Yes MS would be able to appeal again, I've read about a case where the company won twice with CAT appeals against the CMA. The way I understand things is CMA decision could be appealed until CAT refuses to take the case or rule in support of the CMA decision.

I believe the scenario you put forth is the ringfencing scenario that has been alluded to By Ryuu some days ago. My understanding on this is while true that CMA would want their decision to affect worldwide they are limited to adjudicating on the market that impacts their own country, so if they were to block the merger for a market that would be unaffected in the UK it will be an outreach of their mandate and should loose again in CAT appeal. Also in this specific case, (this is speculation on my part) I think the CAT would likely not remit the case to the CMA, while the CAT cannot make decisions in place of the CMA, it may strike down one section of it and decide the CMA have no bearing to adjudicate said section again and so the CMA conclusion would be that advanced by other sections.

This is what I was talking about: Deathloop Was Born Out of Bethesda’s Uncertainty Over Dishonored 3, Says Arkane Founder | VGC

“Bethesda wanted us to do something,” he said. “They didn’t quite know where we were going after Dishonored. ‘Do we want Dishonored 3? I don’t know, let’s make something simple and short before, and let’s see.’”

“And then [Deathloop] became a big thing, over the years,” he said. “That was the funny thing: ‘Nah, we don’t wanna do Dishonored 3, but if you can pitch us a small game, something that maybe has multiplayer so we can learn multiplayer, something that maybe has microtransactions, maybe something with a lot of recycling, like a roguelike.’”

After Prey flopped, I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda told Austin to the do the same thing.

Stop making your single-player focused studios make multiplayer-focused titles...Hope this is the end of this under Xbox and Bethesda goes back to fully single-player focused aside from the MMOs...Don't even need Doom to have Multiplayer either, that is horrible as well.

My biggest concern now would be if anyone leaves Arkane Austin after working 5 years on a project only for it to flop both commercially and critically, if Harvey Smith ends up leaving then I would bring Arkane Lyon and Austin back together rather than the split approach they have.

When the deal dies, Microsoft should just pull an OpenAI.

Microsoft’s Quasi-acquisition of OpenAI: Clever Circumvention of Antitrust Scrutiny?

Deal structure review

The main features of the expected deal, along with prior agreements, include:

• Profit-sharing: Under the expected deal terms, Microsoft receives 49% of OpenAI’s future profits once OpenAI pays back its early investors.
• Exclusive licensor: In 2020, Microsoft becomes the exclusive licensor to OpenAI’s GPT-3 model.
• Exclusive cloud vendor: In 2019, as part of the $1 billion investment, Microsoft becomes OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider, valued at more than hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Today, OpenAI models depend on Microsoft software and hardware to run, making it hard for OpenAI to switch to a different cloud vendor.

Can't go this extreme, I think regulators would slap them down, but maybe halfway...Like a 10-15% stake in some companies.

I take back that Microsoft would be allowed to acquire Sega now because CMA's statement is that even a "moderate" increase in Microsoft's cloud would pose an SLC so that should basically rule out every single large IP, Lol.

After the deal is killed as well, Microsoft can't attempt to acquire ABK for another 10 years at minimum as per CMA's rules.

Maybe just take a stake out, work closely with King to bring some Xbox IP to Mobile, a joint partnership between Xbox and Activision to bring a Mobile Store out and of course profit sharing and such, that is if ABK doesn't just sell either way.

If the games are not performing then something will have to give.  Not sure going MP if the team does not have experience there but when a team underperforms then a shakeup will eventually happen.

Would this not basically rule out any company from any large purchase.  If they are trying to protect the cloud market that would exclude any company from making any big purchases if they have any cloud presence.  

Could be that MS could just do the same thing with ABK, invest a large amount of money into their business and gain enough shares where they may not have controlling interest but enough to direct the company to what they want.  That also could be a path forward.

Yakuza 6 is not that long (especially compared to 5) so I would just start with that game and when you are finished maybe Redfall got the patch for 60 fps potential bugs fixed etc.

I mean, if we're talking Prey specifically, the marketing was largely to blame for that one, took an IP which like 90% of people didn't even know existed but used its name anyway for branding reasons (Lol) which didn't mean a thing because barely anyone even knew what Prey was and those few that actually did were like "Wtf, this isn't Prey, it's nothing like Prey" and set the negative tone from the start of its reveal to its reviews.

Course when people actually played the game, the vast majority say it's underrated and a great title, aside from the dumb naming situation.

But Arkane titles in general are hard sells, hard to market and more niche immersive sims but Bethesda should have known that pushing multiplayer onto a singleplayer studio would end in failure after Fallout 76 and Wolfenstein Youngblood. Ironically Youngflood bombed even harder than Wolfenstein II.

Bethesda corporate often sucks though, from their aggressive lawsuits to chasing after live-service cash cows which have mostly failed and hurt their brilliant studios, at least under Xbox they should chill now with being desperate for a big multiplayer hit, sales less important under the Xbox umbrella and Arkane can go back to doing what they do best, MachineGames is already there with Indiana Jones after the awful Wolfenstein Co-op title.

The sad reality is whilst this is the last Arkane game of the Zenimax era the damage might well and truly be done. How long until the next true Arkane SP game, 4,5,6 years? Will there even be another core SP game? How long until the main talent starts to leave? When Redfall fails critically the blame needs to be split 3 ways. Almost all on Zenimax management for forcing Arkane to follow their utterly stupid MP endeavours for a second time, on Phil for continuing to be “hands off” with Xbox studios and not reigning this shit in and honestly …Arkane need to hang their head in shame and take the last of the blame… a 4/10 is disgraceful and beneath their proven ability. DMCA striking everybody, unconvincing gameplay shown throughout, no reviews till release day and the first leaked reviews aren’t good, this might actually be a low/mid 60s and that is truly… truly sad to see how far Arkane has fallen.

Edit: ACG calling it one of the worst games of 2023. RIP.

No because they claim Microsoft has a 70% share of the "Cloud Gaming Market" and they came to that % by the number of Game Pass Ultimate Subscribers there are (Lmao). So Microsoft as the ruling % holder is subject to regulation more harshly. They basically rule out Microsoft and only Microsoft from making any acquisition which would provide a "moderate" increase to their Cloud gaming market as "moderate" could still be an SLC.

At the same time, they basically tell Microsoft to go and acquire a different Mobile publisher, so that should be fine, Lol.

The funny thing is (and you can @Me if I’m wrong which I won’t be) but daddy Bethesda gonna release one of the most stable games of the year with Starfield.