Something I should've said in my post above.^

Another option might be to leave the money and timing side of it alone, and focus on the exclusivity side for mostly gaming business.

Have some type of rules and regulations where from this point forward, any multiplatform third party IP must remain multi platform no matter what. That way MS, Sony, or whoever, could buy whatever third party devs and IP they wanted, but had to keep it multiplatform if it wasn't exclusive already. This wouldn't stop third parties from making exclusive games. As a totally separate third party, or purchased yet separate like Bungie, they could make exclusive games if they choose using new IP.

This could be loopholed though. They could buy some multiplatform IP and just copy a bunch of it, change the (franchise) title, and make it exclusive. They might even close down some newly acquired third parties and create a new studio with them to do just this. That would be quite a lot of time and effort just to make something exclusive, so odds are it wouldn't happen very often, due to it being an old IP seen as brand new IP by consumers, so it's something you probably wouldn't really have to worry about much.

I'm more concerned by Disney buying everybody than Microsoft adding its name to an already 3 headed company.

I just think some of the arguments being made are beyond petty, "such and such company does this, so why shouldn't this company?". They do, they always have. If you think this is about anything other than money and control, be real. I am actually fine with whatever happens. I do not play any Activision games and the Blizzard ones I do are either out, announced or long since out on other platforms. Even then I can sign up to PC Gamepass and instead of paying £60 for a new game, I can pay £1.

Yet, MS are not some underdog in the console/games industry. They are the 2nd biggest tech company in the world. They once tried to buy Nintendo. They are not your friend.

These announcements aren't any different to how Sony has handled things. I fail to see how what Microsoft is doing is worse than anything Sony has done.

It's just that we've been coming off a period where the funding had been cut for the Xbox division and the vast majority of third party deals had been made by Sony, and now that the playing field has been leveled, it's somehow worse.

The current trajectory is that both PS and Xbox will become redundant consoles, because both console manufacturers will put their games on the PC. Microsoft all of them day 1, Sony with delays of varying degrees. That's why I don't see a real problem for gamers here. The weaponising you speak of would first and foremost be against Sony, but not so much gamers.

What are the negative consequences you see for gamers?

"Why MS made the legally binding deals is irrelevant to those who will benefit from it". 

It really does though, as the rest of your post shows, the mere fact that the FTC is questioning the buyout is bothering a lot of you for no good reason at all. It's like, here is the biggest buyout in tech history, approve it or get accused of "getting political" and "interfering". So it is important to show that this "interference", regardless of the motivation behind it, is already yielding better outcomes for everyone. 

"Consumer is mentioned 14 times, Sony is mentioned 70 times, Call of Duty also abbreviated as CoD is mentioned 156 times"

I feel like of what you argue is relying on buzzwords, headlines and pure good faith in the largest or the 2nd largest tech company in the world that has proven and documented anti-competitive behaviour in the past. 

You're also heavily relying on converging arguments and lines of thoughts a lot of what you say ends up being random.

Basically what you're doing here is the following "CoD is the main argument, here is a document with the following stats that proves it". You don't even mention that this is the CMA document, not SONY's, not that it matters who wrote it anyway! It doesn't matter because the simple fact is that Bethesda/Activision have some of the biggest IPs in history that can majorly change the outcome of console sales even if CoD remains multiplatform for good, therefore, it doesn't matter who's arguing what, it doesn't change the facts.

I also believe these arguments happen to be too convenient for Microsoft to keep the narrative around CoD going and ignore the much bigger picture, so whoever is using this argument, they need to do a better job because it only helps MS in my opinion to keep the story too focused on CoD. 

"Yeah but MS offered assurance it won't, offered legally binding one at that. If that was the concern, Sony would sit with them and try to make Microsoft offer the same kind of deal from Diablo, Wow, Overwatch ... but all they give is silence apparently." 

"Yes and no logics tell me they won't try a deal on that scale anymore unless this one does not pass"

"If Sony were to fight for their user here and not for their margins IMO they would try to strike a deal with MS not only for CoD but most of Acti-Blizz's existing franchises (Diablo, overwatch, Crash...) and I believe MS would agree to all these"

Another great examples of you relying on the good will of a giant corporation, while completely ignoring statements made by the giant corporation themselves. Again, MS has said it will be "case by case" basis, and until very recently, the narrative by MS has been "we're not done with acquisitions". So much so that the "who should MS acquire next?" has become recurrent theme in many xbox threads (including the xbox empire on vgc). But here you are, asking me to dismiss all of that and in addition, you are also telling me SONY can secure all other IPs for 10 years if they sat down with MS because you believe it and because you believe that Microsoft is only going to acquire other publishers if this one fails despite their publicly declared intents.

Sorry, I don't think you're actually convinced with your own statements, they're just... too naive and I don't believe you are naive. Honestly, I can't believe some are making these arguments, even if we lived in a world in which MS hasn't publicly declared their intents.

