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

theguardian.com

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

#121

Post by aardvarkr »

capableweb wrote: post #24
daniel-s wrote: post #18

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…

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…

What’s funny is that every cloud gaming provider is in favor of this merger. Microsoft tried to give away access to all of its games to show good faith. Acquiring game licenses are the biggest barrier to entry for competitors so the competition was wildly supportive. Now they get nothing, Microsoft gets to keep its IP to itself, and the cloud gaming market continues to struggle.

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

#122

Post by aardvarkr »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #108
snowski3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This information is incorrect though. It suggests that everyone subscribing to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is doing so for cloud gaming, which is obviously nuts.

> It suggests that everyone subscribing to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is doing so for cloud gaming, which is obviously nuts. It does not. It says that Microsoft plans on using extremely popular content to boost their cloud platform. Not even Microsoft is denying that: > Microsoft submitted that, given the five-year period captured by the LTV, any incremental growth of Game Pass is being captured in the LTV calculation.…

They own “60-70% market share” in large part due to the failure of every other cloud gaming company to gain meaningful usage (Google Stadia and Amazon Luna) and in small part because the CMA inflated the count of active users to include EVERY Xbox game pass ultimate subscriber, regardless of whether they’ve touched it. Luna is available to every prime member yet they aren’t counted in that MAU calculation. Only Microsoft is treated differently.

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

#123

Post by dogma1138 »

yarg wrote: post #116
blibble wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

very large fines (10% of global turnover per year), arrest of directors/officers/senior managers of Microsoft UK, disapplication of copyright of Microsoft products, possibly extradition requests too and the shareholders would want the current board out not to mention the complete total global reputational damage of ignoring a G7 country's competition regulator

The UK's power in this situation is entirely contingent on microsoft continuing to do business there. Now any threats that they make are probably just bluffs, but there's no way that senior staff of a defunct division would be arrested for something done by their former company, and the idea that there'd be any extraditions going on seems unbelievably far fetched to me.

The UK’s power in this situation isn’t contingent on Microsoft at all.

Brexit or not the UK still has a lot of soft power, it’s still a G7 member and a large economy.

Other countries won’t look too kindly on a corporation ignoring a major and very well respected regulator even if their interests aren’t impacted by that particular decision.

The rule of law is something countries fight to preserve and it’s very much a collective thing.

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

#124

Post by aardvarkr »

izacus wrote: post #98
gruez wrote: 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?

What kind of mental model breakage made you put "a citizen" into a position of an unaccountable megacorporation in your analogy?

Unaccountable mega corporations are part of the commonwealth. Per citizens United they have rights too

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

#125

Post by manuelabeledo »

etempleton wrote: post #84
dogma1138 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CMAs rationale is definitely not bizarre and is in line with how UK regulators operate. They tend to look far further into the future and are very much risk averse since they know that their powers are diminished when it comes to managing monopolies than preventing them emerging in the first place. Yes Cloud Gaming and GAAS is very much a meme still but what about 10 or 20 years down the line? Microsoft currently…

Sony has their own cloud infrastructure. They were incredibly early and bought the two largest startups in the space—Onlive and Gaikai. Sony could compete in the space, but their subscription is unappealing to consumers because it costs more and offers less. Google has their own infrastructure and Nvidia has their own as well. I assume Amazon has their own for Luna as well. And let’s not kid ourselves, no one is subs…

> And let’s not kid ourselves, no one is subscribing to Gamepass for cloud streaming. It just happens to be bundled in, so the argument that they have a monopoly is a bit of a farce.

Ah, I remember this one.

> No one likes Windows better than any other OS, it just happens to be bundled with almost 99% of the computers sold out there.

> No one wants Word over Wordperfect, it just happens to be bundled in the Office suite, and that happens to be installed along Windows in many new PCs.

> No one likes Internet Explorer, it has a 90% market share just because it comes bundled with Windows.

And so on and so forth.

