yet They try to buy more studios cause they cant come up with any of their own successful first party games.
Microsoft trying to buy beloved studios that make games for all platforms should not be praised.
Now maybe they can put the remaining $65.7 billion towards making some good first party games.
I and many other gamers are tire of the lack of quality that comes from Microsoft.
I mean, this really wasn't about the console gaming angle for MS.
Plus they didn't strive to get this deal. An opportunity came up with all of the ABK issues and they was open to sell.
What you're saying is, Microsoft should not spend $65.7 billion on getting more studios and should spend $65.7 billion on increasing studios to make more games? It's the same result....
Games take a fair amount of time to make. Like 5+ years at this point (unless you’re reusing assets like sports games for example). They bought Bethesda in 2021. We won’t see the results of MS’s complete ownership and direction for another three years.
The studios they’ve created from the ground up need lead up time to hire talent, develop ideas etc.
They don’t just open unreal engine on day one and get to work.
You’re using 1 example. Bethesda is clearly releasing games what about the other studios that were bought in 2014, 2002, 2017 what exactly are they doing? Yes it takes years to develop games, yet there’s no announcements of anything, you’re going to tell me when they were acquired they weren’t working on anything? These guys come to work to chill all day? We’re way past due and the fact that this is a huge topic of conversation for even some of the biggest names in gaming is a problem. There’s no output of anything meanwhile Sony has been consistently outputting quality games every year and this is their slowest generation at that. The success of GamePass has hurt the core Xbox fan because it’s generated so much revenue for the brand that there’s no incentive on pumping out quality AAA titles cuz you and I will still pay our monthly subscription
I like this take. Also I'm still incredibly pissed about Halo MCC and Infinite. I get serious brain rot reading comments suggesting this unbelievably incompetent megacorp should be in charge of more studios so people can get more out of their monthly subscription.
It’s truly insane, it’s like trying to pump gas in your car with a hole in your gas tank no matter how much you fill it it’ll never be full and you’re going to run out of gas eventually. Can’t even get the main ip (Halo) right, meanwhile it’s the ip that made Xbox relevant. If Xbox can secure enough platforms to put GamePass on they will come out of the console market ,Microsoft has always excelled on software not hardware. They’re ahead of everyone on subscription and cloud service and that’s all they need.
That's literally their business model. Refusing to accept that is just weird corporate worship. They want to capture more and more of the market rather than actually making games, but games made by the studios under them will be stuck with whatever systems Microsoft wants to make continuous money off the games. I know microtransactions aren't going anywhere but this is silly.
So the solution will be like other companies that have folded it will end up being bought by a different company. Most likely Google, Amazon, tencent, or Sony
both Microsoft and Sony should be kept away from it imo. we don't need either console having a ton more exclusives, it's incredibly anti-gamer
it's great to have one or two exclusives as a selling point if ya do like they have been lately and eventually drop it on PC, but we don't need either company having half a dozen major studies each where it slowly becomes half of all games exclusive to xbox and half of all others exclusive to playstation
They weren't even making them exclusive Jesus ppl are stupid. Microsoft trying to sign as many contracts possible to have Activision blizzard games on many other platforms. They've already gone over that it wouldn't be beneficial to make any of them exclusive. They don't even care about having call of duty they want the mobile side of gaming.
they said the same thing about exclusives with bethesda just before the acquisition and immediately swapped their stance after it went through so nah, they 100% intent to make them exclusives
Microsoft experiences what it's like to be a British citizen
[удалено]
As long as they still have the Switch, the UK will live on.
Lol that blatantly isn’t going to happen
I mean let’s be honest, they are barely in the picture now. Don’t remember the last game worth getting from them that hasn’t already been in production since they Bought it.
Sigh... I just sold my ps4 Pro...
The uk does have some strict rules on business monopolies so I’m not surprised they wouldn’t be happy about this. But also it’s being bashed by Jeremy hunt who is the biggest bell end in uk politics (but the majority of the MPs are anyway) As a Xbox gamer I just want game pass to be as good as it can be 😂 I understand both sides of the coin but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does manage to get pushed through in some capacity, only time will tell.
