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[DarkMage619]

Activision does not need Microsoft's help to bring their games on Nintendo.

Here is a list of over 100 Activision games that Nintendo have had (with 0 help from Microsoft): https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Activision_games

This list also includes Call of Duty, which came to Nintendo on Wii U.

The only reason newer CODs aren't releasing on Switch is because they lack the hardware power. As soon as they update the hardware to bring it to modern standards, Activision can resume bringing their games, including Call of Duty, to Nintendo Switch v2.

Fact remains that MS signed an agreement with Nintendo to get games like CoD on Nintendo platforms. Activision games certainly would not be on Game pass if it wasn't for this acquisition. Unions are able to be formed because of MS's efforts and most importantly Activision employees can be free of Bobby Kotick. None of these things would happen without this acquisition.

 

[X-Wing]

The fact that they otherwise wouldn't be able to unionise is a legislative issue in the US. Workers rights shouldn't be dependent on big corps merging up.

 

[reksveks]

Also forcing the xbox hardware division to be standalone business is likely to be failure, xbox very famously doesn't make money off the consoles. The accessories may make profits but enough??? Very unsure.

They maybe to have some rev split with the ms store but not sure whether it would work out.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Not worth it IMO but I’ve not thought this deal was worth it from the get go. I thought Bungie was better suited to the Game Pass model with their regular paid expansions for Destiny.

Yeah, true. Bungie would have been a better get -- 20x cheaper, more monetizable, and better for public perception (Halo devs come home; Halo is back type of thing).

But losing ABK at this stage could be very damaging to Xbox and its perceived value. That's because they have cheapened Zenimax/Bethesda's acquisition and value by saying they still can't compete and that they need ABK to compete.

And if they don't get ABK, nobody would value Bethesda or think of it as a good weapon in Xbox's armory.

 

[Edmund]

Just for fun. If this whole MS-ATVI acquisition gets made into a movie, who would you want acting as Phil Spencer, Satya Nadella and Jim Ryan?


Imho, I'd want Lance Reddick to play Satya Nadella. I know he's not Indian but I don't know any Indian actors lol.
Kiefer Sutherland can be Jim Ryan and Charlie Sheen as Spencer.

 

[Stardust_Dragon]

Do you have a link that the CMA actually looked at the Sony and Bungie deal?

Not sure if it actually fell into their remit.

Also imo you are mixing up cause and correlation.

No, no direct links showing that, but I also don't think the CMA posts every single case they review on their website/social media. As for why I strongly believe the CMA did indeed review the Sony-Bungie case? For one, as I posted before with the Sony announcement (here), "The transaction is subject to certain closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.", meaning they need more than one approval, and I have a very hard time imagining that they wouldn't include the CMA among regulators to review their deal. Especially so since there is this information, straight from the United Kingdom government's website:

"A decision not to notify the CMA could result in risks to your merged business after the merger has been completed. The CMA may become aware of your merger as a result of its own market intelligence function, for example through a complaint from a customer or competitor.

Benefits and risks of your decision
Benefits of deciding to notify
There are 2 main benefits of getting the CMA’s approval before your merger goes ahead:

it gives you legal certainty
it can save you a lot of time and resource

Risks of deciding not to notify
If your merger is completed without the CMA’s approval, the CMA can investigate your merger after it has happened and it has a number of powers which it can use to:

prevent the merged businesses from taking actions if it thinks that they might pre-empt its eventual decision
order that pre-emptive action that has already taken place is reversed
appoint a trustee at the businesses’ expense to ensure that pre-emptive actions aren’t taken or their effects are mitigated
force the disposal of a business if the merger is prohibited"

(Source)

So yeah, I guess Sony could just ignore the CMA and not bother notifying them, but probably wouldn't be a good idea if they're looking to acquire a publisher like Take-Two to counter a Microsoft-ABK merger agreement in the future. Of course, I'm just a random NeoGAF commentator, but I would be willing to put my pride up on the line here and state that if the FTC case against the Microsoft-ABK merger goes to court and during the discovery phase, we find out that Sony didn't get approval from the CMA for the Bungie deal, then I'll change my profile picture on here to either a clown or a court jester, whichever one is more appropriate for me.

 

[DarkMage619]

The fact that they otherwise wouldn't be able to unionise is a legislative issue in the US. Workers rights shouldn't be dependent on big corps merging up.

Private companies have the right to determine if their employees could unionize or not in America. Freedom sometimes has outcomes we don't like. Regardless MS has opened the door for unions in gaming and no other gaming company jumped in to that arena before.

Also forcing the xbox hardware division to be standalone business is likely to be failure, xbox very famously doesn't make money off the consoles. The accessories may make profits but enough??? Very unsure.

They maybe to have some rev split with the ms store but not sure whether it would work out.

