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Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?

  • Yes, will be approved without changes.

    Votes: 221 24.9%

  • Yes, will be approved but with structural changes to ABK.

    Votes: 102 11.5%

  • Yes, will be approved but only with behavioral concessions.

    Votes: 262 29.6%

  • No, will not be approved.

    Votes: 301 34.0%
  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
Bernoulli

Bernoulli

M2 slut
feynoob said:
Come back to me when mobile can do at least what pc does in work environment.
Click to expand...
Phones are used now days for alot and replaced PCs in alot of tasks
On phones you can edit Video, pictures almost like PCs
Tablets have replaced laptops for most students to write on them with a pen
 
feynoob

feynoob

Banned
Bernoulli said:
Phones are used now days for alot and replaced PCs in alot of tasks
On phones you can edit Video, pictures almost like PCs
Tablets have replaced laptops for most students to write on them with a pen
Click to expand...
For small task, yes. But for complex task, no.

The main obstacles for mobile is their screen size. You cant utlize certain programs very well.
 
X-Wing

X-Wing

Member
feynoob said:
Come back to me when mobile can do at least what pc does in work environment.
Click to expand...

Like accessing email, surfing the web, attend to video conferences, etc.?
Statistica seems to disagree with you.

www.statista.com

Computer operating systems market share 2012-2024 | Statista

Microsoft’s Windows is the most widely used computer operating system in the world, accounting for 68.15 percent share of the desktop, tablet, and console OS market in February 2024.
www.statista.com www.statista.com
 
feynoob

feynoob

Banned
X-Wing said:
Like accessing email, surfing the web, attend to video conferences, etc.?
Statistica seems to disagree with you.

www.statista.com

Computer operating systems market share 2012-2024 | Statista

Microsoft’s Windows is the most widely used computer operating system in the world, accounting for 68.15 percent share of the desktop, tablet, and console OS market in February 2024.
www.statista.com www.statista.com
Click to expand...
those are simple tasks. It doesnt relate to the actual jobs that pc does.
 
Thirty7ven

Thirty7ven

Banned
THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Beard, the reference in your skeleton at 9(c) to technical matters does elide with the concern that I do have in relation to technical fact. I very nearly began this hearing with the reverse of the usual declaration of interest, in that I don't spend many hours on Xboxes, PlayStations or Switches, and I am finding the distinction between a platform gaming scenario, whatever that platform might be, whether it be mobile gaming, PC gaming or console gaming, where you download and don't use the cloud, versus cloud gaming, quite a difficult one
Click to expand...


I had gotten this idea that apparently the guy from CAT didn’t understand the difference between markets. And now I’m wondering how will that work out? It seems like he doesn’t even make a distinction between console/pc/mobile let alone cloud.
 
GHG

GHG

Member
poppabk

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Thirty7ven said:

I had gotten this idea that apparently the guy from CAT didn’t understand the difference between markets. And now I’m wondering how will that work out? It seems like he doesn’t even make a distinction between console/pc/mobile let alone cloud.
Click to expand...
That is MS's one hope I think, if this gets sent back with instructions not to consider them distinct markets but as a single gaming market. Not even sure the CAT has that authority, but otherwise I can't see the CMA coming to a new conclusion.
 
Topher

Topher

Gold Member
Thirty7ven said:

I had gotten this idea that apparently the guy from CAT didn’t understand the difference between markets. And now I’m wondering how will that work out? It seems like he doesn’t even make a distinction between console/pc/mobile let alone cloud.
Click to expand...

The chair later acknowledges that he needs to be educated on these things. This is really he crux of the issue in that if cloud gaming is not distinct from local gaming as a market then the CMA's argument as a whole is great diluted.

The chair also stated that he is talking about the tech side of this and not the economics. I think the economics is where we likely see the divide between the markets made more clear.
 
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R

reksveks

Member
GHG said:
If a judge doesn't understand what he's judging then how can he judge?
Click to expand...
Judges unfortunately won't ever have complete knowledge of each markets so it's not a surprise. He will have some decent economic knowledge but more importantly he isn't the only person on the tribunal.

Imo this is how it's going to go down

MS lawyers will argue basically the same points that they did in the previous hearing re substitutablity of the cloud/native gaming. And the "lack" of economic evidence in differentiating the two.

CMA will argue either that other regulators haven't worried about that or if they have anything, they will argue that they are in line with other regulators.

The judge will then decide the CMA was within their rights to break out the markets as they did. MS then will be stuck up a creek without a paddle.
 
jm89

jm89

Member
I posted this a few pages back but i'll post it again, a UK M&A lawyer who has experience with the CMA posted this on era regarding appealing on market definition.