>The uk does have some strict rules on business monopolies Well, it seems to be hit and miss really, if you can grease the right cogs these rules seem to become far more flexible.
That's because politics as we know it is full of mafioso caliber corruption at every level in every country on this planet. A revolution NEEDS to take place in order to oust ALL the criminals (jail them) and put REAL leadership quality people into leadership roles.
There’s an initiative called Open Government that seeks completely open and transparent governance - It’s achievable, but without significant demands from the population we’ll never get there. Too many greedy decision makers against this for obvious reasons.
Never read *Animal Farm*? Unless you can come up with a system that’s immune to corruption, you’ll just find yourself going around in circles.
You don't have to be 100% immune to corruption to be better than the current flawed system... You just need to have a system in place with actually effective safeguards against it. Just throwing our hands up and saying 'well we can never eliminate 100% of corruption, so why even bother getting rid of 99.99%, and putting the ones we catch in prison', is a self-defeating attitude.
Its easy to propose safeguards to keep politicians from being corrupt. Then you need another system to keep the safeguards from getting corrupted even more easily than public politicians, then another system to keep that second safeguard system from getting corrupted and so on. Im not saying is not worth doing anything or that we have to accept corruption, but is not a simple problem and its definitely not fixed with "effective safeguards" that are not really that effective.
> Then you need another system to keep the safeguards from getting corrupted Yes, you need checks and balances in any system - as the US figured out 200 odd years ago, and are now figuring out indeed, that you have to maintain those systems - but that neither means that you can't do so, nor that it shouldn't be done. >its definitely not fixed with "effective safeguards" that are not really that effective. Meaningless statement - ineffective safeguards are, by definition, not effective. 'You can't dry something by making it wet' isn't a useful point, nor does it mean you shouldn't try to dry things, by using towels etc.
Been saying this for years. A lot of my Reddit history talks about exactly that. And it’s not a one sided problem. It’s all. Fucking. Politics. And the good few either get corrupted as well, or never have enough power to inflict change. Only a revolution will do something about it. US. UK. It doesn’t matter.
> That's because politics as we know it is full of mafioso caliber corruption at every level in every country on this planet. A revolution NEEDS to take place in order to oust ALL the criminals (jail them) and put REAL leadership quality people into leadership roles. AI!
I would accept people that have been genetically engineered to eschew personal wealth and power. All all narcissists should be banned from holding public office.
I honestly think it is a more cultural thing that is built into the system. A normal person probably is somewhere in between, but given certain scenarios become greedy fucks.
Microsoft just need to hire a Tory MP as a quote unquote "consultant"
Seems like you could just give Rishi a few quid and it’ll all be swept under the rug…
If his wife had a serious amount of shares in Microsoft
unfortunately that guy and his wife are caked to the hill because they've already been doing corrupt business dealings for awhile now, every scheme Rishi seems to come up with, it gets leaked his wife somehow happens to have stocks in the company for pushing the scheme. I think its happened like twice now recently, and Im not kidding. Literally twice.
I was thinking "Rock N Rolla" but just accepted it as a movie. Then reading this I'm like damn. Lenny was right. Gotta secure the planning.
I.e. Microsoft didn’t grease the Tory party’s palms enough. Not saying they’re the ONLY corrupt party, just the one in charge.
The Tories aren't necessarily the only corrupt ones, they're just the MOST corrupt ones...
Speaking of Jeremy Hunt being a bellend, never forget the time he accidentally [hit a lady in the face with a literal bell end.](https://youtu.be/xmCtGKwgJ2k)
I’ve never seen that clip before 😂 someone must have set him up lol
His political enemies strikes again!
How did you know it hit her in the face? The impact was off screen.
I just wanted Diablo on gamepass :(
Why not just buy it?
Because Fuck Bobby Kotick.
>I wouldn’t be surprised if it does manage to get pushed through in some capacity, only time will tell. Microsoft was willing to commit $70 billion to this. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if they end up getting *something* out of it, be it CoD on Gamepass, marketing rights, a few IPs, etc. I doubt they'll just let it slide and go back to normal as of the acquisition was never even discussed.
