Excellent post!

Who Supports the Deal

• Nvidia - Microsoft's #1 Rival in Cloud Gaming.
• Boosteroid & Ubitus - Two Smaller Cloud Gaming Companies.
• EE - Large Mobile Network Operator in the UK.
• Nintendo - 1/2 of Microsoft's Console Rivals.
• Multiple Major Publishers - EA, Take-Two, etc.
• The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) - World’s Largest Membership Organization For Developers.
• Communications Workers of America - Largest Communications and Media Labour Union in the United States
• UNI Global Union - Global Union with 20 Million Members.
• AFL-CIO - Largest Federation of Unions in the United States.

In addition, CMA's own internally conducted poll of UK Gamers had the majority in favour of the deal.

Who Is Against the Deal

• Sony – Microsoft's Main Rival in the Console Market.
• Google – Microsoft's 2nd Rival in the Cloud Market.

Others Opinion

• Valve - They largely didn't seem to care, the only comment that Valve made on the matter was that they didn't need a contract from Microsoft for Call of Duty because they trust Microsoft's word and don't believe in contracts for ensuring releases on a specific platform (likely a bit of a dig at Epic Games Store, Lol).

Who Benefits

• Nvidia & GeForce Now Users - GeForce Now actually benefits quite a lot, GeForce Now is Microsoft's #1 rival in Cloud Gaming (until Sony actually commits) and it is technically better than xCloud in every single way (resolution, framerate, latency). Now on top of those advantages, they're gaining access to all of Xbox Game Studios, Zenimax and Activision-Blizzard content for a guaranteed 10 years on a fair contract formulated by the European Commission.
• Boosteroid & Ubitus & Their Users - They benefit for similar reasons to Nvidia (having access to massive IP that they wouldn't have otherwise had guaranteed access to) but also as smaller companies, there was no guarantee that Activision-Blizzard would have allowed access to ABK titles, especially if ABK ended up doing exclusive Cloud licenses, then they would give COD to the highest bidder (which would either be Microsoft or Nvidia). Now these smaller companies have access to COD and other large IPs for a guaranteed term of 10 years and can focus on growing other aspects of their business (I.E. Infrastructure) and don't have to pay a ridiculous amount for the content. These commitments give them a 10-year leg-up instead of slowly slugging it out trying to get content and infrastructure at the same time.
• EE - Unknown how they benefit but they did accept the contract so the assumption is that they're entering the Cloud Gaming market as well.
• Nintendo & Nintendo Consumers - Guaranteed access to COD for 10 years on Nintendo Switch and future Nintendo platforms.
• Xbox Gamers & Game Pass Owners on Xbox and PC - Xbox owners finally have parity with PlayStation again for Call of Duty, no more timed exclusive nonsense and Game Pass owners receive a bunch of very popular IPs onto the service they're subbed to, likely saving them money.
• Steam Consumers - Guaranteed access to COD and likely other ABK titles as Microsoft puts everything on Steam aside from Minecraft because it simply makes financial sense.
• Unions & Pro Union Workers - Microsoft has a legally binding contract with the CWA which will allow the unionising of workers inside of Microsoft without Microsoft interfering, the CWA has thoroughly negotiated this contract with Microsoft and believe it to be a good thing for their members, it has already happened inside of Zenimax.
• Activision-Blizzard Employees - Partly linked to the union commitments above but also, while Microsoft may have their problems still, as does practically every corporation, they're a hell of a lot better on the whole in treating their employees fairly and giving them better workers righters than Activision-Blizzard is. Jason Schreier reported back when the deal was announced as well that most the ABK employees that he spoke to were cautiously optimistic about the deal.

In addition to all the above, thanks to the European Commission who unlike the FTC didn't fuck around for a year building a weak ass case, instead actually sat down with Microsoft to formulate pro-competition, pro-consumer deals. As a result, the EC told Microsoft their initial contract wasn't good enough, so they worked together on a better one, now it is a free license to Cloud Gaming Providers in the EEA to stream any Activision-Blizzard titles, a contract which is available to anyone who asks for it.