Extend, embrace, extinguish.

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

#126

Post by VBprogrammer »

I don't have any skin in this game having not really played a games console for 6-7 years but when Microsoft started throwing their toys out of their pram and invoking Brexit I was pretty sure the CMA were probably right, if for the wrong reasons.

Don't get me wrong, I think Brexit was a monumentally stupid thing to do but it's was so far from relevant here that anyone invoking it was clutching.

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

#127

Post by yarg »

dogma1138 wrote: post #123
yarg wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK's power in this situation is entirely contingent on microsoft continuing to do business there. Now any threats that they make are probably just bluffs, but there's no way that senior staff of a defunct division would be arrested for something done by their former company, and the idea that there'd be any extraditions going on seems unbelievably far fetched to me.

The UK’s power in this situation isn’t contingent on Microsoft at all. Brexit or not the UK still has a lot of soft power, it’s still a G7 member and a large economy. Other countries won’t look too kindly on a corporation ignoring a major and very well respected regulator even if their interests aren’t impacted by that particular decision. The rule of law is something countries fight to preserve and it’s very much a…

There have been many situations where companies have pulled out of disagreeable regulatory environments.

If microsoft decided to no longer do business in the UK (not happening - it's a bluff) it would not be beholden to their decision.

It would be a different situation if either company was based in the UK, but that's not the case.

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

#128

Post by COGlory »

snowski3 wrote: post #113
COGlory wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is in the UK though, which is where the CMA operates

Again, please read the report "With an estimated 60-70% market share in global cloud gaming services, it is already much stronger than its rivals" GLOBAL. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/644939aa529ed...

That's a distinctly different statement than the one we are discussing, though.

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

#129

Post by manuelabeledo »

aardvarkr wrote: post #122
manuelabeledo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It suggests that everyone subscribing to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is doing so for cloud gaming, which is obviously nuts. It does not. It says that Microsoft plans on using extremely popular content to boost their cloud platform. Not even Microsoft is denying that: > Microsoft submitted that, given the five-year period captured by the LTV, any incremental growth of Game Pass is being captured in the LTV calculation.…

They own “60-70% market share” in large part due to the failure of every other cloud gaming company to gain meaningful usage (Google Stadia and Amazon Luna) and in small part because the CMA inflated the count of active users to include EVERY Xbox game pass ultimate subscriber, regardless of whether they’ve touched it. Luna is available to every prime member yet they aren’t counted in that MAU calculation. Only Micro…

Let's put it this way.

If you have Game Pass, would you use its cloud gaming service, or would you go out of your way and play in Luna, which by the way, does not have as many games?

Also, Amazon does not have the software platform, nor the hardware, to compete with Microsoft (Windows, Xbox).

Microsoft could and does bundle a Xbox app in Windows, which also features their cloud platform very prominently [0].

Essentially, every single Windows user is being introduced to Microsoft's very own cloud platform. It's not that Microsoft is "treated differently", they are indeed different.

[0] https://www.xbox.com/en-US/apps/xbox-app-for-pc

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

#130

Post by RajT88 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #88
judge2020 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 60-70% of global cloud gaming services Their point is that cloud gaming is likely way less than 1%, maybe even 0.01% of any gaming activity. The cloud gaming experience still isn't 100% there in terms of latency, so it only makes sense to play single player games, and then most people who have an xbox just use their existing hardware rather than pay Microsoft to play it remotely.

Big software companies consciously abuse the word "cloud" to describe conventional software sold by subscription (most of Adobe's Creative "Cloud".) What Microsoft is dominating is the market for game subscription services and they, as part of the industry, are not clearly articulating what it is, partly to ride along with the bullshit (When VR and AR got replaced with XR I'm sure that Dilbert's boss was asking "What…

"Cloud" commonly is used to mean, "Somewhere, not here" in terms of where the thing is running or is stored. It's also typically used by the lazy or non-technical.
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