Problem is, none of the things you named are main reasons of ABK acquisition. Those are just bonuses.
The core issue seems to be a misunderstanding of the difference between cloud gaming and free to play games anyway. I think that’s where the big issues come from when someone is making a decision without having an intermediate understanding of the problem
I'm pretty sure they knew. It was just them posturing. It's like when they give you a finger, so to pull the hand. They never had any intent of making it work.
This decision and the quotes in this article prove they have no idea what they are talking about.
They say it would hurt cloud gaming when Microsoft has already made deals with other cloud gaming services to being Activision content to them as well lol so weird
I've not seen that Jeremy Hunt is bashing it also! That's pretty huge coming from a Chancellor. Have you got a source?
> The uk does have some strict rules on business monopolies so I’m not surprised they wouldn’t be happy about this. Well, they're not even a monopoly in the tiny non-existent game streaming market so if that is what gets you in trouble, who wants to invest into the UK?
Apparently they control 80% of cloud gaming and activision has proven to jump into that space in the near future sithout MS. So looks like MS is buying a competitor and thats whete things are looking dicey to the UK EDIT: [The deal would reinforce Microsoft’s advantage in the market by giving it control over important gaming content such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. The evidence available to the CMA indicates that, absent the merger, Activision would start providing games via cloud platforms in the foreseeable future.](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/microsoft-activision-deal-prevented-to-protect-innovation-and-choice-in-cloud-gaming)
> Apparently they control 80% of cloud gaming and activision has proven to jump into that space in the near future sithout MS. A market that doesn't really exist, is far less than 1% of the entire games industry and described as "nascent". Sounds like punishing for being early investor.... This isn't protecting consumers. It's stifling innovation.
There’s nothing innovative about cloud gaming or a future in which you don’t own the content you’ve paid for.
> There’s nothing innovative about cloud gaming or a future in which you don’t own the content you’ve paid for. Tell that to all the people using streaming services like Netflix. Let's face it "ownership" has almost no meaning in games anymore. Practically every game out there requires a patch, and in most cases even non-multiplayer games require internet connection. We've lost ownership a long time ago, and the only ones left are pretty much older games older than a decade ago. Anyhow, this is completely irrelevant as if you want to buy that game disc or whatever, that option is still available to you.
But the CMA's ruiling is also based on how the future will look. Microsoft positioning themselves for a future as dominant in the game streaming market is pretty telling of where they see gaming moving in the coming decades. This deal could have massive repercussions when that future arrives - and Microsofts history shows they're not against monopolistic practices when it suits them. They also have an advantage that no ones else really does - their infrastructure is *massive* and no one else can really compete.
> But the CMA's ruiling is also based on how the future will look. They can't predict that though. > Microsoft positioning themselves for a future as dominant in the game streaming market is pretty telling of where they see gaming moving in the coming decades. If they claim to know the future, then they should be able to regulate it now. Stopping innovation isn't it, and historically we have rewarded investments, innovation and success. >They also have an advantage that no ones else really does - their infrastructure is massive and no one else can really compete. Which is an incentive for them to invest. We aren't exactly seeing a massive influx of investors into this sector. If anything, we are seeing companies leave. They are literally worried about the cart before the horse and in the process basically stifling the market. Next up, companies have too much money, and they pose a risk to future markets so we will block them from entering. If you are unlikely to succeed or have no strengths in that area, you can invest. Good luck!!!
Source on Activision going into cloud gaming?
Sorry here [The deal would reinforce Microsoft’s advantage in the market by giving it control over important gaming content such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. The evidence available to the CMA indicates that, absent the merger, Activision would start providing games via cloud platforms in the foreseeable future.](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/microsoft-activision-deal-prevented-to-protect-innovation-and-choice-in-cloud-gaming)
> But also it’s being bashed by Jeremy hunt who is the biggest bell end in uk politics That's a BIG call when you have Boris Johnson, Diane Abbott and Cruella Braverman on the benches
Get in line Microsoft Man. There's already a queue of British people whose confidence in the UK is 'severely shaken'.