The moment Microsoft doesn't honour this contract, the EC will come down on them like a ton of bricks.

The CMA/FTC could have spent their time doing something similar, ensuring pro-competitive, pro-consumer benefits, which Microsoft was willing to do, such as the Sony 10 year offer, but they didn't and instead tried to block it based on weak grounds because "big tech bad" and now we're in a situation where both the FTC and CMA look like clowns and the EC looks like the best regulator, once again.

Who Doesn't Benefit

• PlayStation & PlayStation Consumers - This is a mixed bag even so let’s go through it because it does come with some other potential benefits. So, we start with the negatives, PlayStation Consumers may lose access to some future Blizzard New IPs and smaller Activision titles (Crash/Spyro?) if they go exclusive.
  
  COD players are NOT losing anything. COD is NOT being removed from PlayStation. The FTC searched over 1m documents from Microsoft internal emails and found zero evidence that Microsoft has any intention or desire to remove COD from PlayStation because it makes zero financial sense for a title that large. Phil also testified under oath that they won't remove COD from PlayStation.
  
  You only have to listen to Phil's testimony to be convinced of that; He outright said in court that his division (Microsoft Gaming) is treated differently to most other Microsoft divisions. Xbox is being closely monitored by Microsoft's CFO, he outright said they HAVE to profit, they HAVE to continue to grow, they don't just get a blank chequebook from Microsoft. They have to stand on their own two feet and an exclusive COD won't help that but a multiplatform COD will prop the business up. Activision-Blizzard has to instantly make money for Xbox the moment the deal closes.
  
  It's like Minecraft but on a larger scale, Minecraft isn't exclusive, it never will be exclusive because it makes zero financial sense, there is no contract to release Minecraft on PlayStation or the spinoffs. These titles are simply far too big to justify it, have far too many current fans on PlayStation systems who won't switch and rely heavily on MULTIPLAYER interconnected communities.
  
  There were numerous polls conducted by regulators on the matter, they all came to the same conclusion (aside from FTC's but we'll get to that) that the amount who would switch from PlayStation to Xbox in the event of COD exclusivity would be a small amount, an amount which would not give Microsoft a clear advantage, the best case scenario was that Microsoft would gain a small lead over PlayStation (way smaller than the lead that PS4 had over Xbox One) and the most likely scenario would be a draw or just below.
  
  The FTC's poll indicated a 20%+ switching rate but the Judge ripped it apart as having numerous mathematical mistakes in the modelling and not taking into account numerous factors, The CMA's poll only indicated around a 5% switching rate (IIRC) of users abandoning PlayStation for Xbox but they also made a large maths mistake which caused them to throw out their console argument in the whole.
  
  Everyone aside from the FTC has come to the same conclusion: There is no Console SLC and no financial incentive for making COD exclusive, they've all conducted numerous studies on this matter.
  
  Now onto how PlayStation consumers may actually benefit, it's simple, a stronger Xbox is a good thing for the industry, it can cause PlayStation (who are more than capable) to invest more aggressively into PlayStation which can in turn lead to new technologies, new services, more exclusives, etc. PlayStation could EASILY compete with Microsoft in Cloud with the content that they have and I think a PlayStation style Game Pass would grow much faster than Xbox's Game Pass.

Dev Kit Argument

• This argument is junk. Microsoft already sends dev kits to San Diego Studio for MLB The Show and will do the same for Bungie. If Sony withholds dev kits from Microsoft, then that is Sony harming consumers, not Microsoft, it would be their choice. In addition, it's an unfounded fear when they can easily slap a million NDAs on devkits (and do today) and Microsoft would be sued up the ass for breaking them. It makes no sense as well because consoles are typically set in stone around a year from release aside from some minor changes, that is more than enough time to get a COD port and it's only an issue which will present itself once a generation.

