Finally, at this stage of the investigation, the Commission has concerns that the proposed acquisition may reduce competition on the market for PC operating systems. In particular, the Commission is concerned that Microsoft may reduce the ability of rival providers of PC operating systems to compete with Microsoft's operating system Windows, by combining Activision Blizzard's games and Microsoft's distribution of games via cloud game streaming to Windows. This would discourage users to buy non-Windows PCs.

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This is odd, do they think xCloud is exclusive to Windows? xCloud is already available on Linux (and MacOS?) it's everywhere you can get a Web Browser, Lol. xCloud specifically improved themselves on Linux due to Steam Deck. There's no reason to think that Microsoft who wants to be everywhere is going to start shutting themselves off from everything.

They separate subscriptions as its own market which probably isn't good news for Microsoft, I don't agree that subscription services are their own market either, it's simply another distribution method in the current platforms. Everything is available to be purchased outside of the sub. xCloud is even less of its own market than Game Pass is too, it's yet another distribution method which you can only use if you buy games via the Microsoft Store or have Game Pass, Lol.

Da fuq are they talking about? I can use xCloud on my wife's Macbook Air right now with Safari lol. Hell, Valve has their own streaming tech that anyone on Steam can use! 

Taking a page from CMA on this one lol

This would probably be a good idea since this kind of a game would be a first for Arkane

Looks like I'm gonna have to wait a day lol. I ain't staying up till 1am!

Weird AF.

Lots of "issues" are so easily dismantled but I feel my confidence decreasing.

If FTC has the same "concerns" then I'm dropping to 50/50, Lol.

I can't see Microsoft offering concessions until the new year.

Also, when did CoD release on macOS and Linux? I seemed to have missed that announcement lol.

Either way, Apple is trying to boost their gaming presence with their M2 chip. RE: Village just released with pretty decent results and Linux gaming is taking off, thanks in large part to Valve even though nearly all their money comes from operating on Windows lol.

Yeah. You can use xCloud everywhere so I'm pretty confused why it's there as an argument, I can't think of anything other than they genuinely think that xCloud is exclusive to Windows PCs, somehow, Lol.

Phase 2 was expected. But I expected better arguments. Brazil did a really thorough investigation in such a short amount of time and laid out all the marketshare facts to show that Microsoft wouldn't have any significant control, but EC/CMA are so focused on CoD, EC's at least not definitive in their statements.

They'd have to think that Microsoft hates money and will make CoD exclusive, half its gigantic sales, it's GaaS monetary value and put its rivals in a much stronger position, despite them saying multiple times it makes no business sense and they want to treat it like Minecraft.

It's fine to debate though, but when they throw stuff like the OS argument, it throws me off, Lol.

As for Microsoft owning IP which hurt other sub services, PlayStation is already #1 there after they combined their services, I also don't believe that ABK have ever put their titles into a sub services? At least nowhere near launch so I don't see it making much difference.

Microsoft is paying $69bn to get these titles into Game Pass (and for King), do they think that anyone else has that kind of capital to get ABK titles day one into their services and if they don't, does it make any difference if Microsoft won't offer ABK titles to rivals?

Theoretically, all these arguments are easy to dismantle for Microsoft, so let's see what Phase 2 concludes with, I suppose.

Considering that phase 2 was expected from every regulator, I'd say the more "concerns" they list that are easily dismantled, the better. It's not like they were gonna enter phase 2 and list nothing.

Maybe the fact that of EC's 3 main concerns, one of them is so easily broken down, it will be a good thing for Microsoft, Lol.

Then the remaining two issues are on theories of harm, one is how much damage that CoD could cause to the competition, I think unless they think that removing CoD from PlayStation would remove half of PlayStation's hardware sales and put them level with Xbox, it should be easy to argue that Sony would still have a market leading position and regulatory bodies shouldn't be concerned about Sony's bottom line.

The hardest to argue against would surely be if EC decides that streaming and cloud are their own markets and Microsoft now has complete dominance over them, still not true, PlayStation is #1 and they achieved that without ABK, other rival services have had decent success without ABK (GeForce Now, EA Play, Ubisoft, etc).

I do think EC's arguments, aside from the baffling OS one, are better laid out that CMA's though, CMA looked like they were given a script from Sony and copied it word for word, they looked more definitive in their statements, EC is more saying "we have to investigate how much harm this could cause"