FTC Argues Microsoft's Deal To Buy Activision Should Be Paused (reuters.com) 21
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday argued in federal court for a preliminary injunction to temporarily block Microsoft's acquisition of videogame maker Activision Blizzard, which would stop the deal from closing before the government's case against it is heard by an administrative judge. From a report: "If this deal is completed, the combined company ... is likely to have the ability, an incentive, to harm competition in various markets related to consoles, subscription services and the cloud (for gaming)," FTC lawyer James Weingarten said in the government's opening arguments in what is expected to be a five-day evidentiary hearing.
The FTC argues it needs a judge to block Microsoft and Activision Blizzard from closing their $69 billion merger until the agency's in-house court gets to rule on whether the combination hurts competition in the videogame industry. The FTC says the combination would give Microsoft's Xbox videogame console exclusive access to Activision games, leaving Nintendo consoles and Sony Group's PlayStation out in the cold. "I think you will see that every piece of evidence shows that it only makes sense for Xbox to make these Activision games to as many people on as many platforms as possible," Microsoft lawyer Beth Wilkinson said in opening arguments, adding that if an injunction is granted it could result in a three-year administrative proceeding that would kill the deal.
The FTC argues it needs a judge to block Microsoft and Activision Blizzard from closing their $69 billion merger until the agency's in-house court gets to rule on whether the combination hurts competition in the videogame industry. The FTC says the combination would give Microsoft's Xbox videogame console exclusive access to Activision games, leaving Nintendo consoles and Sony Group's PlayStation out in the cold. "I think you will see that every piece of evidence shows that it only makes sense for Xbox to make these Activision games to as many people on as many platforms as possible," Microsoft lawyer Beth Wilkinson said in opening arguments, adding that if an injunction is granted it could result in a three-year administrative proceeding that would kill the deal.
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Well what a compelling argument that completely refutes the GP's observation of Microsoft doing exactly what the FTC says they're trying to do in the recent past.
No wait, you basically posted the internet equivalent of a 3rd grader in the schoolyard yelling "nuh UH!!!" except with far more vulgarity.
You have added nothing to this conversation. In fact, you've lowered the signal-to-noise ratio through your shilling.
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There's a Microsoft shill population around here as always.
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It is not a personal attack if it is actually just descriptive. And here it is. Takes some actual insight to see that (very little).
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Indeed. And these are _stupid_ shills, i.e. the variant that does not even get paid. No honor or integrity in these people either way.
Re:They cited Bethesda (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft literally tried to put Game Pass cloud on PlayStation and Sony said no. Sony has tons of exclusives for the PlayStation and for years it's been understood that the main reason to get a PS5 (or PS4 for that matter) was to play the exclusives. Microsoft puts its exclusives on Game Pass and lets you play them without a console, just streaming to your (Samsung) TV, but somehow they're the bad guy here.
And of course, the Starfield thing is worth considering, except that Microsoft is signing legally binding agreements to keep Call of Duty on other platforms for 10 years. I can't even find anything saying that Microsoft ever planned to keep Starfield on PlayStation after the acquisition. In fact, I've found articles from the time of the acquisition saying exactly the opposite and quoting Microsoft.
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I was just thinking to myself "when was the last time the Federal government put this much effort into blocking a corporate merger?". I guess they see the games industry as not that big a deal and decided to flex their muscles with it. But Disney buying up everything or Newscorp buying every local news outlet around? Chirp chirp chirp.
FTC is dragging their feet (Score:5, Interesting)
They snooze, they should lose. The FTC should be told, "sorry but you missed your chance to interrupt the process. You can request reparations but the deal will close within the next few days."
The bulk of FTC's arguments (whatever they'll actually be) will probably be around whether the font of a document conforms to the US Government standards, or some silly technicality.
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The FTC has had ample MONTHS AND MONTHS to bring all of this administrative/bureaucratic nonsense to interrupt the process. But instead of moving quickly, they're dragging their feet and waiting until the literal eleventh hour to actually assess the deal. They snooze, they should lose. The FTC should be told, "sorry but you missed your chance to interrupt the process. You can request reparations but the deal will close within the next few days."
