>The UK regulator gathered thousands of internal documents and data from both parties to understand its businesses, and concluded that the completion of the merger could affect competition in two ways:
>The deal could see Microsoft "withholding or degrading" Activision Blizzard's content from other consoles or subscription services
>Microsoft could leverage its broader ecosystem together with Activision's catalogue to "raise barriers to entry and foreclose rivals in cloud gaming services"
>The ruling also highlights that Microsoft having control franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush may result in the firm "harming consumers by impairing Sony's - Microsoft's closest gaming rival - ability to compete," as well as other existing and potential future rivals that could bring "healthy competition" to the gaming market.
i hope this deal fails, so the big corps stop buying good studios only to destroy them
Bentley Ross
Sony is perfectly able to hinder themselves without Microsoft's intervention.
Asher Reed
>It's okay when Sony buys companies
Justin Myers
>shit company buying another shit company = bad >shit companies promoting gambling to kids? Not our problem lol Regulators are an absolute fucking joke.
Daniel Bailey
I lose absolutely nothing by Microsoft owning Activision. All that shit comes to PC anyways and has to. Sony gets fucked in the ass, and that's really the most crucial part here.
Logan Gomez
That's literally what Activision has based its business model around for the past 2 decades.
Evan Taylor
This will change nothing.
Jordan Hall
>the deal might not go through So blizzard fucked up WoW and Wc3 for no reason?
Jacob Gomez
Why do britniggers think they can police American companies? Really they should all stop selling their shit there, it's a collapsing country anyway.
Luke Torres
Can the UK even stop the merger? Or eould the new Activision-MS golem just be unable to do business in the UK if this pulls through. And what even happens if the merger is cancelled? Everybody get their money back and both company move as if nothing happened? You'd think restructuring would be far enough done at this point that just pretending it didn't happen wasn't an option.
Tyler Sanders
>Big Dog Boris kills the deal on his last week in office Based
Adrian Harris
Because britbongs control the world and are the source of all that is evil and wrong in the world today.
Daniel Perez
OI M8 WHERE'S YER CORPORATE MERGER LOICENCE? 'OP IN U CHEEKY WANKER!
Because both companies have branches and conduct business in Britain they have to seek approval there because it also affects the British market, this is a normal part of acquisitions this size
Cameron Clark
Hoeg Law is pretty good channel on YT who regularly follows video game stuff from a lawyers perspective. If you want proper reasoning wait until he drops the video related to this article.
He said before it is unlikely this merger could fall apart unless the US government tries to strongarm MS but they have little reason to because Tencent. Sure there are different factions in the FTC and the current boss lady hates tech corporations but still. In theory this deal is too important for MS as Game Pass depends on it and if the authorities are acting hostile MS can and will punch it through with money and lawyers but this would take years. The authorities know this so when you hear stuff like "we have concerns" what it means in reality "You won't get this without paying the price". Basically the authorities can ask for one or more stuff MS agrees in writing in return of not taking this to the judge. These things can be simple like agreeing on paper that COD will be on Playstation until the end of time. If MS already planned this then this isn't an issue of course.
What is likely that MS is probably honest about COD and they plan to rape Sony not by stealing COD but offering it for $1 day1 on Xbox with exclusive DLCs.
Evan Rivera
Are you seriously comparing Sony buying a small indie studio they've worked with for years with Microsoft buying the biggest video game editor for $70B?
Xavier Rogers
>its fine when sony does it The state of snoys
Jaxon Richardson
You really are, lmao what a retard.
Evan Ortiz
"Sony competing" means they'll buy out a lot of potential multiplats as "exclusives" on their shitty console, locking them away forever as they have done plenty of times in the past. The sooner Sony bites the dust the better.
