US moves to block Microsoft's Activision takeover
bbc.com
bbc.com
In television, the vast majority of broadcast and basic cable networks, over a hundred in all, are controlled by seven corporations: Fox Corporation, The Walt Disney Company (which includes the ABC, ESPN, FX and Disney brands), National Amusements (which owns Paramount Global), Comcast (which owns NBCUniversal), Warner Bros. Discovery, E. W. Scripps Company, Cablevision (now known as Altice USA), or some combination thereof. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownersh...
> all of food is owned by four According to Business Insider article from 2016, these 10 companies control almost every large food and beverage brand in the "world": https://www.businessinsider.com/10-companies-control-the-foo...
> and all of computing is owned by five I wonder whether "computing" and "owned" makes sense in the way you phrase your argument.
There's only a handful of remaining game developers/publisher so systemically significant that a platform owner buying them should get serious antitrust scrutiny. (Activision, EA, Take Two, Ubisoft.)
Hardware wise the XBox Series X is as good or better than the PS5 on virtually all counts. Their library of games is a very different story. These acquisitions are crucial to their strategy.
I don’t want to see a Sony monopoly for next generation. Before you say Nintendo, they chose a different path long ago and don’t directly compete with Sony. They instead rely on handheld gaming and quirky, fun hardware with an extremely valuable line of first party exclusives (Mario and Zelda mostly).
I wonder how much of that is because of IP and said IP's underperformance.
So tiring dealing with low effort notions the government is just a vague amorphous concept when it’s actually people colluding against the public, at which the public throws up their hands in a “we’ve tried nothing but compliance and we’re all out of ideas!” way.
Microsoft has destroyed pretty much every franchise it touches, with Azure being able to subsidize huge losses for the garbage they've been producing.
Halo infinite might literally be the biggest flop in entertainment history. 500 million dollars spent and within a FEW MONTHS you had the player count for a FREE multiplayer game in the 5 digits.
These studios and game managers know their jobs are very secure, especially if they fall into Microsoft's ESG requirements, so game quality has taken a complete nosedive.
Gone are the small, nerdy, and passionate studios building these games that existed even during the Xbox 360 era from Microsoft.
The Blizzard of today is not a studio that is small, nerdy, and passionate, so what's to lose?
If Microsoft never makes another XBox generation, how good do you think the PS6 will be? Would they even bother making a PS7?
Not to mention Microsoft makes Windows, and has significant control of PC gaming.
And it's not like Call of Duty is some beloved indie franchise anyway. I'd much prefer that than Microsoft gobbling up a bunch of small indie developers. Even the Blizzard games (Diablo, for example) are way less innovative than their indie counterparts.
And whatever their financials, Microsoft has continued sinking a lot of money into their gaming products, thankfully. They could've surrendered but then we'd lose the one major competitor to Playstation, and maybe even Windows gaming. Until and unless Valve/Steam becomes a vertically integrated platform, Microsoft has a purpose.
The UK could reverse their position. It makes no sense for the US to rely on a foreign countries ruling, as they have no control over whether it changes.
It would be pretty crazy, but it's not impossible. They aren't going to pull out of the USA though.
It’s also theoretically possible that the deal goes through despite the CMA not approving it. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know if that looks like Microsoft no longer selling games and gaming in the UK (possible) or no longer doing business in the UK entirely (not likely).
Besides, the US filed suit back in 2022.
The argument given by the UK's bureaucrats had something to do with cloud gaming. I guess they could make Activision's tittles available on competing cloud gaming platforms in the UK.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/12/technology/ftc-sue-micros...
There are loads of solutions to this problem, the most obvious one being pulling Activision titles out of the U.K. or spinning off independent distribution rights to that market.
Having them snatched up by Microsoft would've been no real loss to the gaming community, but would've opened up synergies for Game Pass and cloud streaming and maybe even given the consolidated company a shot at competing with Sony and Nintendo in terms of ensuring viable platforms (not to mention Apple and Google, or Chinese giants like Tencent).
Meanwhile, most actual games innovation happens at the indie level, not AAA, anyway. So it's not like there was going to be much of a cultural loss.
I normally dislike Microsoft, but to their credit, they've been very loyal to their PC and Xbox gamers, and did a lot of work combining their markets (seamless controller support in Windows games, mouse keyboard support in some Xbox games, cross buy and cross play, streaming, etc.), despite having been a distant third place (or worse) for decades now. They didn't give up on it like they did the browser wars or Zune.
Having a continued viability in Windows and Xbox gaming is a good thing for the community, even as (or perhaps especially while) Proton and Crossover/Apple Game Porting Toolkit and Steam Deck etc. are just getting off the ground. Those efforts are only possible because of the Windows APIs, which are similar enough to the Xbox ones that porting is viable. I doubt there would be a similar path from Playstation.
It seemed like this acquisition would've been a win for gamers. And the market. And maybe Blizzard too, for all its recent culture woes. And I get why the regulators thought this way (two huge companies), but I doubt they really understand the nuances of the gaming ecosystem. Sigh. Maybe when Gen Z gets to run government.
Or are you actually being sarcastic?
Do you think this is not the case?
You can say this is a result of corruption, which i agree, but it also seems to work to the US’s favor when it comes to global competitiveness of the big companies.
Large and powerful companies with unchecked power is bad for equality and fairness within the country, but those same companies are also given an “unfair” advantage when they compete with other countries’ companies.
I suspect this contributes to US being able to maintain their global influence, and is partly why Big Tech are all in America. If they were founded anywhere else, they probably would not have the chance or ambition to expand since they would have been regulated long before they grow to current sizes.
I definitely agree that this leads to the overwhelming corporate influence you mentioned, which is bad. Just pointing out another perspective from the national power front.