Really? So you actually think that if MS had managed to get Monster Hunter, FFXVI, Persona 6, SF6, RE IV Remake, next Yakuza, etc, as exclusives (and in Gamepass) it wouldn't make a difference?

And again, we have already established that this move wouldn't be to attract japanese gamers, it would be to attract western gamers who like japanese games.

As a business owner I stopped reading right there.

If said big publishers wishes to be purchased, and said buyer is able to obligate, and no-one is forcing anything against one's will, then what is the problem?

That's what led me to make the post in the first place. As soon as I saw MS was going after PS for having too much of a strangle hold on Japanese titles, for whatever reason, I just laughed and laughed.

Should Sony and the Japanese government go after XB for having too much of a strangle hold on first person shooters for console? Poll?

PS has had the highest share of FPS sales since about a decade. So yes, let the Xbox bullying commence.

That is exactly my point, if every business operated at what is best for you as a consumer and operated on what you felt is fair, they would be out of business.  Only the strong survive and companies who can carve out their space using whatever advantage they have gets to see another sunrise. What keep them doing things that pleases you is competition.  Without competition then they get stagnant only using techniques to squash any competition and only bringing innovative features and products when threaten.

It seems your whole point is that companies should be independent because you feel it benefits you but there is a reason a company goes up for purchase and you can be assured that its for their own benefit.  Bungie did not sell themselves to Sony to benefit you, they sold themselves to Sony to benefit their company and reach whatever goal they felt they could not achieve without bigger pockets.  The same case can be said for Bethesda for going MS.  For ABK, we have seen a lot of internal turmoil which it would appear that MS can come in and help mitigate before it tears the company apart.  Just the fact that MS is accepting the unionization of the company is giving them more hope of a better existence under MS then current leadership.

So my point remains that what is best for you isn't what is best for these companies and they cannot operate, grow and stay healthy is all they do is what is best for what consumers believe is good.  Yeah it would be great for us consumers if all games where multi and we only need to pick one system and play whatever we want but that isn't the game being played.  One thing is sure is that after all this is done, their could be more players or less players.  New players could flip everything around and the landscape in 10 years probably will look nothing like today but one thing is for sure.  Any company who isn't willing to use whatever they got to expand and grow will be left behind because that is how business work.  I just look at the mobile market space to see how that turned out.

Moneyhatting harms consumers as well though which seems to be the crutch of some of your arguments below.

I'd also argue that in some cases, moneyhatting is designed more towards harming your competition than even acquisitions, at least an acquisition is funnelling more money into the overall business and growing it, you also take on the responsibility of funding and managing that company.

Lets use a moneyhatting example of Final Fantasy, everyone mocks that it doesn't need to be multiplatform because nobody on Xbox would buy it anyway, the vast majority of sales happen on PlayStation, so Sony should have no worries right? Why do they bother to moneyhat it? If it is such a dead IP on Xbox then I don't see how Sony having it exclusive will push console sales much.

Likewise, a developer and/or publisher can choose to sell their title to the highest bidder in the form of a "moneyhat" but a company can also choose to sell as well if they want to, that is their right. Lets use Zenimax for example, they were a private company, owned by Robert Altman and he wanted to sell his company, he wasn't forced, Microsoft didn't hostile takeover anything, there was nothing predatory about it.

If we start blocking people from being able to sell their companies no matter the laws or market then you'll kill the a large part of the start-up industry which is full of people creating companies for the express purpose of building them up into something and selling them later down the line.

Also a public company still has a legal responsibility to its shareholders so they can't entirely "choose whatever they want". The reason these mass layoffs as an example happen is because shareholders demand constant growth and a company has a responsibility to them to ensure that.

• As an Xbox consumer, Activision-Blizzard deal going through can benefit you.
• As a Nintendo consumer, Activision-Blizzard deal going through can benefit you.
• As a Nvidia GeForce Now, Ubitus or Boosteroid consumer, Activision-Blizzard deal going through can benefit you.

As a PlayStation consumer, the deal going through likely doesn't benefit you*

*Unless you only care about Call of Duty.

But you can thank Sony for focusing this entire investigation solely around CoD and nothing else so it's a bit too late now for them to start pretending to care about other Activision-Blizzard IPs. Nevertheless, I'm fairly sure regulators have taken those into account.

Disagree that hardware manufacturing is a monopoly unless you co-opt the definition from the FTC that Nintendo isn't in the market, even in that case, it would be a duopoly between Microsoft/Sony and a monopoly from Nintendo.

Software production is absolutely nowhere near to becoming a monopoly in the videogame industry.