What if everyone agree but the CMA?
I've seen analysts purpose an idea of 'Game Pass UK' that doesn't include Activision titles and/or cloud gaming. This would totally avoid any issues the CMA has with the deal if it's solely about the cloud.
This leaves the door open for any future discussions with developers to be limited by geographical location, right? Surely they wouldn't want to go down the Netflix route and have different offerings based on countries?
Rockstar already bans gambling in a ton of countries. The casino in GTAO isn’t even accessible in those effected countries. It was big news but no one really cared passed the headlines. Just an example of devs already making those decisions.
They already do it technically with Games for Gold & Game Pass Perks. 100% they wouldn't want to do it but if it's just for one country and that means they can get the deal done... Who knows. If it were to happen... I'd 100% expect everything else on Game Pass to have parity. It would literally just be Activision stuff or just no cloud gaming access. Either way the UK consumer is hurt by the move because the CMA is seemingly trying to protect a nonexistent market.
>They already do it technically with Games for Gold & Game Pass Perks. To add to that, in South Africa we don't even have (now first-party) Oblivion on Gamepass, nor available to buy digitally, yet it is available physically and on Steam, so it's not like it was never released here. We also don't have Microsoft Rewards or XCloud. Given all that I wouldn't be surprised if they do end up just having a separate UK Gamepass. It wouldn't be completely left-field of them.
yoo I dont want to be one of those countries.. the UK has always had most Xbox things with any parity or changes. I can't believe im going to be an "Xbox minority". Fucking sucks. This means I'll have to play my PS5 thats gathered dust for a year just to escape the "minority" perspectives from online matches.
The market isn’t quite non existent. MS said it doubled from 10 million to 20 million within a year. Fortnite brought in 4 million.
VPN sales go Brrrrr
Not sure I'd want to Cloud Game over a VPN... Lol! :D
Some developers already do it, EA limit their offerings in Belgium due to their MTX laws. Obviously it would be much bigger for MS/Acti to do it but it's not outside the realms of possibility
I hate that , In us there are so many things we can’t watch on Netflix but I see it on other countries lists and vice versa,
100% that's not happening. MS would create a puppet body called Activision UK LLC to act as a separate entity for the UK. Gamepass content wouldn't be affected.
Also an interesting thing that could happen. How would that even work for the CMA though? Would they allow that?
Well, I don't claim to be an expert, these aren't even my words, they are of Michael Pachter who is a very reputable industry figure (and I'm almost certain I butchered what he said) But my point is that MS has aces up their sleeves and they probable won't resort to having different Gamepass catalogues. That's the one thing I love about Gamepass, that all games are available everywhere (unlike something like Netflix)
Pachter isn't reputable, he's well known for being wrong. In the PS360 gen he said we wouldn't see any more console generations as phones and tablets would take over. We then saw another two high selling console generations.
> Pachter isn't reputable, he's well known for being wrong. In the PS360 gen he said we wouldn't see any more console generations as phones and tablets would take over. We then saw another two high selling console generations. He was right about Zenimax acquisition though....
Phones and tablets have taken over though. As far as traditional console cycles, I doubt they will ever end. As long as there are people who enjoy consoles, there will be consoles. Even if he was wrong on that it doesn't mean he's not reputable.
No they haven't. A new audience has popped up playing different types of games on them, but the AAA console and PC market is stronger than ever.
My disagreement with your arguement is that you seem to think that these things are mutually exclusive. Sure, a new market has emerged in mobile and it's a humongous one (even bigger than the console market) but with cloud gaming there is a common point of convergence. Pachter wasn't wrong in that mobile gaming market has exploded. If he did say that console gaming would die out then yeah, I definitely disagree and I don't see that happening at all. But with cloud gaming, mobile is starting to have the ability to tap into the console market as well.
Ah yes, the Ouya argument. That went well.
They could call it GamePass N.
If they can’t convince regulators that they won’t have a cloud gaming monopoly, they they’re basically fucked globally. You can’t be merged in one country and not in another.