Ultimately, the only loss I see to Sony Gamers is that they may lose some New IPs from Blizzard and some smaller titles (Crash, Spyro) from Activision...Fine. Jim Ryan himself said that exclusives are not anticompetitive and acquiring Activision-Blizzard isn't anticompetitive. Sony has money-hatted plenty of exclusives on the level of Crash/Spyro and will continue to do so in the future, that's the industry.

No, I don't think Diablo 5 will be exclusive either, when it releases in 10 years that is, nor do I think Overwatch 3 would be, that is even if that happens and it isn't just an update on top of Overwatch 2 like Overwatch 2 was to Overwatch 1.

Movie Industry

This comparison fails at the start because this is a vertical merger, Disney acquiring Fox was a horizontal merger, it would be a horizontal merger if Microsoft were acquiring Nintendo, horizontal and vertical mergers are looked at through different lenses, Microsoft is not acquiring a direct competitor in the market, thus it is vertical.

Also, I don't really think it holds as a comparison even outside of that, I would argue that the film industry is far more condensed than the gaming industry. In the film industry at the time of Disney acquiring Fox there was like 5-6 notable players (Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney, Sony and Fox). In the gaming industry, there is currently Sony, Nintendo, Tencent, EA, Bandai Namco, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Epic Games, Capcom, NetEase, Embracer Group, etc. All who have major highly successful IPs under their belt.

Embracer Group came out of nowhere to become (temporarily) one of the largest videogame publishers even with an over $10bn market valuation, overtaking Ubisoft.

In addition, I would argue the barrier to entry in the videogame industry is lower than the film industry, if you can't get into cinemas then you're basically screwed and the cinema industry is largely dominated by the big players hogging the theatre seats. The gaming industry does not have this problem, there is no "physical" limit to your capacity, in the gaming industry you can publish your title to numerous digital stores without having to sign up to a major publisher (even so, there are a lot of them). As a result, indie companies very often have huge successes on console platforms, PC platforms, etc.

In the past 10 years, over 50+ gaming studios have been established, many of them being AAA. Multiple have received dozens or even hundreds of millions in investor funding simply for having a known name at the studio. This has happened since the beginning of the gaming industry, a company is acquired, a few veterans leave, they go on to set up a new studio and publishers or investors come running to throw cash at them based on their name alone. You'll see people leave ABK when the acquisition is complete and do the same, hell, it is already happening, multiple studios are being formed by former Blizzard employees in the past few years, being an indie in the videogame industry is a lot easier than the film industry.

There is plenty of AAAs to go around still, there is plenty of popular IPs to go around, Sony will be fine, the industry will be fine. People were acquiring no matter what but whilst people are acquiring, new studios are constantly being formed from the people leaving the acquired studios, the cycle continues. Activision-Blizzard will be replaced by EA as the largest publisher and another publisher will fill the gap of one major publisher "leaving" if you can even call it that since ABK will still act largely independently and not much will change for platform holders.

King is irrelevant to take into account for console owners and absolutely nothing will change for them. Activision is largely focused on COD and the occasional Spyro or Crash, WoW situation is irrelevant for console owners, Blizzard is largely focused on Overwatch and Diablo (both already on PlayStation) Microsoft is barely going to get any exclusives out of this in the short-mid term at least. The gaming industry is far too large and diverse to be worried about one publisher.

A hypothetical (extreme) future of 3 companies owning every publisher wouldn't be Microsoft's fault because it would happen regardless if that would come to pass, which I don't think it will, for all the reasons I've stated above and after how damn hard it was to get ABK through, I doubt Microsoft will be acquiring another publisher anytime soon, if they're even allowed. Tencent might be blocked simply on political grounds of them being a Chinese company, Lol (The frigging US National Security Panel investigated Tencent's acquisition of Sumo Digital even and required "measures" to approve it). Sony is already a dominant leader so they'll also go through tough scrutiny.

I don't understand this narrative, really. To me, SONY offers the best subscription service for the best price, that is PSN Essential, great monthly games that I get to keep, they also do not rotating in and out. 

