Yesterday the CAT published a new Order of the President with some directions.
Everything was more or less known, but now the main hearing has an estimate of six days, not five. It's still starting on Friday, 28th July 2023.
One extra day for the CAT appeal, then.
On the other hand, the FT has this interesting bit about a potential loss against the FTC:
Both companies have lobbied hard for the acquisition to be allowed to go through on its original terms, and one person close to the situation said they could easily agree to extend their deal if the FTC succeeds in blocking it from immediately closing.
I guess that MS/ABK are ready to appeal if they lose the FTC PI.
I've included a threadmark to the Zoom audio feed and another one to the FTC PI (Preliminary Injunction) Day 1 hearing (the minute to minute conversation with the pages where it starts and ends).
I'll do the same for the next 4 days.
The witnesses to be called on June 23, 2023:
- Phil Spencer (MS)
- Jamie Lawver (MS)
- Dov Zimring (Google)
- Jim Ryan (Sony)
The FTC exhibit list for today. Some higlights:
- Microsoft's approach following acquisitions since 2018 (Feb 2022)
- Thoughts on Google Stadia Announcement (March 2019)
- Bethesda titles on Geforce Now (March 2021)
- PC Gaming streaming roadmap (July 2020)
- xCloud solution only (April 2022)
- Starfield as an Xbox exclusive (June 2021)
- Sony's Game Pass (March 2022)
- Project Denali comms and press release; it was the ABK acquisition (January 2022)
- Project Zipline - Zynga strategy approval; from the CMA final report we know that MS tried to acquire a mobile publisher, I guess that it was Zynga (August 2021)
- Microsoft's commitment to ABK games on Playstation post merger; includes a "Sony letter agreement.PDF" (January and August 2022)
- Project Phoenix - "Request for Strategy Approval - Square Enix v7" - Phoenix Support materials"; a special agreement/potential acquisition of Square Enix? 🤔 (January 2020)
- Fallout 76 on PS Now (September 2021)
- Ori and the Blind Forest coming to Switch (August 2019)
- Project Relic announce date; the Indiana Jones game (January 2021)
- Project Singularity Steering Committee (June 2022)
- Presentation on Project Neutrino (April 2021)
And lots of redacted bits!
Should make for an interesting day too.
The full description of that email is:
Email from Eugene Kim to David Hampton and Luca Di Mauro re: Project Phoenix w/Attach: Gaming CSA - Request for Strategy Approval -- Square Enix v7.docx; Gaming industry outcomes - Phoenix support materials vF.pptx, et al
Date: January 9th 2020
I'm just speculating about a possible special agreement or acquisition because the language used in the email is similar to the one used in other emails talking about acquisitions (Denali - ABK) or likely acquisitions (Zipline - Zynga).
In any case, during X019 I remember that Square Enix announced multiple Final Fantasy games coming to Game Pass. Maybe Project Phoenix was that.