Disagree that buying Activision-Blizzard will lead to less competition, it will increase Microsoft's competition towards Sony and that in turn will make Sony step up even more as well. It will also help give a leg-up to multiple Cloud providers for 10 years. 

Mediocre output is speculation without much to back it up and I can think of multiple great titles that Microsoft have released "in over a decade"

It actually isn't their job to block every "big" acquisition no matter what it is, I don't even know what the threshold for "big" would even be and nobody has defined that nor would regulators agree worldwide what it would be.

These investigations are actually a lot deeper than you give them credit for, blocking cause "big" isn't deep at all.

Lets use the CMA as an example. Their investigation has to determine that there would be an SLC in order to block an acquisition. An SLC is a "Substantial Lessening of Competition" The important thing here is "Substantial".

They screwed up their maths in their first run-through but upon correction of the maths, the Console SLC was removed and CMA found that.

• Microsoft does not have the financial incentive to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation. *1
• There would not be an SLC in Console towards PlayStation. *2
• 75% of consumers polled by the CMA approved of the deal.
• The majority of the gaming industry approves of the deal. *3

*1 - They found that Microsoft would lose a huge amount in making Call of Duty exclusive.
*2 - They found that in the event of Call of Duty becoming exclusive, only 3% of PlayStation users would switch to Xbox (buy Xbox as their next console).
*3 - This includes developers and publishers, it also includes Microsoft's rivals such as Tencent, GeForce Now and Valve. Nintendo seems to not care.

All that being said, both CMA and (reportedly) the EC have found that there would not be an SLC in Consoles towards PlayStation and as for USA, there are zero laws which this acquisition infringed upon; monopoly or antitrust.

You can also add on that Unions across the world support the deal who represent tens of thousands of employees and Activision-Blizzard employees largely appear to be cautiously optimistic about the deal. However, it unfortunately isn't really in regulators responsibility to look at the concerns of employees but the effect on competition and consumers.

They've determined the effect on competition and consumers to be too low for a Console SLC.

There still remains a Cloud SLC which is a concern for both CMA and EC. Microsoft has a market lead in Cloud alongside GeForce Now and thus regulators need to ensure that Activision-Blizzard under Microsoft still gives weaker entries into the market such as Ubitus/Boosteroid or new entries into the market a fair chance to compete, for the good of consumers.

The EC, CADE and even CMA have done a hell of a lot better job at investigating the market than the FTC has and that is because those guys haven't rushed a block simply because the acquisition is "big" like the FTC have.

I mean, consumers on Xbox had to wait one year to play Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo, and they were really close to having to wait one more year to play Starfield, so I don´t think they were benefiting much with Bethesda being independent.

Actually no, I would believe that it would not make a difference.  I believe just like Tomb Raider, PS gamers would just wait.  In order for MS to secure permanent exclusive they would probably have to spend more money than a small nation.  

The thing is people keep making these assumptions that MS isn't actually not doing exactly that.  Phil regularly goes to Japan and from the content they have gotten on GP shows that they are actively working over there.  If you ever worked with Japanese business men you would understand it takes more than the magic money wand to get things moving.  Relationships have to be built for years and its not a fast process.

Last but not least, why would any western gamer who likes Japanese  games choose the Xbox over the systems that will always get the best from their own country.  How much money would it take to get those games and what percentage of Nintendo/ Sony gamers would say, "WoW, MS now has some exclusive Japanese games, I should get it over Sony/Nintendo".  What would be the better investment, being a powerhouse for western games where your dollar can reach more studios or spend 10 times as much trying to cater to a few Japan IP and make no dent in the market.

I would love to know what would be the cost for MS to get FF or any of Square big RPGs for 1 year exclusivity.  Compared to how many games they could get day one on GP instead.  For all we know it could be the whole budget for the games division at MS.  I would expect it to be pretty steep if Tomb Raider at its time cost 100 million for a year exclusive.

THe magic money wand can only go so far and MS as a business isn't going to just throw all their money into the Xbox division when they have other parts that need just as much.  THey also isn't going to risk cash that only may get a few Sony/Nintendo gamers but they would need to continue to pony up huge sums every year just to scrap a few market percentage and probably each year the price goes up.  Naw its a losing effort the way I see it when there are so many other areas and new studios rising up you could invest in.  If those become hits, you have a greater chance locking them to your system.

You mean COD sales?

Last I checked, the profits for developing and publishing the game went to ABK, not Sony.

The regulators made it extremely clear that all MS seems to care about are those billions in (COD) profits.

MS also says they will be bringing it to even more platforms.