I play mainly on the Switch, my PS5 is my secondary machine, I have accumulated a library of over 400 games paying the bare minimum for PSN Plus essential, this includes all sorts of AAA titles, including FF7r, FF15, GoW reboot, Horizon, the list is literally endless. On the other hand, MS deliberately killed off its most basic tier in an attempt to push more gamers to higher priced subscriptions. If I had both options available to me on the PS5, I would still go for PSN Essential. I don't go through games like underwear like some of you do here, which is why I don't like the rotating in and out aspect, I get to play games at my own pace. To me, it seems like MS needs step up its game and be more consumer friendly to those who don't want to pay for higher tier subscriptions. 

You're right about Tencent, the West is spooked by China right now, they had to pass a fucking security review just to acquire Sumo Digital, ain't no chance Tencent is allowed to acquire a major publisher in the current climate, Lol.

Sony will be scrutinised for already being a market leader (and more importantly, they don't need to acquire a major publisher). Comcast reportedly already tried (and failed) to acquire EA. Microsoft took an absolute battering with ABK. Ubisoft will continue to desperately cling onto independence by using Tencent as a money source, as they've been doing since way before the ABK acquisition. Yves has made moves to ensure he still owns the company and can prevent any future hostile takeovers.

I disagree on your comment about Minecraft, I don't think it's about opposing forces, lack of direction or consistency, I think it was a purely money one.

Here is what Phil said when questioned.

Q Is Minecraft a significant revenue driver for Xbox? - Yes.
Q How does Xbox compare some of the other platforms on there? - It is the smallest
Q How does it compare to PlayStation to Xbox? - Roughly twice as big.
Q What about Nintendo? - Roughly twice as big as PlayStation. 4x as big as Xbox.
Q If you compare the net revenue to the gross margin, how profitable is Minecraft? - Minecraft is one of the most profitable, if not the most profitable first-party game.

Mojang is also Xbox's largest studio with nearly 1,000 employees. I think it's simply a logical financial decision. To remove Minecraft from PlayStation and make it exclusive would be shooting themselves in the face, it is simply far too big and they'd lose a huge amount of current revenue and profit if they were to remove it from PlayStation, there is no guarantee that enough would switch.

Microsoft acquired Mojang in 2014 as well...Back when the Xbox division was on its knees, they were receiving a lack of funding, they were on an extremely tight leash, Minecraft probably justified keeping the Xbox division around for a little bit longer, it wasn't until 2017 when Satya and Phil decided to start reinvesting in Xbox and go forward with a new vision, before then it was pretty dire with rumours that Microsoft might be shutting them down, Lol.

Phil testified under oath that Xbox Division is treated differently to the rest of Microsoft Divisions, that contrary to popular belief, Microsoft isn't just throwing cash at them, Microsoft demands that the Xbox division profits, that the Xbox division continues to grow, they demand that Xbox divisions becomes more inline with other divisions inside of Microsoft in terms of profit and revenue, I think based on all of this, Minecraft is likely playing a not so small part in funding the Xbox division and making it stand on its own two feet without daddy Microsoft having to constantly throw extra cash at them.

The money used from Minecraft can then go on to invest in other Xbox things, such as Xbox exclusives, as Sony stated in their testimony, the revenue they receive from COD sales helps them to fund their own 1st party titles (I think they could do it without COD but I also believe them when they say it helps). Minecraft is used (Imo) for that same purpose.

People have this misguided notion that Microsoft just throws infinite amounts of money at Xbox and is happy with a division constantly losing money, like at the end of the day, Microsoft is a business, and the Xbox division has a responsibility to provide a profitable one, Xbox division is profitable but Microsoft wants it more profitable, an easy way to make yourself unprofitable is by acquiring an IP worked on by thousands of employees, costing hundreds of millions in CODs case and yanking it from half of the userbase in the desperate hope that everyone would jump over to your console when most user polls have indicated that not enough would switch to make that scenario profitable.

I don't know if this is quite as true as you are thinking, at least today. If 2014 Sony bought Mojang, that seems like a safe assumption. If current Sony bought Mojang, I don't think it's a safe assumption.