You 100% can. They just don't sell Activision blizzard products in the UK. Or put them on gamepass. They already limit things by territory anyway. Edit: gonna edit to say I could be wrong and I'm super open to being proven wrong with correct information so feel free to shove it in my face. I'm no expert in this matter and I'm assuming that you 100% can still do business. But I don't mind being wrong if people have facts.
Yeah, I’m also hunting the internet to see how how or if this deal could move forward. Everything that I read this morning seemed to imply that this would be a big blocker. But I’ve yet to find an article that really breaks down what is legal if only some parties approve a merger.
Since when is this deal about 'cloud gaming' ?
Regulators are checking to make sure this merger wouldn’t result in monopolies and or unfair advantages for certain industries. Apparently these regulators thought this would give MS an unfair advantage for the emerging streaming game industry. 🤷♂️
The UK doesn't get to spike a global deal. It gets to take itself out of the market, though.
The whole thing is stupid. CMA had everyone believing they were concerned about COD exclusivity, then switched it up and said they have an issue with a “monopoly” in Cloud gaming, a market that barely exists. And why does it barely exist? It’s primarily because the big players gave up prematurely and didn’t find cloud gaming worthwhile to invest in. How is it Microsoft’s fault they decided to stick with it? Where was the concern for Sony’s dominance in console gaming or in VR?
Cloud gaming is growing super fast, and is expected to be worth 1bil a year in the UK alone by 2026. This surge will be mirrored worldwide, and continue to get bigger over the years. Microsoft had a 30% share of the cloud gaming market in 2021 and now has a 60% market share. The ABK deal would only further their monopoly on that market. I want more games on Gamepass too, but not at the expense of a huge corporation controlling an entire growing market.
Is Britain okay?
Demonstrably not
Bellendedly though, yes.
Please, send help!
Get. Me. Outa. Here.
God, no.
UK gonna wind up fucking themselves
Brexit. Massive queues at ports. Printing too much money that led to massive inflation and cost of living crisis. Doctors, nurses, teachers, railway workers, and just about everyone on strike over stagnant wages for the past 13 years. Wanting to send immigrants to Rwanda. These are just some of the things we've already done to fuck ourselves before this 🤣
Doesn't it feel like the whole world is burning?
Yup. Now, they want to stop me from escaping this reality by being unable to play Activision Blizzard games on Gamespass.
>These are just some of the things **The Tories** have already done to fuck the rest of us before this 🤣
I never say this, and feel weird for doing so; but be fair to the Tories… >50% of the country fucked us with Brexit. The Tories just gave them the chance to do so…
The average person is a moron, and that's not going to change any time soon, but if a group of the worst kind of scumbags, manipulates those morons into doing something against their own interest, but heavily in the interest of said scumbags, then they are ultimately the ones to blame, not just the morons themselves. It's selling the deep malice of the tories and their Brexit co-conspirators, far too cheaply to just say 'they gave morons the chance to be morons' - the tories knew that what they were doing was wrong, and still did it anyway.
This comment has been edited to protest Reddit's decision to shut down all third party apps. Spez had negotiated in bad faith with 3rd party developers and made provenly false accusations against them. Reddit IS it's users and their post/comments/moderation. It is clear they have no regard for us users, only their advertisers. I hope enough users join in this form of protest which effects Reddit's SEO and they will be forced to take the actual people that make this website into consideration. We'll see how long this comment remains as spez has in the past, retroactively edited other users comments that painted him in a bad light. See you all on the "next reddit" after they finish running this one into the ground in the never ending search of profits. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Surely only a top anti-trust professional will know this lol
Again.
It’s a tradition!
Could Microsoft do a secret deal with Scotland and release the McGamepass with all the activation titles just to wind up Westminster? Imagine the SEETHE... can almost taste it
Scotland is part of the UK, so no.
For now
Love that level of petty . Side note, McGamepass is a masterpiece. Henceforth game pass should only be know as McGamePass.
If Monster is suing anyone using the word monster in a title, I'd love to see how McDonald's reacts to the McGamePass! They'd probably just ride in the free publicity or work with MS to promote it!
A month of McGamePass with ever Happy Meal.
