Microsoft is reportedly facing prolonged investigations into its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard in both the UK and Europe.
Last week, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said its inquiry into the $68.7 billion merger may be expanded to a second phase due to a number of antitrust concerns.
Notably, it said it was worried about the impact the deal could have on PlayStation’s ability to compete, given that the deal would see Microsoft gain ownership of the Call of Duty series.
According to the Financial Times, the CMA is expected to officially expand its antitrust probe this week after Microsoft chose not to offer any remedies to its concerns at this stage.
Phase two of the CMA’s investigation would see it appoint an independent panel to scrutinise the deal in further detail and evaluate if it’s more likely than not to result in a substantial lessening of competition.
According to the FT, regulators and others involved in the deal are also expecting a lengthy EU probe once Microsoft officially files its case in Brussels soon.
“It is a big deal, a difficult deal,” a Brussels source said to be familiar with the transaction told the publication. “It needs an extensive investigation.”
EA senior staff has been investigated for sexual misconduct involving female coworkers, and these said people have been named publicly.
Aye just call Phil, i mean he somehow made Bobby Kotick's scandal disappear and gave him a few million dollar high five on the way out.
EA about to go down like Activision and then Phil saves the day saying.this is good for the industry and consolidation will help create competition. /s.
What's up with all these horny creeps. You gon be horny, fine. Just not at work take care of that shit before you go in. Rub one out if you have to. Don't be a creep at all. ESPECIALLY at work. But don't be one AT ALL.
You think deviants care where they are? Work sometimes makes it an even better situation for them because they can abuse their power.
"it seems that according to EA, given the events transpired outside of work between two adults, and the fact that once investigation has started that the alleged perpetrators didn’t do it again, the investigation is considered closed. [...] The victim still has to work with the people that harassed her."
Yep, EA is disgusting.
I mean the fact stuff happened outside of work puts EA in quite a difficult position legally. These women don't seem to have reported the matter to the police which kinda ties EA's hands on what they can do. If they don't file reports of the crimes then yeah from EA's perspective it is stuff that happened outside of work. The only exception is the guy that apparently referenced things in the slack channel for work, spending on what he said proving it may be very hard and he may well be able to get away with plausible deniability. I don't like EA and I think these people need to be dismissed but without any legal action being taken, EA can't really do much without risk of being sued themselves for unfair dismissal etc.
Paul Thurrott in a recent episode commented on the on-going Microsoft fiasco hinting at more job losses and that "there's more to come".
There won't be no more acquiring game publishers from Microsoft in the future . Xbox has to pay Microsoft back. It might take two decades to do that.
I don’t understand what you’re saying. Xbox IS microsoft so there’s no “paying back “.
And MS gross profit in 2023 was over 140 billion dollars so forget your 2 decades.
Unless you mean the money MS invested in Xbox (acquisitions included) and the time it will take for xbox as a brand to gain that money back on it’s own, then yeah, that could take a while.
The better term to use might be return on investment, xbox is simply a division of Microsoft one that MS can easily do away with if profit margins are not met. So in that regard he's right, if xbox isn't showing the expected return on investment the higher ups are expecting than it's unlikely Microsoft will acquire any other studios any time soon, especially if they are spending billions buying developers just to shut them down in the end.
Xbox is a division that they discussed shutting down but doubled down on after Gamepass was pitched.
It needs to make money at some point. Big money.
According to Statista the net income of Microsoft is about $72.4 billion dollars which is a bit lower than last year profit. That is almost as much as Activision's acquisition but I assume that would be a one off since it costs so much plus I see how their focus has been shifted to AI, thus any major future investments will probably be in that area.
“There won't be no more acquiring game publishers from Microsoft in the future”
No bro, there do be is for Microsoft not acquiring for what is now if not what it be is 😂
Replies(2)
Let’s be real, this is the media spinning all the acquisitions and liquidations of said developers and spinning it to make M$ the villain.
This was bound to happen, a bigger slice of pie and cut costs, when the games come they stand to make more and that’s their agenda—it was the writing on the wall when the sales went through and legally all those who approved the sale and mergers knew this would happen.
Snowflakes need to realize business is ugly and you can cry all you want but this is how capitalism works. And it works.
That said, M$ needs to steer the narrative and grab hold of all this, make their plans known, hype the hell out of all those dead IP’s they plan to revive, and be honest about the timeline. This is likely to involve mobile and IP on other consoles, and most people realize that.
The problem is this company is incapable of being transparent and seems to often want to dissuade and confuse is customer base. The lack of E3 has hurt Microsoft and I don’t think they know how to properly or effectively market their brand anymore.
There really needs to be a class action lawsuit here. You buy these companies just to put people out of jobs. And it’s not like something happened to derail their plans this WAS the plan. Microsoft has no business in this space at all.
Microsoft has been doing this for years. They simply want the IPs. Look at Nokia. Look at Skype. This time it simply expanded to games. Gaming is not as important to Microsoft’s executives as it was to the founders too. Bill Gates was willing to sell the og Xbox at a loss. Steve Balmer approved the red ring of death fiasco. This CEO isn’t really a gamer.
Maybe it's time though to put a stop to it and use a big giant like Microsoft as a huge example to the rest of these big companies.
There has to be a line drawn somewhere.
People like the FTC and the like went against Microsoft yet their Actvision deal was still allowed to go through yet look what's happened...it's not even Acitivisions studios aswell, it's Bethesdas.
You do realize this happens in ALL industries? Or are you just saying this because it is Microsoft? In any case I feel for those that are being let go but the trch industry is suffering right now.
Ninja Theory, Perfect Dark, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Wolfenstein 3, Dishonored, Prey, Doom, Quake... something tells me that bad things are going to happen to these entities under Microsoft.