Current Sony is pushing harder on PC, mobile. They have Bungie continuing to work on Xbox games. It wasn't exactly Sony's choice, but they have San Diego working on Xbox and Nintendo games. 

Sony's doing a lot of things that most wouldn't have expected 5 years ago, and I don't think it's out of the question that in 5 more years that Sony might be even more in line with what Microsoft is doing.  

If Sony added a day-one release to their subs for a similar pricing strategy as Game Pass, it would be a clear prosumer improvement in their value proposition and I'd subscribe to it, absolutely no question about it.

Same thing if Sony started to support PC adequately. That's where I play most of the time and it would be so nice to play Sony titles more frequently on there.  that would be another undeniable prosumer move.

The thing is Sony benefits from a long-time unchallenged dominant position and it shows to some extent, they have a way higher profit margin than Xbox has. And it all boils down to this, profit margin, if a company succeed in getting a higher profit margin then that means they are able to extract more from the same offering or extract the same amount from a lesser offering (in term of production cost), or both. In a place where competition is extremely healthy the ability for a company to do so is lessened and maybe even close to non-existent, and consumers win. In a place where one actor benefits from a dominant position, they can increase profit margin and consumers lose.

Both decisions to not support PC consistently or subs with day one title have not been taken for the sake of their consumer but for the sake of their own benefits because they can. Xbox started supporting both, again not for consumer sake, but because, in their case, they could not do otherwise as they found themselves in a position where they could not compete effectively with "traditional" console-focused methods and pricing strategy and so were forced to react or quit. 

Well any time two gigantic companies merge, it's cause for concern.

But based on everything that has transpired, I don't think MS's intention is to monopolize others out of business or do something particularly malicious. Not only because they know what that loss in consumer trust can do to their brand, as with the Xbox One DRM fiasco. But mainly because their business model seems to be built around thriving while their competition is thriving. They're not going to sell the most boxes that can play their games. Sony and Nintendo will.

Whether they ever end up getting them to accept Game Pass on their platform or not, they'll still make money off their games selling on those systems.
And the better Sony and Nintendo are doing, the more their games will sell there.

All this is just why it's "not necessarily a bad thing" that they merged. But is it a good thing?
Some positives are to be expected, but maybe not a lot.

However, and this is purely speculative...
But there is a world where someone other than Microsoft could have aquired Activision Blizzard.

Would we rather Amazon, Google, Apple, etc aquire them?
Or someone that actually gives a shit about video gaming, like Xbox? (Not everyone, but we know they have a number of higher ups that do.)

What is your point? I am not sure what you're going on about. 

SONY is more consumer friendly to me and offers the best value service bar non, they also offer me more options, I don't want PSN essential to be killed off and be forced to pay for PSN extra like MS did with their essential tier.

MS slowly and deliberately killed off their most basic tier in an attempt to boost higher priced tier subscriptions, SONY hasn't followed suit in this anti-consumer practice despite their "dominant position". The suggestion that only SONY subscriptions need to be competitive or more consumer friendly is false, MS is deliberately offering less choices in terms of subscription tiers, MS subs options can and should be more consumer friendly too. 

True Sony has shown some openness to multiple recently though part of me believes they accepted Bungie therms only in a bid to extract the same commitment from MS in regards to Bethesda and ABK which we can see Ryan ask Spencer to commit to in (I believe it was) the august email.

Some of it has to be console wars garbage. Xbox shills are happy that certain titles will stay off of PlayStation and Nintendo (but they're still going to be on Windows).
Rooting for any kind of exclusive (console, true, timed, etc.) is virtually always a selfish and baffling behavior. One of the few 9th generation games that makes sense to only be on PS5 is Astro's Playroom for its reliance on the DualSense and its celebration of PlayStation. Other than that, 99.9% of PS5 games should be on other platforms. And in all fairness, there are very few locked to PS5.
It would be awesome if we can get to the point where virtually every game is on as many platforms as possible, or at least console exclusive while being on PC.