Who is trying to force the Xbox hardware division to be a stand-alone business? You speaking hypothetically from this acquisition? That would be wild to suggest that the last place company needs to be broken up to make an acquisition. I'd love to see the objections the EC came up with because it's clear MS is no where near being a monopoly in gaming.

 

[IFireflyl]

Microsoft's no cross-play policy back during the 7th gen gen was well-known, but there is absolutely no proof anywhere whatsoever that Sony actually wanted to do cross-play with Xbox back then either, and looking at how much they despised and fought against it while having to be dragged kicking and screaming into it last generation I think it's safe to say that if MS had asked Sony to do cross-play between X360+PS3 they would still have refused.

That said, PSN during the PS3 era was such a fucking terrible, insecure, unstable and laggy mess of a service that MS would have had to be absolutely insane to even consider doing cross-play with PlayStation at the time as it would have directly hurt Xbox gamers experience in online multiplayer games.

And as I recall CS:GO actually had cross-play with PS3 for a short time (or at least were supposed to have it) but Valve backed out of it quickly because it turned out that Sony's patch verification process was extremely slow and could take days or even weeks to be approved while the Steam version could be updated immediately whenever Valve felt like it. Obviously having a version mismatch between the PC and PS3 would have caused issues and they didn't want to make PC gamers wait for Sony just so they could patch their game, so the entire thing fell apart in the end.

I mean, a third-party developer (Square Enix) confirmed that the only reason they didn't have cross-play for Final Fantasy XIV was because of Microsoft. Here is a previous post I made in this very thread regarding this:

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn isn't coming to Xbox due to Microsoft not allowing cross-platform play

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn director Naoki Yoshida confirmed that the reason the MMO isn't coming to a Microsoft c…

www.eurogamer.net

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn director Naoki Yoshida confirmed that the reason the MMO isn't coming to a Microsoft console is due to the hardware manufacturer's restrictive online policies that prevent cross-platform play.

This isn't the case with Sony, hence why the PS3, PS4, and PC versions of the rebooted MMO will all be able to play with each other.

"The main reason from our side is that I don't want the community to be divided; to be split into two or more," said Yoshida in an interview with RPGsite. "For example, one player might be on the PC version, another might be on the PS4 version, and I'm playing the Xbox version - but we're not able to join the same game servers. That is just... I just don't like the idea. I disagree with it."

"To be frankly honest with you, there are now so many mobile devices, smart phones, everything - why would you ever just stick to one platform from the hardware aspect? Just - make it open to everyone?"

Beyond players of different platforms not being able to play with one another, existing players of the MMO wouldn't be able to transfer their character over to this enhanced version of the game, due 27th August.

"I would love for as many players as possible to enjoy the game worldwide, so from a business point of view it could make sense to have it on the Xbox platforms," Yoshida continued. "But as I mentioned earlier, that would bring about the tragedy that somebody might have to give up their existing character. Then players might get frustrated, and then they ask us - 'Square Enix, can't you do something?' and then... yeah. Unless that happens, we can't really do anything."

In other words: your move, Microsoft.

That was an article from 2013. Sony got more restrictive in the PS4 era which was sucky, but stop pretending that Sony started this cross-play problem. Like I said, neither Microsoft nor Sony care about us. Quit blindly defending your stupid box. Both companies do dumb shit, and when it comes to cross-play Microsoft kicked off this dumbassery.

If cross-play wasn't possible because of Sony limitations then there would have been zero point in Square Enix making this statement. They could have thrown both Sony and Microsoft under the bus by saying it was ridiculous that neither party would allow cross-play. Instead, Square Enix said that the sole reason Final Fantasy XIV lacked cross-play was due to Microsoft not allowing it. Sony took a tougher stance on cross-play with the PlayStation 4, but if Microsoft had played ball back with the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 era then it is very possible (and I would argue, probable) that we would be living in an age of true cross-play across the board as it is unlikely that either party would want to look like the bad guy by taking away cross-play at a later time.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Just for fun. If this whole MS-ATVI acquisition gets made into a movie, who would you want acting as Phil Spencer, Satya Nadella and Jim Ryan?


Imho, I'd want Lance Reddick to play Satya Nadella. I know he's not Indian but I don't know any Indian actors lol.
Russell Crowe can be Jim Ryan and Charlie Sheen as Spencer.

• Phil Spencer = Jason Clarke
• Satya Nadella = Kumail Nanjiani
• Jim Ryan = Tom Holland

 

[Astray]

Also forcing the xbox hardware division to be standalone business is likely to be failure, xbox very famously doesn't make money off the consoles. The accessories may make profits but enough??? Very unsure.

They maybe to have some rev split with the ms store but not sure whether it would work out.

I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment.

Xbox is definitely not profitable (otherwise they'd be touting its profits from the rooftops every investor call like Sony does), but it's also clearly hampered by having to work with MS's wider hiring policies and upper level management. Xbox going solo might be tough at first, but the brand equity and set of hoarded IP might bring in a buyer who's willing and able to do things Microsoft simply wouldn't.