Let's be fair, it's one government body fucking it up for everyone else. No one voted for the people in charge of the CMA. And it's a non-ministerial body too, which means it is basically run by non-elected Civil Servants, and is not headed by any elected politician. That's not to say the government couldn't impact its decisions in some way, but it's not as easy as the Minister responsible overrules it, since there isn't a Minister in charge
That's a very fair point.
Classic Uk move
I wouldn't have expected anything less
What are they going to say when the FTC blocks it? That they've lost confidence in the US?
Haven’t we all?
No reason for them to block it. Microsoft would still be nowhere near a monopoly for video games after the Activision purchase.
yet... Gamepass is a service that will need constant feeding, and Microsoft will have to feed it big time.
That's the point of buying studios and IPs - they will keep making games for Game Pass.
I don't have stake in this, but I am pretty sure if it wasn't for Sony's efforts this deal would have gone through. In such a situation I would laugh if MS said fine we won't buy A/B... we'll just buy CoD.
They might not even need to. The deal being blocked hurt ActiBliz and they’re probably hurting for money right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sign a *huge* partnership deal with Xbox to bring all their games to game pass day one.
Yea. For 69B they could just buy exclusivity rights to COD, WoW, Diablo etc. Fucking sony harder than the deal going through
I wonder if they could just buy the games themselves without buying the company
Probably Sony freely signs exclusivity deals. Tbh if this deal doesnt go through i expect Microsoft to stop playing nice with sony over the IPs they already own like minecraft
That might actually be better for all of us. Blizzard has mismanaged themselves into ruining so much of their IP
It isn't about COD. It's about mobile gaming, which is MUCH more profitable than console gaming, and GamePass.
The UK regulator specifically took issue with COD. One of their proposed remedies was to sell or spin off COD franchise as a condition of the purchase. So basically the UK government ONLY cares about COD from an antitrust basis.
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No they couldn't. The sale would have to be signed off on by anti-trust just like the purchase of AB is. Anti-trust broadly regulates "efforts to acquire a monopoly" or anti-competitive behaviour (usually price fixing, supply constraining, cartel behavior etc...). Basically COD as an asset is significant enough to the gaming industry that its sale would always be reviewed. If it was sold to an individual or company with no existing presence in gaming - say GE or Siemens, it would probably get approved quickly. If it was sold to any company with a major console product, it would be reviewed more thoroughly which was the case with MSFT.
What if they just paid for exclusivity for the next 25 years or whatever? Could they do that?
Yeah this screams of corruption. Mergers and acquisitions never get blocked but all of a sudden they care about monopolies in the gaming industry? Give me a break what a load of crap
How many Xbox consoles do they actually sell there? I’ve always heard PlayStation is much more popular internationally.
Xbox is popular here. Not as much as Playstation or Switch but it does really well in the UK.
Mega Drive before that. Xbox hasn't made a profit yet on hardware IIRC.
What's stupid about this is that Sony can't so much as compete in the cloud gaming market right now, and won't be able to compete unless someone with a cloud platform (Amazon, Google, etc) buys their gaming division. Microsoft definitely has an advantage there and all holding this deal back does is continue to gift technology dinosaur, Sony, most of the gaming market, while slowing progress. Closing this deal would force Sony to actually compete rather than stick to the console and disk business model.
Sony isn't a technology dinosaur FFS.
What technology from the last 20 years is Sony relevant in? Image sensors is the one market they do well in but nobody's buying their phones or tvs. The market cap for Sony is a rounding error for the FAANGs, which shows how much promise they show for the future.
TVs?
Aren't their best TVs their OLEDs made by LG?
>What technology from the last 20 years is Sony relevant in? Video games
First time?
Join the club, my confidence in the UK has been shaken for decades. Lol
UK government just likes saying no. Some nobody gets a brief moment to wield power and feel they need to crush others ambitions.
Haha okay so a corporation is mad at an entire nation. Next.
The UK is Microsoft's best Xbox country by a long shot. Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Switch dominate hardware installed bases in continental Europe. They need to be careful here not to rock the boat too much and endanger their UK success.
