I ended up voting as neutral, although I've mostly been against it during debates etc.

I would say I'm fine specifically with this acquisition, provided that there are no additional major acquisitions that follow. In other words, MS stops here, Sony does not retaliate, Amazon and Meta keeps out of it etc.

Xbox needs this to compete and I'm all for the survival of Xbox and strong competition to Sony in the traditional console/hardcore gamer sector.

However, if every other major corporation starts doing the same thing, those that are for this acquisition will very quickly regret it. Sony could buy capcom or Ubisoft, the Saudi Prince can buy EA who knows. Why anyone would be for this type of extreme consolidation of the industry is beyond me.

Furthermore to that, the services impact on gaming quality is going to be noticeable in the coming decade if every major publisher follows suite.

The thing to do would be to stop the AB acquisition, and force AB to split things up if they want to sell, and then let companies bid. How the timing of the sales was handled along with the bidding is another thing, but this would be the better start. More would have to follow and soon enough. You can't just have this for right now and hold it to gaming related business.

Where did u get forza horizon 5 performed badly??. It did even better than its predecessor by a huge amount. It surpassed 10 million on lunch and it's over 20 million players now. That's huge and gamepass performed greatly. 

Halo infinite may not sell as well as halo3 or 2 but it sold more than what new games try to achieve and gamepass helped it

Kyuu said:

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. MS's game lineup upon ABK's acquisition should beat Sony and even Nintendo's in popularity (potentially even if they left Playstation) I know enough about Microsoft's other divisions, the history of Xbox, and the market to form reasonable opinions or expectations.

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 (It doesn't matter what they say they want to do... the simple fact that they're in Microsoft's control is a threat in and of itself, and may or may not manifest as soon as the contracts end. In Zenimax's case, it's already manifesting). 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. 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.

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 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.

Have not seen any responses to this concern from those that are overly positive about this deal. Is the thinking that Xbox got the biggest publisher therefore they don't care what happens next? Or is the assumption that the other major companies don't have the will or money to follow suite?

Why MS made the legally binding deals is irrelevant to those who will benefit from it. Also, MS stated prior to the backlash they were not going to remove CoD from the competition. No company will try to purchase another and offer legally binding concessions before they are/appear to be a necessity. So yeah MS made those as a result of the challenge they face but it is all but normal and expected.

"Using the number of employees each company has to argue for the acquisition is looking away from the bigger picture and using a single metric in isolation to get a favourable outcome"

well, if you isolate that argument from the others and than argue it's a single metric in isolation it's disingenuous, I have not isolated this argument but completed it with the rest of my argumentation.

"Just like portraying CoD as the only issue with this merger"

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/634536048fa8f5153767e533/MSFT.ABK_phase_1_decision_-_1.09.2022.pdf

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

While it is not their only argument it revolves predominantly around it and it is by far their main one.

"These acquisitions come with legacy ever-green IPs, you can do a lot more damage to the competition with much less number of employees by simply relying on this legacy."

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.

"As for the prevailing argument you see from the other side, I have not made this argument myself, and I have already stated SONY has indulged in objectionable practices repeatedly and continue to do so. Microsoft possibilities shouldn't be limited by what SONY has or hasn't done, but it 100% should be limited by regulation that seek to prevent monopoly over the industry. "

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.

To further my opinion on a more personal note rather than a legal one
I believe this deal is good for

• Microsoft/Xbox
• Activision Blizzard
• Workers at Activision Blizzard
• Union advocate
• Gamepass
• Gamapass Users
• Switch and future next Nintendo system owner
• Steam User
• Anyone who wants the Acti-Blizz management/work culture to change
• Anyone who hopes for a possibility of Activision Blizzard studios to even consider being creative again
• Playstation plus user (Only if Sony accepts the deal and benefits from CoD on PlayStation plus day 1 as Ms offered)

It is neutral for

• Any third party as Take two made clear
• Anyone who doesn't subscribe/wants to subscribe to GamePass (as all the games will still be available for purchase)

It is bad for:

• Sony*

But even then it is only bad for their ability to sell ps5+ with limited competition from the Xbox series+ system and their ability to grow their margin profits unchallenged.
Even if the deal goes through it won't:

• Make Uncharted, God of War, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, and Last of Us ... fans disappear
• inhibit the ability for Sony to create and release new games for their system and/or PC
• prevent Sony from making other acquisitions and they've made quite a few this year and will continue to do so by their statement
• prevent Sony from bolstering its offering (PlayStation + wise as well as a standard sale) 
• Remove CoD from their offering
• Make Xbox anywhere near the point of a monopoly 

Also, the impact on Sony is already mitigated by:

• The fact they are the one who benefits from a dominant position as of now.
• The fact that many Acti-Blizz projects are already announced for Ps5 and MS will respect all of those (ex: Diablo 4)
• The impact of this won't be felt for many years and won't come all at once

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. The fact that Sony remains silent on those and focuses only on CoD makes me believe they themselves don't believe MS would make any of those exclusive after the deal goes through.