Yeah, true. Bungie would have been a better get -- 20x cheaper, more monetizable, and better for public perception (Halo devs come home; Halo is back type of thing).

But losing ABK at this stage could be very damaging to Xbox and its perceived value. That's because they have cheapened Zenimax/Bethesda's acquisition and value by saying they still can't compete and that they need ABK to compete.

And if they don't get ABK, nobody would value Bethesda or think of it as a good weapon in Xbox's armory.

The strategy of mass acquisition/IP hoarding has been very unsuccessful so far (console sales already tracking behind Xbox One!), as has been the strategy of basically giving away things via Gamepass (growth stalled on console, the most important part of the Xbox strategy no matter what MS says).

It's all attempts to force mindshare growth, but it has impacted revenue and market share pretty badly and will likely not end well.

The only reason this Activision deal is worthwhile (as in $70bn worthwhile) for Microsoft is if they can use COD either as a way to force people to switch to Xbox thru exclusivity/Gamepass priority, or as a cudgel to force Sony to have Gamepass on PS5 and start monetizing that larger userbase. If they can't do either then this deal is probably gonna die. The rest is a nice bonus but really not what they are paying this money for.

 

[reksveks]

Who is trying to force the Xbox hardware division to be a stand-alone business? You speaking hypothetically from this acquisition? That would be wild to suggest that the last place company needs to be broken up to make an acquisition. I'd love to see the objections the EC came up with because it's clear MS is no where near being a monopoly in gaming.

Just talking about the hypocritical raised by Stardust_Dragon and why it ain't likely

 

[Poltz]

The CMA tweet about every case they look into, it is perfectly normal. If you dont like it is a YOU problem. They are tweeting about a dentist merger for god sake.

 

[Yoboman]

Microsoft immediately committed to making COD multi-platform day one with a signed commitment to Sony. That renders everything you just said irrelevant. Maybe if Microsoft raised the kind of stink that Sony did, Bungie wouldn't have been approved as easily. Ever consider that? Microsoft didn't pull the same snakish move that Sony did lol. That's basically the only difference.

Had Microsoft raised the same kinds of alarms about Bungie, CMA automatically sends it phase 2. That's how these things work. If anybody makes a complaint to CMA raising alarms or potential harms, it automatically heads to phase 2. EU doesn't necessarily work that way, but it would have gone to phase 2 there as well. Sony's transaction for Bungie went as smoothly as it did not because it was so on the up and up, but because Microsoft chose to not make it a major issue with regulators, forcing them to do more in depth looks at the deal.

And also, it would have simply just been bad strategy by Microsoft to do so. So Sony is punching up at their bigger deal while getting their smaller deal through. However, it won't end the way Sony hopes is my assumption.

A 10 year contractual agreement is not close to structuring your organisation to allow for the highest level of independence to remain for that acquired company.

MS are trying to patch up the titanic with bandaids as their deal sinks.

If it was about anything but exclusives they would allow Actiblizz to remain independent in their organisational and publishing decisions with full platform agnostic decision making.

 

[reksveks]

I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment.

Xbox is definitely not profitable (otherwise they'd be touting its profits from the rooftops every investor call like Sony does), but it's also clearly hampered by having to work with MS's wider hiring policies and upper level management. Xbox going solo might be tough at first, but the brand equity and set of hoarded IP might bring in a buyer who's willing and able to do things Microsoft simply wouldn't.

The hypothetical divesture was just the hardware,

 

[Banjo64]

Charlie Sheen as Spencer.

 

[Astray]

The hypothetical divesture was just the hardware,

The hardware business has no value without the implied and actual connections between it and whatever IP and software production MS has to offer.

I do think that the day MS ceases investing in dedicated hardware is coming, the amount of money lost so far is not negligible, especially when you are firing employees companywide in a bear market.

 

[IFireflyl]

Fact remains that MS signed an agreement with Nintendo to get games like CoD on Nintendo platforms. Activision games certainly would not be on Game pass if it wasn't for this acquisition. Unions are able to be formed because of MS's efforts and most importantly Activision employees can be free of Bobby Kotick. None of these things would happen without this acquisition.

Have you seen this agreement with Nintendo? Is Microsoft going to develop Call of Duty games as native ports, or would this just be via cloud gaming? If it's cloud gaming then that's how Microsoft comes out on top by having an agreement with Nintendo. It means that Nintendo Switch owners would have to pay for Game Pass in order to access cloud gaming, and that's monthly revenue for Microsoft. That deal would benefit Microsoft far more than Nintendo. This is exactly what they are trying to get with PlayStation as well. They want PlayStation to allow Game Pass and cloud gaming, not because they care about the people and want gamers to have freedom of choice, but because it would be an easy way to increase their subscription service and roll in more dough while simultaneously becoming the dominating force in the cloud gaming market.