"And I agree 100%. Though one would hope a decision on this would be devoid of political interference and factually based which is completely contrary to what we've seen with the FTC decision and reasons."

Well, it would be a nicer world indeed if money and ulterior motives didn't influence politics, but honestly, if you actually think about, letting this acquisition pass without scrutiny is a bigger telltale signs of political interference, because it indicates that someone isn't looking at the biggest tech merger ever when that someone's sole job is to look into these sorts of things.

Moreover, Tech giants, including Apple, FB, MS, Tesla have become experts at influencing these sorts of decisions and lobbying governments around the world, by far one of the biggest spenders out there and they increase their lobbying spendings year over year. So even if these challenges are raised against the acquisition are driven by lobbyists, MS shouldn't complain someone else is using their tactics to influence regulators decisions. 

"It's easier to get away with fucked up practices or at least dial back on "pro-consumer" stuff when you have a massive catalogue of popular games that people will trade their testicles for, that's just common sense."

Easier maybe but would also come with opportunities for competition.

"MS's game lineup upon ABK's acquisition should beat Sony and even Nintendo's in popularity (potentially even if they left Playstation)"

Yeah that's called competition, Ms saw an opportunity to up their game and took it.

"I know enough about Microsoft's other divisions, the history of Xbox, and the market to form reasonable opinions or expectations."

I know enough to know MS don't want to fuck up anymore and don't want to geopardise the success of GamePass on some short term gain anti-consumer practice.

"Sony is capable of getting away with worse practices than before, because they over the years built a really strong lineup of 1st party content that complements the excellent 3rd party support which Microsoft acquisitions are now threatening to weaken" 

Yeah that's called competition

"Then you've got Nintendo which doesn't even bother price dropping their hardware or software, never mind putting their new games on a subscription service. Both Sony and Nintendo could get away with things that MS didn't have the luxury to consider, because Xbox's software was decidedly inferior that they had to fall back on value/consumer-friendliness selling points or else they're fucked."

So your against the deal because MS might in the future be able to do what Nintendo and Sony does right now?

"The New MS with the smaller acquisitions + Mojang + Zenimax/Bethesda + ABK isn't the same small player whose entire selling point is for-the-consumer and value. They'll have "other options" to consider, and this is the part that's making Sony panic, and the part that could lead to more unnecessary "revenge-acquisitions" and wastes of money that could have gone to cultivating and establishing countless developers and talents."

Sony's panic is due to its dominant position being challenged but that's how a competitive market is supposed to work. One actor gets a dominant position than an underdog react (propose a new business line, innovate, merge with other) and try to take the lead. That's just part of competition in action.

"If I understood you correctly, you said Sony putting their games day 1 on PS+ is 99% more likely than MS toning down their day and date releases (or something along these lines). Starfield should be a good test to see what kind of impact being on a service day 1 does to the sales performance of a game with a great potential (I'm pretending/assuming Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite never had potential). If the impact on sales is too significant (exiting most charts not long post release), Sony would be less eager to try out Microsoft's model.

Microsoft's "number of players" are padded statistics that don't mean much to Sony or Nintendo. MS has to prove that their games are "selling" gangbusters despite being on GamePass, and only then will the idea of Sony putting their games on PS+ day 1 be feasible for them. They're not going to trade traditional sales for an increase in subs (and neither will Nintendo lol).

Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite both underperformed sales wise. If Starfield underperforms too, MS may consider other options, and Sony won't copy them. Just my opinion."

I think Forza Horizon 5 and halo infinite sold better than you think outside of GamePass, also your to dismissive of the value they bring through GamePass by the way of new subscriptions and retention of current users. Even if Starfield sold 0 copies outside of GamePass but bring value that MS estimated as greater than the title's budget through GamePass it's still a success.

Id go for this. All 3rd party games should come to PC day and date. No more of sonys way of keeping things away for 6 months to a year from pc. And they should all come to other consoles too.

Do you honestly think Sony or any of them other companys where not planning on buying more companys anyway?.

As long as a PS console exists, I don't see Sony allowing games to go straight to PC right away. They'll likely always have some sort of launch date separation between platforms. As long as the wait isn't too long, then I don't see the problem if the games are ported well and are worth it.

I think this actually works, because even when it comes to who owns what prior third parties, they all will have to play relatively nicely with sharing games between platforms and how much they charge each other or it could get messy quick.

It would also force MS to get serious for once about new in house IP. They've been seriously lacking that for a long time. There wouldn't be much Sony could buy and keep as exclusive either.

As for Sony, sure, they probably had idea's about what they might acquire in the future, but what MS is doing will no doubt change who, how many, and how much for Sony.

Sony's only somewhat large buy was Bungie and that was fairly recent. Other than that they make much smaller purchases and grow those studios.

Sony will have little choice but to buy as much as they can asap if MS keeps buying as well, especially the massive acquisitions that Sony would struggle to be able to make.

The more competitive MS becomes, the more Sony will try to keep ahead, and MS is dictating the speed and how that happens right now, which will be much more consolidation.