The thing is with the "second best Q3 ever" is that after 5 years of growth yoy every quarter, the decline this early in the gen is less good than it is being suggested. Big companies (heck, even countries) solely rely on continuious growth. And while it us good to see that the new 40 countries now accessing PC Game Pass will def help growth in services, the steep decline in hardware will probably continue to push MS to be more and more console agnostic (and, why not, start to sell GP subscriptions on Steam)

Damn, that is brutally bad

Even if they could successfully appeal this, how long would that take? They can't close over both the FTC and the CMA so even the vague chance that they can reverse CMA's decision the deal won't be closing for a long time now.

Well there we go, that’s a wrap for this gen.

I was like "come on this isn't the worst thing I ever written" and then I saw the posts before mine

Blocked over Cloud is absolute insanity, Lmao.

I'm actually speechless. Blocking it over a nascent market which may never take off, has trillion dollar companies already exiting it because it's not financially viable and the majority of the Cloud competitors that CMA mentioned were in favour of deal due to the deals that Microsoft gave them.

• Microsoft’s solution had significant shortcomings and would require regulatory oversight by CMA
• Panel Chair: “Cloud gaming needs a free, competitive market to drive innovation and choice”

So basically they couldn't be bothered to monitor it, they really hate behavioural remedies, Lol.

What is to stop Activision-Blizzard-King as an independent entity from making an exclusive deal with xCloud or any other Cloud manufacturer? They never bothered with Cloud before, what makes CMA believe that they will bother with it now.

Also...As a side note, that 6.5% dip was obvious insider trading, someone is getting sued hard, Lol.

Microsoft has a strong position in cloud gaming services and the evidence available to the CMA showed that Microsoft would find it commercially beneficial to make Activision’s games exclusive to its own cloud gaming service.

Microsoft’s proposal contained a number of significant shortcomings connected with the growing and fast-moving nature of cloud gaming services:

• It did not sufficiently cover different cloud gaming service business models, including multigame subscription services.
• It was not sufficiently open to providers who might wish to offer versions of games on PC operating systems other than Windows.
• It would standardise the terms and conditions on which games are available, as opposed to them being determined by the dynamism and creativity of competition in the market, as would be expected in the absence of the merger.

Accepting Microsoft’s remedy would inevitably require some degree of regulatory oversight by the CMA. By contrast, preventing the merger would effectively allow market forces to continue to operate and shape the development of cloud gaming without this regulatory intervention.

The CMA carefully considered whether the benefit of having Activision’s content available on Game Pass outweighed the harm that the merger would cause to competition in cloud gaming in the UK. The CMA found that this new payment option, while beneficial to some customers, would not outweigh the overall harm to competition (and, ultimately, UK gamers) arising from this merger, particularly given the incentive for Microsoft to increase the cost of a Game Pass subscription post-merger to reflect the addition of Activision’s valuable games.

So much for all those sources. I was 90% sure it was going through when they dropped the console part of it, and 95%+ sure it was going through this morning.

UK can never do anything right

I am absolutely baffled...What a decision by the CMA.

Repeating again.

Blocked Over the Cloud Market

Now I'm suddenly questioning what the EC will do, because I was 99% sure they'd pass it and now I don't know.