Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win

From the article, quoting Judge Corley:

… the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.

#gaming @gaming

  •  Hdcase   ( @Hdcase@beehaw.org ) 
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    1 year ago

    “Execs behind Starfield”

    The same execs that bought the company already half way through development of Starfield, and rather than delivering anything new or of value, only wanted to make sure it was extinguished on other systems?

    As for “execs behind Halo,” the less said the better. I’ve never seen a series driven so hard into the ground.

      • And Sony and Nintendo aggressively want to push towards proprietary hardware exclusives. Sony has improved in that area, but every exclusive is still a big question on if it’ll even be available on the PC and if so when. Just the long release schedule is an attempt to draw more people who can’t wait to a proprietary closed ecosystem.

      • I would argue there’s a huge difference between, say, one year of timed exclusivity for one game, versus buying an entire publisher and making every single one of their future games exclusive.

        • On the flip side those who really dislike hardware locks requiring specific devices to run games would see a console only exclusive a bigger concern.

          Since viewed from PCs it isn’t just a Microsoft game, but one that can be played on Linux with Proton and possibly MacOS with their game porting toolkit with various different hardware configurations as opposed to a locked down proprietary one.

          Once Sony shows a much bigger effort to embrace open hardware options as opposed to trying to funnel people to their proprietary one with unknown status of future ports I will be less wary of their attempts at acquisitions. And well Nintendo never will.

    • It’s almost certainly a positive to see Bobby Kotick (boy do I struggle to maintain this site’s cardinal rule as far as he goes ) losing influence in the “AAA” games industry; but it’s not good to see MS buying every studio they can get hold of. Both these things can be true simultaneously.

      My biggest concern with MS’s rampant acquisition spree is what happens when there’a an economic downturn (as already seems to be the near future); will those newly acquired studio be subject to the corporate euphemism that is dOWnSiZiNg? How many working on moderately niche titles will be out of a job and their work indefinitely shelved?

    • Forza. That’s it. They weren’t behind Fable, they weren’t behind gears of war, they weren’t behind halo. Microsoft has nothing to show here. Every developer they’ve bought in the past has turned out nothing special afterward, just sequels of diminishing quality.

    • The same execs that bought the company already half way through development of Starfield, and rather than delivering anything new or of value, only wanted to make sure it was extinguished on other systems?

      Sony were reportedly in talks to purchase full exclusivity of Starfield, so can’t blame MS.