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After months and months of litigations, legal actions and disclosed documents from all involved parties, a California judge (Judge Corley) has come to a ruling submitted today in the case, which has been on going for the last few weeks.

Judge Corley has submitted a ruling DENYING the FTC's preliminary injuction motion against Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, with the following statement:

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox.

It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services. This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted—perhaps even terminated—pending resolution of the FTC administrative action.

For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.

The ruling will allow Microsoft to close the merge with Activision Blizzard ahead of its scheduled July 18th deadline, which is just a week off from the ruling, and while this surely allows Microsoft to carry on with the merge, there's still the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) in the UK blocking the proposed merge overseas, with an appeal hearing scheduled on July 28th.

Europe in general has given the merge the green light according to several regulators, so basically it's only the UK's CMA which is currently halting the full merge for some additional time, and while it is possible that Microsoft might still go on without the UK's intervention, the most likely case is that they could extend the agreement to a date after the CMA hearing to clear the merge up worldwide.

UPDATE: Just a few minutes after the news of the court ruling, both Microsoft and the UK regulators have agreed to pause their battle to negotiate, which could mean that Microsoft might have a clean slate to go ahead with the acquisition without issues, if they do resolve the negotiations.

Source

 

[Jayro]

Tencent can do it.
Embracer can do it.
EA can do it.
Take Two can do it.
Sony can do it.

.....but MS shouldn't be allowed to do it?

I never even heard of the first two that you listed. When are we going to be busting up these mega monopoly companies? Disney included.

 

[SylverReZ]

I never even heard of the first two that you listed. When are we going to be busting up these mega monopoly companies? Disney included.

I hope they do get to Disney at some point, that would be a circus to behold.

 

[Missterobe]

I hope that means Blizzard gets more freedom to do things and go back to the old times before Activision but it's probably just siwhful thinking. Most of the devs from back then are gone anyway..

 

[Deleted member 194275]

I hope that means Blizzard gets more freedom to do things and go back to the old times before Activision but it's probably just siwhful thinking. Most of the devs from back then are gone anyway..

As of now, Microsoft is the cemetery of good studios. Just look how shitty Rare became.

 

[mightymuffy]

I never even heard of the first two that you listed. When are we going to be busting up these mega monopoly companies? Disney included.

Never heard of Tencent or Embracer? You living under a rock son?
Regarding Embracer and the 2nd half of your post however, well they seem to be busting themselves up without any help from us...

Re topic: glad it's all over really. Though some of the news stories coming from it, especially Sony spitting the dummy out, was hilarious.. Still got the CMA thing though, which will now probably get overturned, making us in the UK look like an even bigger set of pillocks (if that's even possible...)

 

[LightBeam]

This is what happens when you can’t get your shit together. Instead of playing victim, they should have focused on facts and statistics. Read some things concerning this case and it seems like a long SNL skit..

That's probably because they don't have anything substantial





Besides CoD on gamepass, maybe Blizzard getting their shit together and so on, what excites me is Heritic II finally being able to release again. Each « retro » game has been released on the gamepass, Hexen and Heretic I, but Heretic II is forgotten because of a dispute between Id and Activision. Who could have thought that one day they would share the same owners ...
And given Spencer has some interest in those old games, I sure hope he doesn't forget about it. If he does, I'll try to send him a message myself !!!!!

Post automatically merged: Jul 12, 2023

As of now, Microsoft is the cemetery of good studios. Just look how shitty Rare became.

You say that as if Microsoft killed Rare, they actually bought a corpse and failed to revive them.
I would rather say Nintendo killed them when they refused to buy them, Rare needed it so bad.

And honestly, Sea of Thieves is a real banger right now. They are very competent right now and to me it's a surprise they haven't had the EA treatment long ago. Still need to see what is even Everwild tho

Regarding Activision/Blizzard. When you look at how Spencer explains the failure behind Redfall, he says that Microsoft's approach was always « hands off » and it hasn't worked that much because in the case of Arkane Austin, they could have used some help from Microsoft but they were focused on the « creative vision blablabla » that should remain intact and so on. So now we need to see how they'll work around that stuff.
But regarding Blizzard specifically, all they need is creative freedom. Overwatch 2 was such a fiasco because Activision did not had the financial incentive to build a game like it. But Blizzard built themselves from creative freedom, money talk was taboo. World of Warcraft would never have been made if Activision was behind it.

So yeah, maybe it'll never work, but we have more chances than ever to have Blizzard finally doing something good (I mean, Diablo 4 is a banger tbh, let's see if they can do even better)

I never even heard of the first two that you listed. When are we going to be busting up these mega monopoly companies? Disney included.