 

[Heisenberg007]

The strategy of mass acquisition/IP hoarding has been very unsuccessful so far (console sales already tracking behind Xbox One!), as has been the strategy of basically giving away things via Gamepass (growth stalled on console, the most important part of the Xbox strategy no matter what MS says).

It's all attempts to force mindshare growth, but it has impacted revenue and market share pretty badly and will likely not end well.

The only reason this Activision deal is worthwhile (as in $70bn worthwhile) for Microsoft is if they can use COD either as a way to force people to switch to Xbox thru exclusivity/Gamepass priority, or as a cudgel to force Sony to have Gamepass on PS5 and start monetizing that larger userbase. If they can't do either then this deal is probably gonna die. The rest is a nice bonus but really not what they are paying this money for.

I agree.

The strategy of hoarding IPs and these big acquisitions makes headlines and has an effect on the hardcore audience (like us). But ultimately, only high-quality games matter -- especially for casual audience which defines the success or failure for a platform because of their sheer number.

The average gamer does not know who owns what IP and which big publisher was just acquired by whom. He sees God of War, finds it cool, and buys a PlayStation to play it.

If these big acquisitions are negatively affecting Xbox's ROI (which I believe they are, along with Game Pass), these are also affecting the big budget must-play titles that Xbox can potentially create. That means there are fewer and fewer Xbox must-play games that casuals will be attracted to. And that's why they are tracking behind.

 

[Edmund]

I'd propose to Stephanie Hsu from Everything Everywhere All At Once to act as Lulu Cheng Meservey.

She'll be able to bring out that craziness of Lulu very well.



I've got an All Star cast already

Lance Reddick - Satya

Kiefer Sutherland - Jimbo

Stephanie Hsu - Lulu Cheng Meservey

Charlie Sheen - Phil Spencer.

The show will be directed by Neil Druckmann.

 

[reksveks]

The hardware business has no value without the implied and actual connections between it and whatever IP and software production MS has to offer.

I do think that the day MS ceases investing in dedicated hardware is coming, the amount of money lost so far is not negligible, especially when you are firing employees companywide in a bear market.

I agree therefore I think we agree that divesting the hardware business as in the following post doesn't make sense.

Post in thread 'Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT|' https://www.neogaf.com/threads/microsoft-activision-deal-approval-watch-ot.1641775/post-267479415

 

[Yoboman]

Sony bought bungie and confirmed it’s games remain multiplat.

I think if MS committed to the same arrangement with ABK’a IPs, this deal is done already.

But MS are clearly trying to create a walled off gaming platform and trying to purchase a major part of the existing functional gaming market to force consumers through their doors.

The regulators are rightly concerned about the impact on consumers of this move.

Bungie - that was a change of the sign over the door and continue business as usual. ABK definitely isn’t that.

Exactly. And the Bungie acquisition is all the more reason for Sony to balk at Microsoft's crumb offerings with the ActiBlizz deal

Both companies go through a large acquisition at the same time. One fully committed in every way to maintaining the acquired company's multiplatform status and community. The other limiting themselves to a time period only, on one franchise, which they've moved the goalposts on twice now.

So yeah Sony has every right to call out MS's actions. What was the phrase "inadequate on many levels".

 

[gothmog]

Not worth it IMO but I’ve not thought this deal was worth it from the get go. I thought Bungie was better suited to the Game Pass model with their regular paid expansions for Destiny.

Sony has a similar subscription service and if the rumors are correct Destiny 2 will probably be a part of it going forward.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Yes, Microsoft will be fine, but the gaming market will be a lot less competitive due to it being blocked successfully by Sony. Which is precisely what Sony wants. Between the two outcomes, the outcome that creates MORE competition is the one that's better for the industry and all consumers. The best decision for Sony's sake is the worst outcome here, which is why I don't see it happening that way.

Can you please explain to me how the gaming market gets more competitive thorough less competiton?

The amount of gaslighting on this topic is literally insane when your argument boils down to a complete fallacy of logic

 

[IFireflyl]

Exactly. And the Bungie acquisition is all the more reason for Sony to balk at Microsoft's crumb offerings with the ActiBlizz deal

Both companies go through a large acquisition at the same time. One fully committed in every way to maintaining the acquired company's multiplatform status and community. The other limiting themselves to a time period only, on one franchise, which they've moved the goalposts on twice now.

So yeah Sony has every right to call out MS's actions. What was the phrase "inadequate on many levels".

I wouldn't classify renegotiating/provide better terms as "moving the goalposts". Virtually every business arrangement is guilty of "moving the goalposts" if that is the criteria we are going to use.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Fact remains that MS signed an agreement with Nintendo to get games like CoD on Nintendo platforms.

As I showed you previously, Activision has been bringing their games on Nintendo (including 10+ games on Switch) on their own. They don't and have never needed Microsoft to do that.

Activision games certainly would not be on Game pass if it wasn't for this acquisition.

