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Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

theguardian.com

61–70 of 207 posts

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#61

I think a lot of people are ignoring MS. It does seem more like an I'll judged emotional outburst than a reasoned reaction. The competition authority in the UK is well respected so their conclusion is going to be given great weight by the EU and the US. Given the EUs track record, they're likely to be stricter than the UK, so the CMA adjudication is a good forward indicator that the deal is basically dead.

The CMA tends to be the strictest of the bunch (the same pretty much goes for all UK regulators e.g. compare the FCA to the likes of BaFin) their policy focuses on prevention not management and they tend to forecast further into the future than their European or American counterparts and most importantly they aren’t looking only at issues that can emerge within their respective market but any market that could have impact on the UK down the line.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#62
post #60

I don't mind the complaint about CMA being undemocratic because it's a council of unelected bureaucrats, it's just trash-talk from someone that didn't get what they wanted; to be expected. IMO the reason why this decision is really dumb is because the reason given was cloud gaming. I think that people are missing this. This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently clos…

> This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently closed down, or similar. It's a market. Google bungling Stadia doesn't make it any less of a market, or we wouldn't be seeing Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon (to a much lesser extent) pouring money into it. Regardless of your bubble, lots of people use cloud gaming services. There is no way to have concrete numbers, but the…

It's an insignificant niche market compared to the rest of Activision and Microsoft's gaming division.

> 110k subscribers months after the service shut down. That's not "almost nobody" on the dead service

It is approximately close to zero. Especially considering that subscribers != active users (not even close).

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#63
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read the report that the CMA released? They are not basing the block on some "maybe" future, but on current reality. > Microsoft already accounts for an estimated 60-70% of global cloud gaming services and has other important strengths in cloud gaming from owning Xbox, the leading PC operating system (Windows) and a global cloud computing infrastructure (Azure and Xbox Cloud Gaming). Microsoft alread…

>It did not sufficiently cover different cloud gaming service business models, including multigame subscription services. This is actually incredibly funny reading because Google Stadia was 100% worse than Xbox Cloud. You had to sub + pay for the game too. And some of them were exclusives too. Compared to that how Gamepass works in tandem with Xbox Cloud (you can play on PC, Xbox, and streaming) is day and night YET…

> You had to sub + pay for the game too. And some of them were exclusives too.

It's showing how much Google failed with Stadia, people still don't know how the service worked. You paid for the games to stream them, and optionally there was a subscription for better quality and free games. Also you could link Ubisoft+ to stream their games for "free", and there were free to play games.

And there were only time limited "exclusives", which were only indie games. Nothing to do with actual Xbox/PS only exclusives.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#64
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It did not sufficiently cover different cloud gaming service business models, including multigame subscription services. This is actually incredibly funny reading because Google Stadia was 100% worse than Xbox Cloud. You had to sub + pay for the game too. And some of them were exclusives too. Compared to that how Gamepass works in tandem with Xbox Cloud (you can play on PC, Xbox, and streaming) is day and night YET…

> This is actually incredibly funny reading because Google Stadia was 100% worse than Xbox Cloud. You had to sub + pay for the game too. And some of them were exclusives too. It's also incredibly irrelevant, Google is not the ones being investigated here, and Stadia has also been shut down so it's not relevant at all how much better or worse it is. The question is not which platform is better or worse, but if Microso…

Is is Microsoft's fault that they don't have any competent competition? It's not like they somehow squeezed Stadia out of the market...

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#65
post #58
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>who elected Microsoft? citizen: I want to paint my house blue mayor: I unilaterally forbid you from doing that, on the grounds that blue houses look unsightly citizen: that's undemocratic! mayor: who elected you to decide painting your house blue?

Limited Liability Corporations aren't citizens. Satya Natella is welcome to take MS private as a sole proprietorship.

Microsoft is certainly a legal persona with many of the same rights and tools as a regular citizen would have and oftentimes more, unfortunately.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#66
post #60

I don't mind the complaint about CMA being undemocratic because it's a council of unelected bureaucrats, it's just trash-talk from someone that didn't get what they wanted; to be expected. IMO the reason why this decision is really dumb is because the reason given was cloud gaming. I think that people are missing this. This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently clos…

> This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently closed down, or similar. It's a market. Google bungling Stadia doesn't make it any less of a market, or we wouldn't be seeing Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon (to a much lesser extent) pouring money into it. Regardless of your bubble, lots of people use cloud gaming services. There is no way to have concrete numbers, but the…

110k Stadia which felt like most popular "Cloud" gaming? but let's assume that Nvidia also has something similar

So let's say 250k cloud gaming, meanwhile "gaming" as a whole is like bilions of users

Thus this Cloud gaming is basically non-existent.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I also think the CMAs rationale for their decision is bizarre and shows a lack of understanding of the space. They blocked the acquisition on a premise that cloud gaming will be huge in the future and that Microsoft might make Activision Blizzard games exclusive to their Xbox Cloud. Taking in consideration Microsoft's enormous comparative advantages like owning Xbox, Xbox Cloud, Game Pass, Windows, Microsoft Azure p…

The problem is by size Sony is larger, with more studios and more exclusives. Nintendo is also huge. Cloud gaming has a lot of competition and they all are companies with deep pockets: Microsoft, Sony, Nvidia, Google, Amazon. They can afford to do what Microsoft is doing if they so choose. This isn’t some new paradigm. This is how this business is run. If it is not console exclusives it is platform exclusives. It is…

But Microsoft has the upper hand in the cloud gaming industry according to CMA. Apparently Xbox Cloud has 60-70% of the market share. Activision Blizzard acquisition would only strengthen Microsoft's position and would not improve competition.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#68
post #58
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>who elected Microsoft? citizen: I want to paint my house blue mayor: I unilaterally forbid you from doing that, on the grounds that blue houses look unsightly citizen: that's undemocratic! mayor: who elected you to decide painting your house blue?

Limited Liability Corporations aren't citizens. Satya Natella is welcome to take MS private as a sole proprietorship.

Corporations have the same rights as people; otherwise your freedom of speech and other rights could be abridged while you're conducting business as a corporation, which we don't want.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#69
If you read the report then the CMA comes across terribly. They don't understand basic technical facts. Apparently a competitor to Microsoft told the CMA that they solved latency issues with cloud gaming by increasing GPU power. Someone should alert the nobel prize committee about conquering the speed of light.

They make other bizarre claims like apparently everyone that subscribes to xbox game pass does so for cloud gaming. Cloud gaming isn't even offered in most markets. There is no way people are subscribing to game pass for cloud gaming, its not even good.

Its obvious to anyone with a brain that peer-to-peer is the way forward with game streaming because it solves the latency problems.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#70
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they could possibly say that they will move forward with the merger, but cease to publish or sell games in the UK, but I very much doubt they would. The UK is still too big / profitable of a market. As an aside, it is interesting to see how this merger is received in the tech space vs gaming space. Most folks in gaming seem to welcome the merger because Activision has long been anti-consumer / bad stewards of…

> ... but cease to publish or sell games in the UK, ... Does they have to? I guess they can have separate entity (or a reseller) to import those software and sell them in UK.

It's far worse, any company doing business with Microsoft will have hard time doing business in the UK.

Compemt of courts is no joke

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