I'm very surprised you didn't but also .... Well Tencent's name isn't splattered every time you boot League of Legends or any other game they funded.
That's why it's very funny to see people claming this merge will lead to a monopoly when they are so oblivious to what's happening right here already. There's a merge that will lead to nothing close to a monopoly that has to go through a shit ton of checks in order to happen vs chinese ultra big dystopian funding company that dreams about being behind anything you touch and nobody can't do shit about it (did you know they fund Discord too)
Oh and also forgot about to very very close relations with the CCP. I know it's a meme but it's true and they are even required by their law.

 

[ut2k4master]

Tencent can do it.
Embracer can do it.
EA can do it.
Take Two can do it.
Sony can do it.

.....but MS shouldn't be allowed to do it?

sony isnt buying the biggest thrid party publisher out there, the rest are third parties that are multi system anyway, so it wouldnt matter to the consumer

 

[Kioku]

sony isnt buying the biggest thrid party publisher out there, the rest are third parties that are multi system anyway, so it wouldnt matter to the consumer

Sony's main argument was that it would hurt competition and that exclusives are bad for the industry... which is laughable coming from that company. At this point, it doesn't matter the size of the publisher. What matters is their hypocrisy is called out.

 

[adamsef]

I’m hoping they open the vault on lots of old games and studios.. bizarre creations with Project Gotham racing being one

 

[HarveyHouston]

This is only the beginning, I'm afraid...

 

[Delerious]

You're probably not as conflicted as the judge in this case, whose son is a Microsoft employee lol

As far as I understand, the FTC are the ones who wanted the case to be in that district, and the information about the Judge's son working in Microsoft's marketing was disclosed before the case even began. So the FTC had opportunities to call it out as a potential conflict of interest beforehand.

This pisses me off, Microsoft doesn't need to buy up every fucking developer, and the anti-trust lawsuits need to start pouring in.

I personally don't see the need for them to be buying them, either. But you also have to remember that internationally, there were plenty of agencies that could have denied the merger, but didn't. So this isn't even just a U.S. anti-trust matter if it really even falls under that within the books of every government involved. As far as I understand, any corporation can branch out into a number of different types of business, so long as they aren't getting too big for their britches in any one segment, and aren't participating in outright anti-competitive behavior that falls in such a scope under the laws of each respective region it does business in. In the case of the gaming market, I don't think they're too much of a threat given how fluid the industry is in its current form. If they start trying to buy two or three other big-name studios though, then a line will certainly have to be drawn.

Switch 2 is supposedly on par with PS4, so it should be fine even if still quite ugly compared to next-gen versions. Steam Deck is more on par with a PS4 Pro.

The Steam Deck's (graphical) performance is technically weaker than a PS4 (non-Pro) if we're only talking about FLOPS, granted FLOPS only paint part of the picture, albeit a considerable part, when it comes to actual performance metrics. If we're assuming the Switch's successor to be using NVIDIA chips, considering the power, TDP and cost of Orin chips, I would honestly be surprised if the Switch 2 can even reach over 1.5 TFLOPs in docked mode. I'm only extrapolating from TechPowerUp's sheets, though. Nintendo could ask NVIDIA to order 4nm versions of custom Orin chips to reduce power draw and thermals if they want to keep the form factor closer to that of the Switch, but who knows what the final cost will be if they were to target a price range not exceeding $350 for the final device? I guess we won't know any of this information until it's made public though. And if they do actually manage to reach around the 1.8 TFLOP range or even higher, then I'm more than happy to be wrong in my personal speculation.

Who Knows? Considering they seem to be hinting at a two or three year transition, they could even price the new console at $400, since Switch sales, while weakening, are still fairly strong. At that cost, I can see them hitting over 1.5 TFLOPS docked without losing too much money on the device, and then gradually bringing down the price if they see the need to.

 

[diggeloid]

As far as I understand, the FTC are the ones who wanted the case to be in that district, and the information about the Judge's son working in Microsoft's marketing was disclosed before the case even began. So the FTC had opportunities to call it out as a potential conflict of interest beforehand.



I personally don't see the need for them to be buying them, either. But you also have to remember that internationally, there were plenty of agencies that could have denied the merger, but didn't. So this isn't even just a U.S. anti-trust matter if it really even falls under that within the books of every government involved. As far as I understand, any corporation can branch out into a number of different types of business, so long as they aren't getting too big for their britches in any one segment, and aren't participating in outright anti-competitive behavior that falls in such a scope under the laws of each respective region it does business in.



The Steam Deck's (graphical) performance is technically weaker than a PS4 (non-Pro) if we're only talking about FLOPS, granted FLOPS only paint part of the picture, albeit a considerable part, when it comes to actual performance metrics. If we're assuming the Switch's successor to be using NVIDIA chips, considering the power, TDP and cost of Orin chips, I would honestly be surprised if the Switch 2 can even reach over 1.5 TFLOPs in docked mode. I'm only extrapolating from TechPowerUp's sheets, though. Nintendo could ask NVIDIA to order 4nm versions of custom Orin chip to reduce power draw and thermals if they want to keep the form factor closer to that of the Switch, but who knows what the final cost will be if they were to target a price range not exceeding $350 for the final device? I guess we won't know any of this information until it's made public though.

