FTC Puts Challenge To Microsoft, Activision Deal On Hold
from the the-beginning-of-the-end dept
Well, well, this may be a story that is starting to come to a close. With the EU having already approved Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the two remaining hurdles Microsoft had to jump through were with the UK’s CMA agency and the FTC here in the States. After a recent loss in court blocking a TRO to stop the deal from proceeding while the inquiry continues, the FTC made a bunch of noise about appealing that ruling and continuing forward with its own challenge in court. In the less than two weeks that has followed, several important things happened impacting the likely outcome of the regulatory challenges.
First, Sony ended up inking a similar 10 year deal to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation hardware, just as other gaming platforms have. Shortly after that, the FTC announced it was putting its own administrative challenge to the deal “on hold”, paving the way for an eventual approval.
In light of all this, the FTC has put their own in-house administrative challenge on hold for the foreseeable future. After the court win and Sony giving in, there wasn’t much to keep fighting against. The sale is almost certainly going to go through.
Despite win after win, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard announced this week that they are delaying the merger for another three months so they can get all of the details right. The new acquisition date is October 18.
Such a quick cutting of the bait sure does imply that the FTC no longer thinks this is a fight it can win. And Microsoft, especially after extending its deal deadline, can and will point to the non-active status of the FTC’s inquiry as a reason it can consummate the deal.
Which leaves just the CMA standing in the way of this story coming to a close.
The main reason for the delay is the ongoing battle with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK. That regulatory body has not backed down and is currently trying to stop the deal. Both companies want to make sure they square that away first before moving forward.
This whole exercise has, frankly, been absurd. Microsoft has put on something of a master class in how to navigate regulatory agencies that supposedly are there not as bureaucratic noisemakers, but as parties chiefly interested in the long term health of competitive markets. The idea that a couple of deals that last a decade and a bunch of promises from a company like Microsoft were enough to get everyone but the CMA on board suggests the regulators, as per usual, lack any real teeth.
Filed Under: antitrust, call of duty, cma, competition, ftc, merger, uk
Companies: activision blizzard, microsoft
Comments on “FTC Puts Challenge To Microsoft, Activision Deal On Hold”
Whether this merger will be good or bad is still uncertain (though there are some positives coming out of it like the fixes to legacy COD MP servers and the announcement of Blizzard putting at least some of their games on Steam starting with Overwatch 2.
From everything I’ve read during the trial, it was pretty clear that the FTC were more interested in protecting Sony’s lead in the console market than actually trying to demonstrate any arguments that this merger would harm competition. With the announcement of the deal MS made with Sony to keep COD on PlayStation, the FTC lost the foundation of its case (and that foundation – COD on PlayStation – was rather flimsy anyway) so I’m not surprised they’ve backed off.
Re: It'll be bad for gamers
Gamers already play fewer games, since the only games being released are Live Service Games, and players don’t have the time or money to play them all. With the recent shutdown of so many of these games, and other market forces at play, such as oversaturation and the ever-increasing expense of game development, there’s already a vicious cycle of fewer & fewer games being released.
This merger will now create more games exclusive to one console platform. Since players can only afford so much hardware, I think players will go with a PlayStation and maybe an XBox. So, ironically, this means that Microsoft will be putting the final nails in consumer Windows, which had been reduced to gamers anyway. This is a big blow to the hardware side of the PC industry. This is also a big blow to gamers, since there’s little interest within the Biden administration to spend political capital on gamers, still loathed within the Democratic party because of GamerGate.
What’s left will be fewer games chasing the next big hit, and ultimately, a shrinking development industry.
Whether this merger will be good or bad
There are no mergers, only acquisitions.
بینی عروسکی در تهران
I think that all people who use Microsoft’s new technologies are some kind of crazy
Re:
Wow, Twchdirt finally made the Sauds angry.
In other news:
Ninty’s leaving money on the table; shutting down popular emulators every year.
Imagine with me…
-Nintendo licenses their games to several major 3rd party developers
-Nintendo creates (pays someone better to create) their own Steam-like app for PCs (Zelda on Alienware PC, ROG Strix, etc)
-Nintendo keeps selling their own hardware (Switch 2 or whatever)
What if Nintendo basically did an Xbox, allowing cheaper customers (or customers who want a handheld/TV hybrid) the Switch 2 option, and also setting up their own version of Steam (running ALL Nintendo IP) on the PCs. Combine this pipe dream with several different versions of Zelda BOTW/TOTK et al. from Capcom, FROM Software, and SquareEnix, all out at the same time, available for all 3 consoles AND PCs.
This way Ninty could still put their own unique spin on their hardware (they’re sooo good at this) “$”, continue to develop their own versions of their own IP “$$” – while other competing/complementing versions of their IP is created by 3rd parties “$$$”, IN ADDITION to also making money on their PC store/app “$$$$”.
what triggered this
Interesting that it was Sony holding this up all along by refusing to sign an agreement to keep CoD on playstation, and yet at the same time complaining that MS wouldnt allow it on playstation.
Re: Sony Holding It Up?
They refused the initial deal MS gave for two reasons.
Being the only company offered a 3 year deal for COD all but says that COD is on limited time on PS platforms. Sony held out, got a 10 year deal for COD, but Microsoft, knowing they could openly do this despite the hypocritical and blatantly anti-competitive and anti-consumer nature of such a move, limited the deal to JUST COD. No other Activision or Blizzard game will ever release on PS platforms from this point forward, but every other platform will also get Activision and Blizzard games.
I know you’ll probably say that’s what Sony gets for ‘blocking’ games from releasing on Xbox, but I’d like to point out that is actually another one of Microsoft’s blatant lies and skewed truths in their little victim narrative here. Sony never blocked a game from releasing on the Xbox platform. What they did do is pay studios to simply not take Microsoft’s money to release their game Day 1 on Game Pass. And that’s if there was even an Xbox version of that particular game being worked on.
Microsoft initially stated it as exactly that, then when people didn’t care because even Xbox gamers could see why any company would do that, Microsoft changed it to flat out blocking games from the Xbox platform, basically targeting the timed exclusive deals Sony does without actually mentioning the words ‘timed exclusive’, which is another strategic omission designed to make them look like a victim.
They did all this while having timed exclusives on Xbox at the exact same time. And people actually bought into that nonsense because the vast majority don’t actually research things, they just go with whatever an article says, which is bogus because journalists can and have gone from being unbiased to corporate shills real fast.
ofc the deal is going to be bad for consumers, .. this showes the power of multi billion corps and the powerless regulators..
Reality comes through
Whether or not you agree with me, sir Sony, when it comes to their proven and well documented content crackdown… doesn’t matter.
In the past I said two camps were crying about the deal, it’s actually three.
1) die hard Sony fans that would buy a case filled with poo if it had the PS logo on it. And Sony, whose dying platform is grabbing at anything to maintain what little relevance they still have.
2) government idiots who take tax payer money and use it to scream about any good merger that comes along while attempting to force breakups of companies to the detriment of the public.
But there’s apparently a third group. Consisting of a mix of self righteous protesters and brains dead idiots. The idiots believing whatever nonsense comes from the mouths, or thumbs, of the protestors.
This merger is good f or all except group one!! Former Sony exclusives are coming to Switch, PC, xBox, Mac, and Linux (the latter via steam). New content will come to more platforms than ever.
A large development house has been freed of content Tierney.
There is absolutely no reason any logical non-Sony-employee would disagree with this merger.
what triggered this
Interesting that it was Sony holding this up all along by refusing to sign an agreement to keep CoD on playstation, and yet at the same time complaining that MS wouldnt allow it on playstation.
What's this?
Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »