That's definitely a comment towards Jez's leaking 💀😂

Format was like a 10/10 Tbh.

Thinking about this format being used when Xbox is firing on all cylinders is very exciting.

Avowed will surely be in one of these in the future...

Seeing a lot of positive impressions too.

Looking forward to trying it out.

Home now and watching all the trailers from earlier. Hi-fi rush looks like it could be really fun fi they get the movement right.

The US Federal Trade Commission filed its lawsuit to block Microsoft Corp.'s $69 billion takeover of gaming company Activision Blizzard Inc. in December partly to get ahead of its European counterparts and dissuade them from accepting a settlement allowing the deal, according to people familiar with the investigations.

The FTC filed a complaint challenging the merger on Dec. 8, hours after a call between US and EU officials about their respective probes, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were confidential. The EU officials indicated on the call they intended to begin talks with Microsoft about potential remedies, the person said.

That prompted the FTC to file its case the same day to send a strong signal to EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and her staff, the people said, even though technically the commission wouldn't entertain remedy proposals from the companies until later in the process.

Officials from the European Union and the UK aren't expected to decide on the deal until April, and typically US officials would wait until closer to the deadline and try to work out a global resolution. People close to the transaction said they weren't expecting action from the FTC until the spring.

By moving quickly, the FTC would be able to "get out in front of the Europeans in an effort to shape the narrative," said Barry Nigro, who served as the No. 2 antitrust official at the Justice Department during the Trump administration and now heads the antitrust practice at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP. He isn't involved in the Microsoft-Activision case.

The FTC declined to comment. The EU didn't immediately respond to an email request for comment sent after hours. Microsoft pointed to comments President Brad Smith made when the FTC filed its case: "Even with confidence in our case, we remain committed to creative solutions with regulators that will protect competition, consumers and workers in the tech sector."

Microsoft's Activision takeover requires approval from 16 jurisdictions, with the US FTC, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission representing the biggest hurdles. The three international agencies have been in close contact on the deal since it was announced in January 2022.

The European Commission is conducting an in-depth probe and plans to make its decision by April 11. The commission is expected to issue a so-called statement of objections in the near future, setting out potential reasons for blocking the deal if no remedies are forthcoming. Such filings are routine in big deals and don't necessarily indicate a transaction is headed for a veto.

The UK regulator is also reviewing the transaction and plans to issue a preliminary decision later this month or early February, with a final decision on April 26.

Microsoft intends to propose a global remedy package to EU competition officials that would guarantee Sony Group Corp.'s PlayStation would continue to have access to the popular Call of Duty game for the next 10 years. Sony has so far rebuffed Microsoft's offers. The Xbox maker has also entered into a deal to bring the game to Nintendo Co. and allow it to be sold by Valve Corp.'s PC gaming platform Steam. If EU officials accepted that remedy, which would apply globally, it could potentially undermine cases brought in the US or UK.

The EU has diverged from its fellow agencies before. In February, the commission accepted a settlement and approved a merger between Finland's two shipping equipment giants. A month later, the UK and US simultaneously said they would block the deal and the companies abandoned the merger.

Lina Khan’s FTC Sued Microsoft Over Activision Deal to Head Off EU Settlement - Bloomberg

So it's basically as some of us were saying.

During a call between them both, the EC indicated to the FTC that they intended to begin talks with Microsoft about remedies, sounding like the EC was going to approve the deal with remedies. This sent the FTC into action and caused them to rush a block against Microsoft to discourage the EC from accepting a settlement with Microsoft.

So as we thought, the FTC is entirely banking on the EC or CMA blocking the deal.

Wonder if it may backfire though, in an effort to discourage EC from talking remedies with Microsoft, they rushed a block and looked incredibly sloppy, everyone is saying how bad their case is and the EC has to be taking notice of this. If FTC wanted to discourage others to block, they should have at least had a halfway competent block reason.

Really hope it does anyway, if I'm a regulator and I'm making a decision based on my own research into my market to approve something, it's incredibly arrogant for the FTC to throw their weight around like this and try to pressure me into going in a different direction than one I've made with my own research just because FTC says I should with no facts of their own, I'd tell them to bugger off, I'm not following them just because they're FTC.

One final reminder to vote or edit your votes, closing out the voting tomorrow.

2022 Xbox Empire Game Awards

It's that time of the year again folks, time to vote on our favorite games of the year. 

Rules

1. Copy and paste the below table fill it in with your answers.
2. Feel free to vote on as many or as few categories as you want. If a category doesn't receive enough total votes to post a worthwhile result, the whole category will be removed from the final results. If you have only played one game in a category then leave the runner-up space blank.
3. You don't need to have played the game on Xbox, as long as the game is available on Xbox you are fine to vote for it. Even if you haven't played a game yet, but want to play it, feel free to vote for it.
4. I will leave the voting active until mid January to give people a chance to play any 2022 games they receive for Christmas before voting ends. Feel free to edit your votes at any point before the voting closes, as votes will be tallied at the end.

Previous Year Results

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

This Year's Tables

Shika

Barozi

DerpySquirtle

VersusEvil

Kigel

Just saw like Hi-Fi Rush is actually out already on the gamepass app on Xbox. Downloading now. Nice surprise drop by Xbox.

Doesn't seem like the new Redfall gameplay won over any more doubters than the E3 gameplay did last year, like/dislike ratio is just as bad if not worse. Seeing 2.2k likes/1.5k dislikes on the main Bethesda Youtube channel, 413 likes and 228 dislikes on Gamespot reposting, 1.2k likes and 482 dislikes on IGN.

I suspect it is the production value throwing most people off as the gameplay seems good (I was a bit skeptical of the game before but they won me over today with the new Gameplay footage). It just doesn't look like a AAA Xbox Series/PC only exclusive should look. In some ways it looks worse than the now 6 year old Dishonored 2, which had to be able to run on base Xbox One. For instance look at the differences in interior quality here:

The hardwood flooring looks worse than in Dishonored 2, the lantern texture sucks compared to similar pieces of environmental clutter on the desk in Dishonored 2, the clothing textures on the man look very outdated, even the lighting seems worse.

I suspect that after Dishonored 2 underperformed in sales, Bethesda pulled alot of their budget, which is why neither Deathloop nor Redfall looked as good graphically as Dishonored 2. It's a real shame. Hopefully Xbox will give them back a proper AAA budget for their next 2 games from Arkane Lyon and Arkane Austin.

Ara: History Untold definitely is getting delayed to second half of the year. There's supposed to be a second technical alpha within the next week, still no date yet, and if a release date was going to happen, it would've been today.