This might be heavier reading than people typically come looking for in a forum like this, but anyone seriously interested in this topic should read this excellent article that explains why this decision was so fucked, and why the consequences are much bigger than just the game industry. The FTC isn't trying to fight the "console wars" on Sony's behalf (which is the impression someone might get from reading all the bad takes on social media), they're trying to protect consumers from the genuine harms that will come from this merger.

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Please fire Bobby dumbass

 

[Delerious]

This might be heavier reading than people typically come looking for in a forum like this, but anyone seriously interested in this topic should read this excellent article that explains why this decision was so fucked, and why the consequences are much bigger than just the game industry. The FTC isn't trying to fight the "console wars" on Sony's behalf (which is the impression someone might get from reading all the bad takes on social media), they're trying to protect consumers from the genuine harms that will come from this merger.

This was actually a pretty good read. If there is one fallacy in Matt's argument, it's the whole thing with ZeniMax. I'm assuming he's referring to the whole commitment that was made in the EU case, but it has been reported that Microsoft's commitment at the time was to keep contractually obligated titles on the platforms that ZeniMax had already established through their contracts prior to the merger.

For his other points, I'd have to read through the court documentation to get a better grasp on the overall situation. I've mostly been watching Destin's coverage on the matter, as he's usually gone through a lot of the documentation and the key points without splitting too many hairs. Though I'm sure there are some points he's missed, and unfortunately he tends to have a more modern view of the case than perhaps what the original intent was when it comes to antitrust laws, and has moreso been in favor of Microsoft's case over the FTC's.

Judging by the article, it seems the main issue is that the overall perspective of section 7 of the Clayton Act has been widely skewed since its inception, and no amendments have been made to it that actually change things in favor of the market, or perhaps there aren't enough hard factors for determining the risk of mergers, so it's interpretation is rather "loose." I don't know how other countries handle such laws, but for China and Japan, it dawned on me as to why they allowed the deal, as ActiBlizz is hardly a factor in those two countries, since China has Tencent, and Japanese people probably care very little for ActiBlizz games, and they for sure don't care much for XBox. Here, in the U.S., I can see the concern. I personally wish there were harder limits on how acquisitions and mergers could go through, such as having a long "cooldown" period for when a company can make another acquisition after a previous one, and having a cap on the value of what companies they can acquire. People will say that they hate capitalism, but they tend to be blind to the actual picture. Here in the U.S., it's a mixed economy, not outright capitalism. And unfortunately, what we label as "capitalism" in the current day is more of a system in which the rules tend to favor the biggest fish - not always in the written law, but in the way people interpret the law.

 

[SuperDan]

Whoopie Frickin Doo! ! anyways does this mean we will get COD on Switch !>?<!

 

[SeventhSon7]

I am neither a Sony nor a MS fan, but I do like what I saw of the judge's response, along the lines of 'I don't care about the effect on Sony, I care about the consumers,' and 'this is about a shooter? why can't Sony make their own?'

 

[Spider_Man]

"Negotiations" you throw us some cash and we will let it slide.

Ohh well, i guess that's it, Micro$hit can now have their original plan to prevent the use of pre-owned games.... welcome to digital only consoles.

As theyll no doubt push this to digital services only, well CoD is like that already when you pay shit loads pretty much an empty disc, just a crappy file to then download your game.

I had to laugh tho when they released the letters about supporting other platforms.... especially nintendo's 10 year promise.... well that should cover their next last gen subpar revamp aka switch 2 aka PS4/XBX1 gen games ported over.

But this shouldn't be allowed, clearly Micro$hit cant think or come up with their own ideas to make great games, so they'll cheat and throw billions to take over studios that have the worlds #1best selling games.

Just to finally be able to win this BS "console war".

Theyll no doubt phase CoD out to be Micro$hit exclusive, or make it delayed on other platforms (Nintendo, an entire general late, but thats down to Nintendo always being cheap and hardware been subpar to last gen consoles).

I can see it, Micro$hit boasting "our console finally outsells $ony" sure...... but its taken you to buy out studios in order to do so.

Its ruining the gaming industry when we rarely get independent third parties anymore, now even less if console companies are buying them out.

Well to be fair, its not like I buy CoD games anyways so its no beef to me, I do, I wait until its probably £10 or so. But now that you only get a crappy downloaded on a disc, I'm not bothering anymore.
 

 

[TomSwitch]

How about CoD on my Apple watch? What now? No CoD on my smart fridge?

 

[Xenogeist]

Same, fan but also a fan of the competition. So fanboy-ism aside, facts are facts. Fact is that Sony doesn't need saving. MS did. They've lost in console sales to Sony for every generation since the original Xbox, including the current.

You're correct and I 100% agree.

 

[Bladexdsl]

don't know why they are even bothering with the heaterbox it has no exclusives all the games are on pc and play better. zero reason to own an xbox