MS can sign Game Pass deals for ABK games. No one is stopping them.

Unions are able to be formed because of MS's efforts

No, MS isn't involved in that. As a reminder, they cannot intervene in ABK's operations at all until the acquisition closes. That would be illega.

and most importantly Activision employees can be free of Bobby Kotick. None of these things would happen without this acquisition.

Kotick is confirmed to stay as the ABK CEO after the acquisition. So nothing will change.

A statement by the Xbox company confirmed that Kotick will currently not leave his role as a result of the newly announced buyout, while the acquisition procedure continues.

“Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard, and he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture and accelerate business growth,” the statement reads.

 

[RickMasters]

A well thought out post, I agree that the only way the CMA approves this is with divestiture.

However, I can’t see it being Xbox hardware. That would remove options from the consumer and would lead to Sony being able to implement anti-consumer practices - which is counter to the CMA’s purpose.

I think they’d have to sell some/all of 343i, The Coalition, Blizzard Entertainment, id Software, MachineGames & Arkane. The CMA have noted in their phase 1 report how if this deal were to pass Xbox would own popular shooters like Halo, Gears, CoD, Overwatch and Doom.

But I don’t even know if they will offer divestiture. That’s probably best case scenario for MS.

I think divestiture is a stretch of the imagination. What next? a hard cap on how many studios MS can aquire? because that seems to sound like the problem some people here are having with it? A ten year deal is already well beyond the norm, for a start. and what else would they want? crash? spyro? life time guranatees for every IP or sell all their studios prior to aquisition? this is all getting silly. at some point it either stops looking like a deal not worth doing because they cant anything exclusive from it. And I dont see a scenario where spinning off their current studios appeases anybody, least of all Xbox gamers, or MS. Too much of a stretch mixed with a dash of wishful thinking for some.

 

[IFireflyl]

Can you please explain to me how the gaming market gets more competitive thorough less competiton?

The amount of gaslighting on this topic is literally insane when your argument boils down to a complete fallacy of logic

 

[pasterpl]

If MS deems Activion Blizzard games are nothing special, then why are they fighting so hard for this deal to go through. What pisses me off about this whole thing is the double speak of Spencer.

https://www.thegamer.com/microsoft-activision-blizzard-games-not-unique-monopoly-competition-merger/

1)We want games for everyone. Exclusives are bad - Proceeds to buy Zenimax and makes games exclusive.

2)Bobby Kotick is bad. ATVI is bad - Goes behind everyone's back and makes a deal with Kotick.

3) Sony and Nintendo are not our real competitors, its Google and Amazon - yeah right.

4) ATVI games are nothing special/unique - Fights tooth and nail to get the acquisition done.

It works both ways;

1)We want games for everyone. Exclusives are bad - Proceeds to buy Zenimax and makes games exclusive. - just after Sony bought timed exclusivity for 2 Bethesda game and was rumoured to be trying to get starfield as a result excluding all non playstation owners and limiting access to the games. MS acquisition will allow PC and Xbox players to get new Bethesda games days one. And people who are not total fanboys to play these games via xcloud for 15usd/ month.

2)Bobby Kotick is bad. ATVI is bad - Goes behind everyone's back and makes a deal with Kotick. - any official confirmation of that? Or another made up shit?
https://www.gamingbible.com/news/ca...ard-wanted-to-sell-to-facebook-first-20220120
https://venturebeat.com/games/activ...d the details came together over the holidays

3) Sony and Nintendo are not our real competitors, its Google and Amazon - yeah right. - wasn’t that said some years ago when Stadia (rip) was just warming up and Amazon Luna was starting to be talked about? Regardless of the timing Amazon and Google getting into gaming was alarming to MS as these are juggernauts similar to MS in terms of their financial capabilities.


4) ATVI games are nothing special/unique - Fights tooth and nail to get the acquisition done. - and isn’t Sony saying that they will not survive without CoD, gamepass is market leader so far ahead that Sony cannot compete with it etc.

 

[IFireflyl]

Bobby Kotick is bad. ATVI is bad - Goes behind everyone's back and makes a deal with Kotick. - any official confirmation of that? Or another made up shit?
https://www.gamingbible.com/news/ca...ard-wanted-to-sell-to-facebook-first-20220120
https://venturebeat.com/games/activision-blizzard-wanted-to-sell-so-it-approached-microsoft/#:~:text=Activision Blizzard leadership and key ownership wanted to,and the details came together over the holidays

This has been repeatedly debunked. The Venture Beat article was wrong. Per the SEC filing (which is a legal filing that would have penalties and repercussions for being falsified) Microsoft is the one who approached Activision with an offer. Activision took the offer to their board of directors. The board of directors put feelers out with other companies to see if a better offer would arise. One did not arise, so the board of directors agreed to the Microsoft acquisition.

Again, this is confirmed via the SEC filings. The Venture Beats article contains no sources to corroborate this claim, and the SEC filing information was released after the Venture Beats article came out. TL;DR - bad journalism.

