Lol, CMA really doesn't look into the market of gaming they still ignoring the mass market of indie games too.

big tech=big bad 

CMA's tunnel vision thought process probably

So Silent Hill 2 and FFXVI, both currently timed PS5 exclusives (we'll see how that pans out) get trailers back-to-back days with a Resident Evil showcase later today......mighty sus.

Tbf CMA did scrutinise Disney/Fox pretty hard to the point where Fox was saying they'd sell off Sky News to pass the deal and it went on for over a year, so I think they did their job there, I also don't really have much issue with Disney/Fox but their seemingly not caring about PRH x SS and passing it within two months, not even going to Phase 2, is a bit weird, despite how much market share they would have, DOJ has blocked it as well.

Both of these I would consider more market dominance by a significant margin than Microsoft x ABK too. We'll have to see what Phase 2 brings but if they do block it then Microsoft may be screwed on the deal, I'm still convinced it will pass but I'm also concerned CMA may be looking to make an example out of Microsoft, I'm dropping my prediction down to 80%.

CMA is also doing the same criticisms as they received during Facebook x Giphy, they withheld information from Facebook and didn't make note that Facebook's competitor (Snap) had an opportunity to acquire Giphy and refused, they also believed that the Ad space for Giphy was irrelevant and that they had no issue with FB acquiring them, CMA was told off for withholding this information but still allowed to block the acquisition.

CMA is also being accused of withholding information by Microsoft too.

This whole thing makes me hate the UK even more

Sorry UK people (except Ryuu).

I just hope Sony keeps getting these exclusive deals (makes them look like hypocrites), especially games I don't care about. Now I know how Angelus and Ryuu feel when they moneyhatted SE games lol. 

I hate UK too.

I do wonder if Sony is being a bit short-sighted though.

Call me naive but I don't think Microsoft will ever remove COD from PlayStation, I think it's a Minecraft scenario, as for Diablo V or Overwatch 3, they'd both be years away, so Sony is really just losing some new IPs from Blizzard and possibly Crash/Spyro and even at minimum, Sony has until 2027 to come up with an alternative and adapt.

What happens if Sony plays a part in blocking the deal? Activision-Blizzard's stock is likely going to take a nosedive, which will piss off the shareholders and board, likely sour their relationship with Sony and what is stopping Microsoft from just outbidding Sony for COD marketing? I think Microsoft will be fairly annoyed too.

Then what comes after that? Microsoft is clearly in it for the long haul, they want to make Game Pass a massive success, hence the huge acquisition, they'll likely instead go for a bunch of studios and a couple other smaller publishers, ones which would both easily pass regulation and have zero issue in yanking all their IPs from PlayStation and making them exclusive, companies that the internet will be far louder about, Lol.

Standard procedure but I can't imagine having to shift through the kinds of responses they're going to receive from console warriors

Yep, will be hard to find good unbiased opinions on the matter.

But the fact of the matter is, if you remove hardware and services revenue from Xbox, Sony, and Nintendo, and look only at software revenue for every publisher and put it all into a pie graph, the combined software marketshare of Xbox + Zenimax + Activision-Blizzard can't be as high as the 20% marketshare of Disney+ Fox or the 30% marketshare of Penguin-Random House + Simon & Schuster, both deals the CMA approved. With so many other publishers out there, large (Tencent, EA, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, T2/2K, etc.), medium (Square, Sega, WB, Namco Bandai, Capcom, Koei Tecmo, Plaion, THQ etc.), and small (Devolver, Marvelous, 505, etc.), Xbox, Zenimax, and Acti-Blizz are just 3 out of 40+ game publishers, in terms of software marketshare the 3 combined may be less than 10%, definitely less than 15%. And if you look at hardware marketshare, Xbox was right to tell the CMA that Activision-Blizzard games are not enough for Xbox to pass PS or Nintendo, they will close the gap some but still be in 3rd place almost certainly. Sony also leads in services currently with over 47m PS+ subs (some of which are on the new mid and high tiers), compared to a lower number on both Gold and Gamepass for Xbox, and Acti-Blizz alone may not be enough to take the #1 spot there either as Sony is working hard to grow PS+, pumping alot of 3rd party AAA's into their mid tier service recently, alot more than Gamepass has been getting. I just can't see a good reason to block this sale on anti-competitive grounds.