EVP Corporate Affairs and Chief Communications Officer at Activision Blizzard.

Feels low-key like UK holds all the power here

Literally feels like the deal lives or dies based on UK's decision if FTC sues to block.

• FTC loses in court.
• EC is following the Brazil model, likely will approve it.
• CMA wildcard.

I really do think that CMA is the one everyone should be watching out for, FTC blocking it is only bad if CMA does, Microsoft should do everything they can to get approval from CMA and they can beat FTC in court.

Looking like this deal is going to fall through unfortunately (fortunately for some). I don't think some of the forum people realize that leaves MS with what 55-60 billion of cash to burn. Subtracting a few for penalties.

Wonder what they could buy with 55 billion

Any wants?

Technically it is $68.7 billion. With that money they could potentially acquire Take-Two, Ubisoft, EA, and Embracer. Although if the Activision Blizzard deal falls through I don't see them having any chance of getting a deal for Take-Two or EA to go through.

Ugh, I ordered Judgment for Xbox Series on a $10 Amazon Black Friday week deal, and it just arrived with the shipping envelope sealed, but no plastic wrap on the game case, the security seal cut, and the disc missing. Now I have to wait till Monday for a new copy to be delivered and return this one at a UPS Store. What kind of animal at the Amazon warehouse cuts open a game case, steals the disc, and then sends an empty case to the customer? Dumb too, should be easy for Amazon to figure out which employee in the shipping department stole the disc and fire them.

Not quite the full $68.7 billion, as their deal with Activision-Blizzard requires that MS gives them a couple billion even if the deal is blocked by regulators from what I've read. 

I forgot about that part. It still leaves them with most of that money. I would see them acquiring smaller to medium studios (under $1 billion) if the deal were to fall through.

Some of my personal most wanted acquisitions:

1. Sega (minus Sammy to make it even cheaper, spinoff the pachinko business as well as Sega's resort business and music label into the new Sammy, and just buy Sega and Atlus and their arcade business and maybe their anime studio, TMS Entertainment, as owning an anime studio could be useful)
2. Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal- Acquire them plus their IP's from Embracer, even if it costs 2 or 3x as much as Embracer themselves paid for them
3. Koei Tecmo
4. CyberConnect2
5. Avalanche and IO Interactive (assuming Contraband and Project Dragon are going well)
6. Square Enix (this would be a good middle finger to Sony for hatting so many Square games in recent years)

Bruh I'm not even joking when I say I bought some clothes, including underwear, and my box was ripped up and missing a pair wtf! actual postage bag was fine so it was from the warehouse for sure! People are wildin'! Then I order some shoes from france and one of my insoles are completely fucked up, I'm like fuck it I can't win lmao. Hopefully nothing happens to all the games I just ordered.

If the deal falls through, my “wish list” suddenly becomes a lot more barren. Because the deals would have to be insanely small, even compared to Zenimax.

Other than partner studios that MS should shore up like Forgotten Empires, SkyBox Labs, Certain Affinity, etc. Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montreal make a lot of sense. So would Asobo Studio. 

Maybe even get further into the western RPG domination with Larian Studios.

Idk how any acquisitions would work in Japan at that point either.

This deal ain't ever passing, I also fully expect once it's blocked Sony will announce another slew of third party forever exclusives whilst MS is left picking up AA console exclusive scraps. If this isn't a wake-up call to MS that the nice guy act doesn't benefit Xbox gamers one bit, I don't know what will.