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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

#181

Post by smileybarry »

mrkramer wrote: post #47
etempleton wrote: post #26

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…

>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…

> But what worries me the most is Zenimax acquisition that gave Microsoft some of the most iconic gaming franchises of all time (Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, Fallout, Elder Scrolls) and the reality is that most likely these franchises will never see a day of light on any other cloud gaming platform except Xbox Cloud.

And this time: that's already the case for Activision Blizzard. They are not available on any cloud gaming service, by design. They were cease-and-desist-ed off NVIDIA's GeForce NOW and the EULA directly forbids running on cloud gaming services or devices.

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

#182

Post by flumpcakes »

I think it is clearly a government's job to ensure the health, safety, and prosperity of a country and its citizens.

Not allowing two big companies (is this the biggest merger ever?) join together for any reason that is in any way detrimental to the populace is clearly a good thing and within a government's remit.

I'm not sure why people are piling on so much scorn and derision against CMA.

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

#183

Post by izacus »

oh_sigh wrote: post #166
izacus wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A corporation is just a group of people deciding to do something together according to certain rules. It wouldn't make sense that one person, with a lot of resources could do something within their rights, but a group of people with the same pooled resources couldn't do that thing.

It absolutely makes sense and we regularly treat synthetic organizations differently than individuals. It's the only way to build good society.

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

#184

Post by [deleted] »

PaulHoule wrote: post #85
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…

It made no sense at all, but there was a time when major parts of the game industry was talking about cloud gaming as if it were a thing and the media was going along. Normally we have to let lies and bullshit from corporations wash over us, all we can do is complain on forums and still have to argue with Kool Aid drinkers. If bullshit over cloud gaming meant Microsoft couldn't get what they wanted then it is payback…

[deleted]

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

#185

Post by sangnoir »

pwthornton wrote: post #172
sangnoir wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The experience is terrible. That is an implementation issue. I was on Stadia (r.i.p.) and the experience was superior to consoles: pure plug and play with no slow software updates getting in the way of gaming.

How was your experience with lag and what kinds of games were you playing the most?

The twitchy multiplayer game I played the most was Destiny 2, and I didn't observe any worse lagging than on Steam with the same internet connection. I can't remember if Destiny on Stadia was cross-platform - it very well could be that all my opponents were also on Stadia too, and were therefore equally hampered.

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

#186

Post by manuelabeledo »

smileybarry wrote: post #180
manuelabeledo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 su…

"Xbox LIVE Gold" -- AKA online multiplayer on Xbox consoles which most users buy ever since the Xbox 360 -- is $10. Xbox Game Pass is $10. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate -- which includes both -- is $15. That's the tier that also has cloud gaming. Not only is it $20 vs $15, I doubt the account system would let you subscribe to both separately instead of Ultimate. In addition, consider that Ultimate is available anywhere bot…

> If someone's counting Ultimate subscriptions as "cloud gaming subscriptions", they would be heavily inflated from "cheaper bundle" users and users from countries where cloud gaming isn't even available.

The report states that Xcloud is available in a handful of countries, and compares it to its rivals, but the point they make is about available content, which concerns the acquisition.

In other words, even if Microsoft accounted for 60 or 50% of the global cloud gaming numbers, CMA foresees a scenario where they use an extremely popular franchise to increase the value of their offering, while decreasing the attractiveness of their competitors. They also back it with some numbers that suggest that CoD could drive platform adoption up.

> Our survey asked CoD gamers on PlayStation to think about the time when they bought their most recent PlayStation. The survey asked what they would have done if the most recent CoD game they owned at that time had not been available on PlayStation, but had been available on Xbox and PC.

> Results indicated that 24% of respondents would have bought an Xbox, a PC, or no gaming device at all instead of a PlayStation.

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

#187

Post by manuelabeledo »

shanoaice wrote: post #138

It seems like that nobody cares about anything of the players of Activision games. A lot people supports this takeover simply becase they hope Microsoft could be a better manager at making decisions about how the games are made and how the service operates. We simply want Bobby Kotick out, and Microsoft's acquire is our best chance.

> We simply want Bobby Kotick out, and Microsoft's acquire is our best chance.

You mean like what they did with Halo? That worked out alright.

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

#188

Post by [deleted] »

hbn wrote: post #179
nightski wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1080p vs 4k is a huge difference, that's pretty amusing. Also what about someone with an ultra-wide monitor such as myself at 1440p? Overall it's just terrible, and good riddance it failed.

I think when you're using a desktop OS with tiny high-res icons and fonts, then higher res beyond 1080p matters. But for video games they generally have big fonts and icons because they're made keeping in mind a lot of people will be viewing them on a TV from across the living room. In most cases a higher framerate or better bitrate would be a more improved experience than more pixels.

[deleted]

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

#189

Post by snowski3 »

babypuncher wrote: post #159
snowski3 wrote: post #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…

> Its obvious to anyone with a brain that peer-to-peer is the way forward with game streaming because it solves the latency problems. How would this work exactly?

include AV1 encode hardware in ps6. You get credits when you let someone nearby use your device to stream from. You spend credits when you stream.

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

#190

Post by snowski3 »

phatfish wrote: post #162
snowski3 wrote: post #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…

Why are there so many green accounts making baseless claims about the CMA? Looks like Microsoft mobilised the gang on this one.

yet you come with the Ad hominem
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