I reckon it simply takes this long to do due diligence, do research, gather evidence, reflect upon the data, come to a carefully considered opinion about quite subtle questions, collaborate with other people who have thought deeply about this matter, assemble a case that can persuasively argue+defend that conclusion, make sure the case is legally watertight.
I think under your scheme, the only government actions you'd allow would be hasty and ill-thought-out ones. Which might serve the ends of some people wh
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The FTC has had ample MONTHS AND MONTHS to bring all of this administrative/bureaucratic nonsense to interrupt the process. But instead of moving quickly, they're dragging their feet and waiting until the literal eleventh hour to actually assess the deal. They snooze, they should lose. The FTC should be told, "sorry but you missed your chance to interrupt the process. You can request reparations but the deal will close within the next few days."
I reckon it simply takes this long to do due diligence, do research, gather evidence, reflect upon the data, come to a carefully considered opinion about quite subtle questions, collaborate with other people who have thought deeply about this matter, assemble a case that can persuasively argue+defend that conclusion, make sure the case is legally watertight.
I think under your scheme, the only government actions you'd allow would be hasty and ill-thought-out ones. Which might serve the ends of some people who could turn around and say "look government actions are always hasty and ill-thought-out". But wouldn't serve society nor the electorate as well.
These federal agencies are not benign participants with no knowledge whatsoever about their agencies' past actions, current marketplace considerations, and potential industry trajectories. These agencies have deeply-involved subject matter experts, for starters. But they also have bureaucratic tendencies which limit how much information is shared outside of their walls!
The FTC had since January 2022, when the deal was publicly announced, to begin proceedings to stop its movement. Other agencies also got
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The FTC has had ample MONTHS AND MONTHS to bring all of this administrative/bureaucratic nonsense to interrupt the process. But instead of moving quickly, they're dragging their feet and waiting until the literal eleventh hour to actually assess the deal.
They didn’t wait until the 11th hour and your entire post is predicated on incorrect assumptions. The FTC filed suit in December 2022 to block the merger [ftc.gov]. What just now happened is that they won an injunction against the merger because the case isn’t set to start until August, after the merger would have gone through otherwise.
You can actually find the FTC’s timeline of the legal proceedings here: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-libr... [ftc.gov]
But their work actually began long before that. Activision d
Embarrassing (Score:4, Interesting)
You can tell that the FTC's lawyers haven't done their homework when they say that Microsoft's purchase will prevent Activision games from going to Nintendo consoles. The only Activision games currently on Switch are HD remakes and Crash Bandicoot 4. Microsoft has signed a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch once the deal closes. It's embarrassing to see the FTC putting this stuff out. They're going to get shredded in court and our tax dollars are going to pay for it, so that the FTC director can wage her war on big tech.
It is not the late 1990's Microsoft but... (Score:2)
It is no longer like the 1990's where Microsoft was the Unstoppable juggernaut. Where Apple, Google, and Amazon had humbled them a bit. However in Gaming, they are especially pron to their old ways, of Embrace, Extend Extinguish. As in the Console Market, Nintendo just kinda does its own thing, and Sony is its only main competitor and Sony isn't so much on a strong footing.
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Microsoft's in a pretty distant third place in the console space, and has been for around a decade at this point. It gets tricky to compare generations when Nintendo's Switch isn't on the same general cadence, but Sony has outsold Microsoft in the ballpark of two-to-one for the past two console generations, and Nintendo's generally been outselling both of them for years.
Microsoft was right when they said that the previous generation was the most important one, where everybody built their x86 console game li
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Microsoft's internal team is in disarray. The reason they are keen on acquisitions, mostly. They realize the MSFT console business is untenable if they don't change its course. But there's another issue also. Some people within MSFT realize that the Windows monopoly they have on the desktop is somewhat contingent on having control of non-console gaming, which is propelled by the Xbox stuff. Porting to Windows is basically not required. If they lose badly in the console space, there's no guarantee games