EDIT: Here you go:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/718877/000110465922025210/tm225196-3_prem14a.htm

On November 19, 2021, in the course of a conversation on a different topic between Mr. Spencer and Mr. Kotick, Mr. Spencer raised that Microsoft was interested in discussing strategic opportunities between Activision Blizzard and Microsoft and asked whether it would be possible to have a call with Mr. Nadella the following day. Mr. Kotick agreed to participate in such discussion. Following this call, Mr. Kotick promptly reported the conversation to Robert Morgado, the lead independent director on the Activision Blizzard Board of Directors, and Brian Kelly, the chairman of the Activision Blizzard Board of Directors. Messrs. Kotick and Kelly subsequently spoke with Allen & Company LLC, which we refer to as “Allen & Company,” which had provided strategic financial advice to Activision Blizzard on other occasions, regarding the call with Mr. Spencer.

In a call on November 20, 2021, between Messrs. Kotick and Nadella, Mr. Nadella indicated that Microsoft was interested in exploring a strategic combination with Activision Blizzard. Following this call, Mr. Kotick promptly discussed the call with Messrs. Morgado and Kelly and, thereafter, with a representative of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, outside legal counsel to Activision Blizzard, which we refer to as “Skadden.”

On November 22, 2021, a call was held with Messrs. Spencer, Kotick and Kelly, during which call Mr. Spencer noted that, while Microsoft already had a significant amount of information about Activision Blizzard and its business as a result of the commercial relationship between the companies, Microsoft would need additional information regarding Activision Blizzard’s long-range financial plan and prospects in order to advance its analysis. Subsequently, Messrs. Kotick and Kelly indicated to Mr. Spencer that Activision Blizzard was not willing to provide such information without an indication of the proposal that Microsoft would be prepared to make that could then be shared with the Activision Blizzard Board of Directors to gauge the Board’s level of interest in engaging in additional discussions. Following this call, Robert Corti, chair of the Audit Committee of the Activision Blizzard Board of Directors, was also informed of Microsoft’s expressed interest in potentially pursuing a transaction.

On November 26, 2021, Mr. Spencer again spoke with Messrs. Kotick and Kelly, indicating that, based on the information available to Microsoft, Microsoft was preliminarily considering making an all-cash acquisition proposal for Activision Blizzard at $80.00 per share. Thereafter, Messrs. Kotick, Kelly, Corti and Morgado discussed potential ranges at which the full Activision Blizzard Board of Directors may be willing to consider an acquisition proposal taking into consideration, among other factors, Activision Blizzard’s historical trading prices, selected research analysts’ estimates for Activision Blizzard and relative trading multiples of Activision Blizzard and its peers.

After discussions, the Activision Blizzard Board of Directors authorized and directed Mr. Kotick, along with other members of Activision Blizzard’s management and/or advisors as needed, to contact Companies C, D and E (each as defined below) initially, and, in the event of insufficient interest on the part of those three parties, to contact one other potential strategic counterparty, to gauge interest in a potential acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

 

[Banjo64]

I think divestiture is a stretch of the imagination. What next? a hard cap on how many studios MS can aquire? because that seems to sound like the problem some people here are having with it? A ten year deal is already well beyond the norm, for a start. and what else would they want? crash? spyro? life time guranatees for every IP or sell all their studios prior to aquisition? this is all getting silly. at some point it either stops looking like a deal not worth doing because they cant anything exclusive from it. And I dont see a scenario where spinning off their current studios appeases anybody, least of all Xbox gamers, or MS. Too much of a stretch mixed with a dash of wishful thinking for some.

The CMA historically don’t go for behavioural remedies so it’s either going to be passed with no objections, which I find unlikely, or they’ll offer divestiture. What that looks like for Xbox I don’t know.

 

[RickMasters]

Not worth it IMO but I’ve not thought this deal was worth it from the get go. I thought Bungie was better suited to the Game Pass model with their regular paid expansions for Destiny.

For the money I think I would rather have tried to wrestle with the japanese government to buy sega-sammy. but thats just me. Though I can see why they want COD for gamepass.

 

[RickMasters]

The CMA historically don’t go for behavioural remedies so it’s either going to be passed with no objections, which I find unlikely, or they’ll offer divestiture. What that looks like for Xbox I don’t know.

Well I guess its all or nothing.

 

[Poltz]

For the money I think I would rather have tried to wrestle with the japanese government to buy sega-sammy. but thats just me. Though I can see why they want COD for gamepass.

Why would Microsoft want to own resorts etc though? It would have to be gaming only.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Places like gaf don't shape gaming generations anymore, places like Twitter/Tik Tok do.

Lately many people have been getting perm warnings. I guess the mods finally had enough of this crap.

Pretty sure that person was warned before they got booted.

