Machiavellian said:
I believe MS will clear the CMA because at the end of the day, what the CMA is looking at is something MS can easily provide whatever concessions they want. This is why I do not believe the CMA poses any real problem for MS. Its way to concerned about COD which is something MS can easily provide them with whatever concessions they want towards that IP. It really does not matter for MS because COD will be like Minecraft and it will just continue to print money. The FTC really have nothing that they can really block this deal over. There is nothing that ABK gives MS that upsets the game market and if COD is still the thing they throw on the pile, those are just easy concessions MS is more than willing to make. From the moves I have seen MS make, they are 100% on GP. They do not care about the Console war, they are not concerned about the PC space like the regulators believe. GP just do not have enough users to say their is a monopoly so the regulators cannot really concentrate on that service. ABK property outside of COD have plenti of competition. Most of Sony arguments can be contested based on Sony own tactics and huge marketshare. MS is really looking pretty strong if you ask me and it would definitely need to be some very underhanded stuff to go on to stop this purchase. Not saying that it cannot happen but from what I see so far, things look like smooth sailing. I would not be surprised that MS did not sandbag getting their games out this year because they can show weakness. Think about if MS had a Steller year with big IP dropping on time, their case would be harder to represent. Coming short on GP subs is a win. Coming up short on game sells is a win, I am telling you MS has been playing this game and basically leading the results into their favor every since they went for this deal. |
CMA is a wildcard, on the one hand, their Phase 1 arguments were absolutely crazy, on the other, the Phase 2 team is completely different from the Phase 1 team but that also means we know nothing about the Phase 2 team and how they're thinking. Then you add on that CMA has very little legal oversight, very rarely loses cases and since UK has left EU, CMA has blocked quite a lot of deals, plus regulators, particularly in the West, are desperate for a win against big tech.
Their "issues" seem easily dealt with via concessions but if they don't think the concessions are good enough then they'll just block the deal. Hard to say which way they are leaning; I don't know how "political" CMA is feeling lately.
FTC definitely has nothing they can block the deal over, and they'd lose in courts, but they've been losing a lot lately, doesn't stop them from trying, Lol. At minimum is seems that FTC is going to ask for concessions (that's fine, then the deal will pass easily) but if it's a sue to block then I suspect their goal is what I said above, either hope CMA blocks or hope it delays the deal long enough to cause a renegotiate.
The latter is a risk, Activision-Blizzard clearly wants to sell, so they'd have to hope Microsoft doesn't want to pay over $68bn, which if a renegotiation happens, Activision will ask for a lot more than $68bn, plus, Microsoft is having to put any other acquisitions on hold for a long time which isn't ideal.
It's not going the way Microsoft wanted it to, but it's not doom and gloom, yet. I'd still put the deal at more likely than not at passing.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 28 November 2022