ID software, the makers of Doom and Wolfenstein that have been with us since 1991 could be gone and MS will keep the IPs.
I hope some of these studios can buy their freedom from MS otherwise this is going to be even more devastating for the industry and gamers.
That's exactly what I'm worried about. I've been a fan of id since Wolfenstein 3D and I'm honestly afraid.
Toys for Bob saw the writing on the wall and bought themselves out.
Wouldn't be the first time a company did that under MS either. Bungie and Twisted Pixel did the same. Considering what just happened, I can see some other devs trying to buy themselves out too.
Won't make a difference.
The whole structure needs to be overhauled. Anyone that replaces Phil will be no different than him, Mattrick, or anyone else.
Until the company changes how they go about business, nothing will change
I just don't have any idea what they would do , they have done sooo much damage on their xbox brand, they have a show at July or June I think, but will it even matter even they show amazing games, idkn
True,
But they may as well get it over with. Whether it happens now or later, the burning is going to hit the same.
Reality is the ONE move that can alleviate a lot of this is the one move they can't make. Remove day 1 from gamepass.
Microsoft & Xbox have shut down Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks to lay off more workers, insinuating that they're not in the game anymore.
They're headless for a long time because closing tango isn't exactly a good move
Ever since that cringe Kinect reveal they've never been the same. They used to make some amazing games and do great deals with third parties Early on in the 360 era they had games like Chromehounds and Shadowrun, both well ahead of their time. Now instead of nurturing their studios, they'd rather gaslight gamers and throw billions on pre existing studios. Not sure how Spencer is still in a job, I wouldn't trust him to organise a piss-up in a brewery.
We've said all along Spencer needs to go. I wish xbox went back to xbox only with new gears fable forza halo releases lots of third party releases
Those early rainbow 6 Vegas days and phantasy star universe are gone forever
MS has its head in the game but the game they are playing is something different from what console gamers expect from a platform. MS’s end game has always been to use the xbox as a trojan horse.
“Acquisitions always come with cuts”
343 trillion points shield activated
343 trillion percent damage negate activated
All damage reduced to 1 for 343 trillion turns.
MICROSOFT DEFENSE FORCE IS A GO
Especially for Microsoft, when Booty pretty much said they didn't know how to handle that many studios.
Why even make the acquisition then.
Didn’t they make the swipe for Bethesda when Sony wanted like 6 months exclusiveness for Starfield
It’s like…chill, you got Rise of the Tomb Raider for a year.
Do they always come with senseless cuts becasue that's exactly what cutting Tango was, senseless.
Everyone's acting now that game companies care about games and Xbox is committing the Ultimate betrayal, they are all like this and you have just been quiet about it for far too long
I wonder if Microsoft do pull out of the console market that it might open the door for valve to relaunch the Steambox. Competition is good for the industry but Microsoft don't even seem to be trying anymore.
Steam / Valve are one of the few truly pro-consumer bright spots in gaming right now. Thankfully.
“Your game has won some pretty significant awards and is a show piece for where we want to go in the future.”
1 hour later.
“We’re gonna have to let you go. You can’t cover our 100 billion dollar acquisition. Oh and take your awards too 👍🏾”
Everyone expected this acquisition to be scrutinized, even Microsoft - that's why they tempered expectations that it won't close until 2023. The internet will explode on the day that this deal closes.
Looking forward to this closing though, this year will be the last year I sink money into Call of Duty.
“Microsoft lawyers respond to CMA by offering no remedies/commitments“
It’s pretty clear they’re confident the deal will close then.
This acquisition is not healthy for the gaming industry.
The biggest issue is the lie Microsoft told the industry that there was this outside threat. That if they didn't save.....buy these companies, others would have swooped in to buy them. They do need scrutiny. If those other companies did buy them, there's a clear chance they would have continued making multiplatform games. Because there's money there. Being that most 3rd parties made more money on PlayStation. And there's still Nintendo, Xbox, mobile and PC to make money from. Microsoft is making them exclusive to their platform and services.
Did Facebook, Apple, Amazon or Google buy any big console publishers BEFORE Microsoft did with Zenimax/Bethesda?
No. They had plenty of time.
Did any of the four show interest and buy any big console publishers AFTER Microsoft moved in to buy Zenimax/Bethesda?
No again. They had plenty of time.
Did the big four show interest in buying any big console publishers AFTER Microsoft moved in to buy Activision/Blizzard?
No. Still not seeing it yet?
We have not heard or seen any movement from these companies. A developer here. A developer there. No big console publishers. Yet, Microsoft felt it necessary to move in and buy two big ones. Supposedly to create their own metaverse. To gain a foothold on mobile. Besides saving Kotick's ass. Microsoft knows exactly what it does to PlayStation and other platforms.
Tencent was considered a threat from Kotick's words. But Tencent owns developers that make multiplatform games. Embracer Group owns multiple developers that make multiplatform games. No threat there. Those companies bought developers and continue to spread games around.
But what Microsoft is doing is creating an imbalance. Supposedly, to bring "joy and unity of gaming to everyone on the planet." That was Satya Nadella's words. That's what he told investors. Joy is fine. Unity sounds like control and a monopoly with them on top. I'm guessing Windows Internet explorer brought joy and unity as well Satya. And that's why Microsoft was sued with anti trust. Microsoft is now trying to leverage game pass in a similar fashion to Internet Explorer. Where some devices aren't compatible or willing to have it. Creating inoperability. Are wonder who devices aren't compatible with game pass? Hmmm...
The purchase will most likely go through. There's so many shady things that get allowed. So, I wouldn't be surprised. But it's obvious what Microsoft is doing. Embrace Extend Extinguish. It's still the same. Just done in a different industry. AT&T learned this years ago as well. Do I see "Baby Bells" in Microsoft future? We'll just have to see.