 

[Banjo64]

For the money I think I would rather have tried to wrestle with the japanese government to buy sega-sammy. but thats just me. Though I can see why they want COD for gamepass.

I know SEGA on a Wednesday is a meme but I completely agree. Strong PC footprint with Football Manager and Total War. Solves the Japanese question with Yakuza, Persona and Megami Tensei. Sonic as a mascot too. Plus with the insane back catalogue they could add to Game Pass; Virtua Fighter, Virtua Tennis, Super Monkey Ball, their kart racers and their classic collections. Strong ties between MS and SEGA historically too.

I get that CoD and King are money makers but they’re just going for the normie market with ABK.

 

[demigod]

The CMA tweet about every case they look into, it is perfectly normal. If you dont like it is a YOU problem. They are tweeting about a dentist merger for god sake.

And they would be right to. Have you ever worked at a dental office? I have. I see patients coming in and they have a toothache. They told me they went to Mint Dental prior. Instead of getting fillings or a root canal, they did the easiest job and collected easy money from the insurance company with a deep clean. Meanwhile the patient is still in pain afterwards.

The big chains are just killing the little guys. Good on the CMA looking out. Advice for y’all, don’t go to big chain dentals.

 

[pasterpl]

Have you seen this agreement with Nintendo? Is Microsoft going to develop Call of Duty games as native ports, or would this just be via cloud gaming? If it's cloud gaming then that's how Microsoft comes out on top by having an agreement with Nintendo. It means that Nintendo Switch owners would have to pay for Game Pass in order to access cloud gaming, and that's monthly revenue for Microsoft. That deal would benefit Microsoft far more than Nintendo. This is exactly what they are trying to get with PlayStation as well. They want PlayStation to allow Game Pass and cloud gaming, not because they care about the people and want gamers to have freedom of choice, but because it would be an easy way to increase their subscription service and roll in more dough while simultaneously becoming the dominating force in the cloud gaming market.

Have you seen any of these agreements? You are speaking as someone who seen both. Or is your post just full of your assumptions? The only fact is that Nintendo was happy with what they were offered and decided to sign the contract. Sony refused because they still cling on to hope that the deal will collapse.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Says the ball licker who just came back from a ban with a permanent warning.

I'll let you join in if you behave.

With the way things are going if you don't pay attention to the warnings you will have a swift exit. I already got warned for gaslighting. Not doing that again.

 

[GHG]

Unions are able to be formed because of MS's efforts and most importantly Activision employees can be free of Bobby Kotick. None of these things would happen without this acquisition.

This fucking disingenuous take again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/11/17/bobby-kotick-resignation-shareholders/

He'd be gone already if not for this circus and it wouldn't have been on his terms.

 

[demigod]

Another delay for MS's subpoena for Sony

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ft...to-move-to-limit-or-quash-subpoena-public.pdf

Sony not too happy with the lawyers of MS's requests and their tactics.

Did anyone bother to read this? Why the fuck are ms lawyers asking for personal user datas?

 

[RickMasters]

Why would Microsoft want to own resorts etc though? It would have to be gaming only.

They could sell off the resorts and non video games stuff to other companies in japan. Ive even pondered how it would play out: they merge and streamline the management of sega and xbox japan management (maybe even hire suprise veteran to head it up) into one. internal devs become first parties (once again) and Xboxs in japan have sega branding from them. sega could exist as a hardware manufacture again (even if only in branding...and in the west we we get special edition sega consoles for rleses like the yaxuza 'XX' or persona 'XX' or whatever else...... port all the sega console games and build a retro library to rival the switch..... port all the arcade games and package them in a similary way to the recent pac man collection, where you can set up arcades cabinets in a custom space (multi player sega rally, scud race etc...) they also get a steady stream of exclusive JRPGs seeing as squareenix is reducing their xbox output to zero these days.



The only potentially exciting things to me if the ABK deal goes through is the thought of action RPGs, FPS and single player games set in the WoW and starcraft universe (Like the cancelled starcraft:ghost)


Even if when(if?) this deal goes through they will still be lacking the benefit of having more japanese devs in-house. tango gameworks was deffo one of the benefits of the zenimax aquisition, and we have hi fi rush, now. I want more of THAT from MS. buying COD is not exciting.

 

[IFireflyl]

Have you seen any of these agreements? You are speaking as someone who seen both. Or is your post just full of your assumptions? The only fact is that Nintendo was happy with what they were offered and decided to sign the contract. Sony refused because they still cling on to hope that the deal will collapse.

I never said that I have seen the agreements. In fact, what I said was "if". You should work on your reading comprehension. My post didn't contain assumptions, it contained a hypothetical situation. Your butt-buddy was the one outright lying. His claim in the same post I responded to was that Activision wouldn't bring games to the Nintendo Switch without this acquisition, but there are at least seven Activision games already on the Nintendo Switch.

 

[demigod]

I can say with confidence that Xbox fans don't care whether Kotick leaves or not. It's just a convenient excuse to justify Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard because they want more "free" games on gamepass.