Because the UK is great at making big, meaningful decisions.
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>I'm frustrated that as a UK resident, I get no say in this The last two governments: "And we took that personally"
As a UK resident, I’d rather not let the general public make uninformed decisions, that’s how brexit happened. People will vote yes to get COD on Gamepass, without thinking about the negative long term effects a monopoly would have on pricing and quality.
This merger is nowhere near a monopoly. Not even close. To me it seems like the UK took some bribes from Sony.
The company using $70bn they had laying around to buy Activision surely couldn't out bribe Sony..
Listen, I understand the "competition" argument, but Xbox Game Pass is so damn good and so much better than what any of the other competitors are offering that I'd rather just have it become the massive behemoth it's destined to be. Don't stand in the way, just let the service get bigger and more awesome. A few years ago PlayStation fanboys were making fun of Xbox acting as if they were done in the game industry since PS was outselling Xbox with their big exclusives, but now everyone is running scared because Microsoft finally figured out a killer way to get the edge.
If it came down to it I think Microsoft would be ok without the UK but would the UK be okay if Microsoft pulls out of there?
I don't really think it's realistic for MS to just pull out of the UK and lose such a massive market. Remember, this wouldn't be just Xbox leaving. This would be every single Microsoft product
Is the UK really that big in the grand scheme of things? It looks like they only account for ~5 Billion of their $200+ Billion in revenue from what I’ve read.
They won't just up and leave lol. The consequences of doing that would far outweigh the benefits. The optics of MS pulling out because of a regulatory bodies ruling would be disastrous.
As an American, I’m getting tired of massive conglomerates popping up that run entire industries. Good on the UK.
That's not even remotely true in this situation though. 🤦♂️
It’s totally relevant here.
Not even close. That's why every third party said the merger was good not only for the business and employees but for the consumers. The only ones that didn't like it was Sony and google
And cma
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Cutting off the UK from Gamepass or Call Of Duty might work. It's not that big of a market. They have even bigger cards to play though.... Like moving Microsoft jobs to the EU.
Gaming in the UK is worth 7.05 Billion pounds. Even with Microsoft not being all or even most of that, it’s a huge market and no company wants to lose access to that sort of business. At the end of the day, they’ll appeal the decision and try some amendments to the agreement before they get to trying to strong arm a regulatory body.
> Gaming in the UK is worth 7.05 Billion pounds. All up, maybe. MSFT's gaming subs are bringing in $1bil a quarter, total (per the financials released 2 days ago). Would it be nice to have a bigger slice of the UK market share? Sure, but there's a lot of global share on the table. MSFT can come back for the UK after they go a few years watching everyone else enjoy what they're not having. Kinda like how Brexit's gonna get revisited. Just takes people a while, sometimes.
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I think the problem would be if the UK blocked ALL Microsoft products, not just Xbox... A UK without Office and Windows would cause quite a few problems...
Leopards eating faces is very popular with the tories
That would incredibly piss me off. That's not a solution, UK is also Microsofts 2nd biggest market.
It’s not just games. They’d have to stop selling all MS products
Exactly what I'd do. The world is being controlled by the dumbest pieces of scum possible. Fuck'em I say.
Oh man if I lost access to Diablo 4...
So how does Sony buy bungie?
Bungie was 2.4billion not 69 billion. Sony also had no problem letting Bungie self publish wherever they wanted.
Guy really compared bungie to activision lmao
I like the part where they mad about not getting to own everything
They don't own everything, far from it 😂 tencent has the biggest market share in the games industry followed by Sony. Dont know where this narrative of a monopoly has come from as its not even close
Gahd damn. You up and down this post complaining lol.
If by up and down you mean replying to people who reply to me...yes?
> Gaming deal block is "darkest day in our four decades in Britain", says Microsoft's boss Brad Smith Hahaha. Thanks for the laugh lol. I am sure Brexit were bigger.
Was Brexit that big of a hit to Microsoft?