Eh, personally (from experience, albeit I'm a fair skeptic of CAT appeals) I think it would be incredibly, incredibly difficult in this case to try and convince CAT that the CMA has erred on a judicial review basis on its market definition. It was significantly easier in CTM because as you mention, CTM was not a merger case but rather a TFEU/Competition Act case where the underpinning review jurisdiction of CAT is that of a merits jurisdiction on both law and fact - in other words, it could arrive at its own conclusions on any issues in both law and fact and didn't have to apply a judicial review standard to those issues. It could also in that case effectively determine whether the underpinning decision was right or wrong on its merits even if the CMA got the market definition wrong, so it was more than willing to engage in that substantive analysis. In this case, it will need to essentially ask the question (if Microsoft of course raise it as a ground on appeal) whether the market definition choice was on a judicial review standard irrational, or otherwise blatantly false/not materially sound (I doubt they'd go for illegal/procedural impropriety etc!).
Click to expand...

Noting how high a bar irrationality is in any case (in this context, a decision so unreasonable that no other reasonable regulator could have arrived at the same conclusion - a ridiculously tough ask prima facie given the two other primary regulators both identified potential competition concerns in cloud game streaming!), as CAT and the CMA have said previously, market definition in the context of mergers is an analytical tool and, flowing from that, you can then appropriately consider relevant theories of harm and SLCs. By the same token, in any given merger you may have multiple, overlapping market definitions (some clear markets, others more obtuse but no less relevant), but the point is the market definitions don't necessarily need to be rigidly drawn for you to then evaluate theories of harm - they can be used as a framework to explore actual competition issues between relevant parties where you have (and what the CMA have, at length, tried to justify in this case) dynamic competition in a market. That's uncontroversial as far as legal principle goes (noting that market definition is not really a rigid legal principle - it's malleable to the context to an extent).
Click to expand...

All of which is to say, what the CMA have done in their various filings is try and evidence the above i.e. that drawing very rigid market definitions is difficult and so these are a framework tool to try and then drill down, in particular, to dynamic competition (and potential SLCs) between firms operating in a particularly defined market (in this case, supply of cloud gaming services). CAT have said before that traditional tools of analysis (including, amongst other things, market definition) are not as useful/determinative as they might otherwise be when analysing specifically this (dynamic competition) and in Meta expressly endorsed the idea that weakening of dynamic competition (again, which the CMA in their various reports have at length tried to assert forms the bedrock of their analysis) is absolutely sufficient to then result in a finding of an SLC and the ramifications beyond that point.
Click to expand...

It's also probably worth noting, again as CAT noted in Meta (and this is broadly high-level), that asking it on a judicial review standard to effectively quash a decision of the CMA on the basis of getting a market definition "wrong" is difficult because a) the CMA have a wide margin of error in merger cases under the EA2002 to define markets and b) as above, market definition is just an analytical tool to see whether there is an SLC - it's not a rigid barometer that determines whether you (i.e a regulator) get the assessment right or wrong.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the small essay (had a lunch break and it's a really interesting question/theory which I've been thinking about for a while!). I'd also note I'm not making any value judgments about the CMA's framing of the market, whether they're right or wrong etc - rather just outlining what their argument is and why I think it's probably very difficult for Microsoft to succeed on this point.
Click to expand...
 
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Thirty7ven

Thirty7ven

Banned
If cloud gaming isn’t distinct from local then every cloud service provider will have to have a local option?

I honestly don’t understand how they wouldn’t be distinct given they are technically distinct and economically distinct.

If it’s the case that you can only play cloud games if you own a console, then sure enough cloud is just an extension of that platform. But if you don’t need the console and you can just subscribe to a streaming service and play on your tablet, how is that not a different market? And why is this hard?
 
X-Wing

X-Wing

Member
I read parts of the transcript and the judge wasn't worried about the market definition but about the definition of cloud gaming. And that it would have to be clear to make sure everyone was talking about the same thing.
 
Kilau

Kilau

Member
Thirty7ven said:
If cloud gaming isn’t distinct from local then every cloud service provider will have to have a local option?

I honestly don’t understand how they wouldn’t be distinct given they are technically distinct and economically distinct.

If it’s the case that you can only play cloud games if you own a console, then sure enough cloud is just an extension of that platform. But if you don’t need the console and you can just subscribe to a streaming service and play on your tablet, how is that not a different market? And why is this hard?
Click to expand...
I agree it’s hard to come to that conclusion. MS probably feels since they lumped it all into Xbox it’s all the same but when they argue their competition in cloud isn’t the other console companies that falls apart.
 
jm89

jm89

Member
X-Wing said:
I read parts of the transcript and the judge wasn't worried about the market definition but about the definition of cloud gaming. And that it would have to be clear to make sure everyone was talking about the same thing.
Click to expand...
Yeah it was more about clarifying the definition. He wasn't challenging it.
 
R

reksveks

Member
Thirty7ven said:
If cloud gaming isn’t distinct from local then every cloud service provider will have to have a local option?
Click to expand...
It doesn't mean that, it just means a consumer/producers 'can' reasonably go between a gaming via cloud service provider and a native platform/however you want to call it.

jm89 said:
Yeah it was more about clarifying the definition. He wasn't challenging it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, his concern was about making sure that everyone was using the same definition.
 