You might want to edit that before you get banned.

 

[Stardust_Dragon]

I agree therefore I think we agree that divesting the hardware business as in the following post doesn't make sense.

Post in thread 'Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT|' https://www.neogaf.com/threads/microsoft-activision-deal-approval-watch-ot.1641775/post-267479415

To be clear here, when I made that post, I wasn't necessarily assuming that any company would actually want to purchase the Xbox brand hardware + Xbox Live infrastructure, so if nobody like Tencent, Amazon, Electronic Arts, etc. decide that they want to acquire the Xbox hardware division from Microsoft, then the Xbox Series X|S consoles would just wither away and experience the fate of the Dreamcast, and for the online services on Xbox consoles to be summarily shut down by Microsoft with a given committed date provided as agreed to with the regulators in such a hypothetical scenario. Again, I want to emphasize that's just my prediction of what I think the CMA is going to do come next week with their provisional findings. So is that a painful price for Microsoft to pay? Of course yes, but that would be what they would have to do to obtain a mammoth-sized third party publisher that's multiple times larger than Zenimax in Activision-Blizzard-King.

Going directly up against Sony head-to-head in the high-performance console market is certainly intimidating, and I wouldn't blame other potential companies looking at a Microsoft withdrawal from that market to decide they don't want to battle Sony in that market, just as Sony gave up on the mobile, lower-powered handheld console market that Nintendo has a stone-cold lock in practically, with their last handheld being the PlayStation Vita, released in 2011. So yeah, under my prediction, if that's what the CMA + European Commission + FTC decide to go with as a major structural remedy, there's a high chance that we won't see another direct competitor to PlayStation in the high-performance console market for another 10-15 years.

Is that a terrible thing to see happen, no more Xbox and only PlayStation and Nintendo in their respective market segments for video game console market? It's certainly a controversial question I'd imagine to even posit on a video game forum website, but honestly, after seeing how well PlayStation 5 consoles sales performance were this past quarter in the crucial holiday period in the United States (Xbox's best region), I'm not sure there's any stopping PlayStation at this point from simply grabbing so much marketshare for the 9th console generation that by 2027-2028, and that they will have increased their marketshare so much globally that they'll just be considered practically invincible in the high-performance console market.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Did anyone bother to read this? Why the fuck are ms lawyers asking for personal user datas?

I don't understand why they would need to know a users gender or country. Sony could just give them a breakdown of sales across regions and that wouldn't contain any PII.

 

[Yoboman]

Did anyone bother to read this? Why the fuck are ms lawyers asking for personal user datas?

MS are seriously deluded with most of that request

 

[GHG]

I can say with confidence that Xbots don't care whether Kotick leaves or not. It's just a convenient excuse to justify Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard because they want more "free" games on gamepass.

To make matters worse as a result of all this Kotick (along with the executives that have been involved in all of the scandals) gets out with a golden parachute of epic proportions, somewhat justifying his actions.

Whose side are they really on here?

 

[IFireflyl]

With the way things are going if you don't pay attention to the warnings you will have a swift exit. I already got warned for gaslighting. Not doing that again.

Awe, you and drganon should ease up. adamsapple took his ban. Give him another chance. Sure he's got a major boner for Microsoft, but as long as he's not console warring there is no reason to antagonize him just because he disagrees with your stance on the acquisition. I actually like some of his posts when it's not a Microsoft vs. Sony discussion.

 

[demigod]

MS are seriously deluded with most of that request

It is, im not sure what kind of lawyers ms hired, lol.

 

[RickMasters]

I know SEGA on a Wednesday is a meme but I completely agree. Strong PC footprint with Football Manager and Total War. Solves the Japanese question with Yakuza, Persona and Megami Tensei. Sonic as a mascot too. Plus with the insane back catalogue they could add to Game Pass; Virtua Fighter, Virtua Tennis, Super Monkey Ball, their kart racers and their classic collections. Strong ties between MS and SEGA historically too.

I get that CoD and King are money makers but they’re just going for the normie market with ABK.

Exactly! imagine an online sega world arcade with modeled arcade machines and online play (daytona USA 1+2 with online 8 player would be magic for every body over 35!) a whole bunch JRPGs (with bigger budgets maybe they could rival final fantasy in terms of scope and marketing)...they would get virtua fighter guilty gear & blaz blue which alongside a new killer instinct...even a last bronx sequel...would give them a bunch of fighting games for game pass...sometimes you can tell MS is not run by people who are into games that much. They make choices based on cold hard cash! instead of doing cool shit, with that money like any of us would be doing. thats whats frustrating about xbox. They act like they dont have no damn sense. same thing with bioware and remedy. these are purchases that would be GOOD for them but they let them slip by. and now they are in the process of paying 70Bn to publish ABK games? makes no sense at all. no real benefit to them, in terms of long term strategic goals I think.