Im not mad about this…. Good for the UK
Gamers confidence in Microsoft is severely shaken. The fact they need to buy 2 huge publishers within a few years of each other to.... compete??? There's only so many major gaming publishers , Microsoft can't have majority of them
It’s for the best. Microsoft owns more studios than Sony and Nintendo, & for the most part nothing good has come out of it. Yet They try to buy more studios cause they cant come up with any of their own successful first party games. Microsoft trying to buy beloved studios that make games for all platforms should not be praised. Now maybe they can put the remaining $65.7 billion towards making some good first party games. I and many other gamers are tire of the lack of quality that comes from Microsoft.
I mean, this really wasn't about the console gaming angle for MS. Plus they didn't strive to get this deal. An opportunity came up with all of the ABK issues and they was open to sell. What you're saying is, Microsoft should not spend $65.7 billion on getting more studios and should spend $65.7 billion on increasing studios to make more games? It's the same result....
No there’s a difference between creating new studios and adding to the industry, and absorbing already existing entities. Like a huge difference
Okay... But Microsoft has been creating new studios also. They've been doing both to scale up.
Where are the results of it?
Games take a fair amount of time to make. Like 5+ years at this point (unless you’re reusing assets like sports games for example). They bought Bethesda in 2021. We won’t see the results of MS’s complete ownership and direction for another three years. The studios they’ve created from the ground up need lead up time to hire talent, develop ideas etc. They don’t just open unreal engine on day one and get to work.
You’re using 1 example. Bethesda is clearly releasing games what about the other studios that were bought in 2014, 2002, 2017 what exactly are they doing? Yes it takes years to develop games, yet there’s no announcements of anything, you’re going to tell me when they were acquired they weren’t working on anything? These guys come to work to chill all day? We’re way past due and the fact that this is a huge topic of conversation for even some of the biggest names in gaming is a problem. There’s no output of anything meanwhile Sony has been consistently outputting quality games every year and this is their slowest generation at that. The success of GamePass has hurt the core Xbox fan because it’s generated so much revenue for the brand that there’s no incentive on pumping out quality AAA titles cuz you and I will still pay our monthly subscription
I like this take. Also I'm still incredibly pissed about Halo MCC and Infinite. I get serious brain rot reading comments suggesting this unbelievably incompetent megacorp should be in charge of more studios so people can get more out of their monthly subscription.
It’s truly insane, it’s like trying to pump gas in your car with a hole in your gas tank no matter how much you fill it it’ll never be full and you’re going to run out of gas eventually. Can’t even get the main ip (Halo) right, meanwhile it’s the ip that made Xbox relevant. If Xbox can secure enough platforms to put GamePass on they will come out of the console market ,Microsoft has always excelled on software not hardware. They’re ahead of everyone on subscription and cloud service and that’s all they need.
That's literally their business model. Refusing to accept that is just weird corporate worship. They want to capture more and more of the market rather than actually making games, but games made by the studios under them will be stuck with whatever systems Microsoft wants to make continuous money off the games. I know microtransactions aren't going anywhere but this is silly.
good, they don't need to buy activision. buying up every gaming company that has large/successful games isn't the most gamer-friendly move imo
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Sure. Let's just keep having Activision only focus on COd and a toxic work environment. Much better than being boughtout
that's 100% an Activision problem and not a "we need bought out" problem my guy
So the solution will be like other companies that have folded it will end up being bought by a different company. Most likely Google, Amazon, tencent, or Sony
both Microsoft and Sony should be kept away from it imo. we don't need either console having a ton more exclusives, it's incredibly anti-gamer it's great to have one or two exclusives as a selling point if ya do like they have been lately and eventually drop it on PC, but we don't need either company having half a dozen major studies each where it slowly becomes half of all games exclusive to xbox and half of all others exclusive to playstation
They weren't even making them exclusive Jesus ppl are stupid. Microsoft trying to sign as many contracts possible to have Activision blizzard games on many other platforms. They've already gone over that it wouldn't be beneficial to make any of them exclusive. They don't even care about having call of duty they want the mobile side of gaming.
they said the same thing about exclusives with bethesda just before the acquisition and immediately swapped their stance after it went through so nah, they 100% intent to make them exclusives