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R

reksveks

Member
Gamers being gamers (my last post for today in this thread)

83D8AlJ.jpg
 
jm89

jm89

Member
Iced Arcade said:
Yeaj for sure they can. Yearsss ago I was a mod on the IGN boards and we would IP ban. Obviously VPN is a work around though.
Click to expand...
IP ban is terrible tbh.

Even ignoring the VPN to workaround, most people have dynamic ip addresses assigned to them and it's not hard getting a different IP address. Sometimes as simple as restarting your router.

Also if the IP address pool is shared between a large population, you could end up banning someone else inadvertently.
 
sainraja

sainraja

Member
poppabk said:
That apple bundles safari with its OS and makes it hard to use other browsers especially on iphone although I think they have made improvements to that.
Click to expand...
Microsoft also bundles Edge with its OS and faced regulation in the EU in how they bundled it.

Topher said:
Yes, but they didn't let you change the default browser for the longest time. I think that is the point he is making.

Edit: But you are right. Changing the default now isn't difficult.
Click to expand...
You could always change the default browser on the Mac. With iOS/iPadOS, it took a little bit longer, yes.
 
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Kilau

Kilau

Member
reksveks said:
It doesn't mean that, it just means a consumer/producers 'can' reasonably go between a gaming via cloud service provider and a native platform/however you want to call it.
Click to expand...
What does go between mean in this context?

Playing the same game via different cloud providers or via different methods?
 
DJ12

DJ12

Member
Last edited:
Topher

Topher

Gold Member
reksveks said:
It doesn't mean that, it just means a consumer/producers 'can' reasonably go between a gaming via cloud service provider and a native platform/however you want to call it.
Click to expand...

If consumers pay for that provider then yes. And then there are the caveats. Does that provider have the games I play locally? Or must I choose a different provider that does. Or do I have to buy the game again like with Stadia? Or am I paying for a subscription like Luna+ and Game Pass. Personally I see a lot that separates cloud gaming from local. The CAT may not fully agree with the CMA's market definition, but I think there is quite a gap between that and saying the CMA's decision is irrational (not that that is what you are saying).
 
Thirty7ven

Thirty7ven

Banned
Topher said:
If consumers pay for that provider then yes. And then there are the caveats. Does that provider have the games I play locally? Or must I choose a different provider that does. Or do I have to buy the game again like with Stadia? Or am I paying for a subscription like Luna+ and Game Pass. Personally I see a lot that separates cloud gaming from local. The CAT may not fully agree with the CMA's market definition, but I think there is quite a gap between that and saying the CMA's decision is irrational (not that that is what you are saying).
Click to expand...

If PC and console are a different market, then so is cloud. Either way I think the judge is only asking for clarification.

The EC made a distinction between console, pc and cloud. I don’t see how MS agrees with the EC’s judgement, yet is ready to argue that you know what, we agreed with the EC because we were fine with their remedies but we don’t agree with you on exactly the same point because we don’t agree with the remedies.
 
Topher

Topher

Gold Member
sainraja said:
Lol alright, if you really want to pronounce that, go for it. I was just clarifying that MacOS has always allowed it vs iOS/iPadOS where it took longer.
Click to expand...

That's fine. I was clarifying as well. 13 years after launch is quite a bit longer was all I was saying. 🤷‍♂️
 
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Topher

Topher

Gold Member
Thirty7ven said:
If PC and console are a different market, then so is cloud. Either way I think the judge is only asking for clarification.

The EC made a distinction between console, pc and cloud. I don’t see how MS agrees with the EC’s judgement, yet is ready to argue that you know what, we agreed with the EC because we were fine with their remedies but we don’t agree with you on exactly the same point because we don’t agree with the remedies.
Click to expand...

It is hard to know the reasoning behind the EC's decision since we don't have the transparency that the CMA gives us. The Financial Times reported that EC officials said they didn't see cloud gaming as separate from other forms of gaming. That seems damn strange considering they wanted remedies for cloud gaming but nothing else.
 
Thirty7ven

Thirty7ven

Banned
Topher said:
It is hard to know the reasoning behind the EC's decision since we don't have the transparency that the CMA gives us. The Financial Times reported that EC officials said they didn't see cloud gaming as separate from other forms of gaming. That seems damn strange considering they wanted remedies for cloud gaming but nothing else.
Click to expand...

If the EC sees mobile, pc, consoles and cloud as the same then asking for remedies is nonsense.
 
Bernoulli

Bernoulli

M2 slut
sainraja said:
Lol alright, if you really want to pronounce that, go for it. I was just clarifying that MacOS has always allowed it vs iOS/iPadOS where it took longer.
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter on ipad and iphone because all the browsers are the same, they are all safari with a different theme
 
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