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BREAKING NEWS: UK regulator suggests removing Call of Duty from Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition (TLHBFR!!!)

FIREPOWER

By FIREPOWER,
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jehurey

which would be a dead giveaway that Microsoft was clearly trying to buy Activision because they were planning on doing anti-competitive things with Call of Duty.   You're pretty much catchin

Substatic

FIREPOWER

Yep, I feel this deal would have had a better chance to go through unimpeded if MS weren't completely dogshit at competing against Sony.   They've been in the business for more than two deca

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Voidler

Voidler 1,675

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4 hours ago, Jerrys Hair Line said:

MS just made Sony look like clowns. If the deal does go through, I wouldn’t be surprised if COD is gone from PS based on Sony denying the deal. :D 
 

MS says that Sony's motion should be denied and provides 10 pages of arguments. MS says that:

- Sony has unleashed its executives and high-priced economists to petition the Commission, as well as regulators around the world, to block the transaction. MS mentions 4 redacted examples.

- Sony's campaign has worked because the Commission's theory of harm relies almost exclusively on the facially implausible claim that the acquisition is anticompetitive because Microsoft will withhold from Sony a single game (Call of Duty).

- Despite leading the charge to stop the transaction, Sony claims it should not be required to produce documents on the very topics it has put at issue.

- Sony should produce documents from Lin Tao and Hideaki Nishino because Tao is the key custodian with information about SIE's financial health and plans and Nishino is the head of SIE's hardware business, another topic of central importance.

- Sony relies on blanket assertions of privilege and the burden of reviewing McCurdy's files because he is a lawyer. But, according to his job posting, McCurdy is also responsible for SIE's public policy engagement.

- Sony has refused to provide a predecessor custodian for Christian Svensson, who manages SIE's relationship with Activision, even though Svensson has only been in his position since 2021. MS says that that relationship is of the upmost importance, and SIE has not supported its assertion that Svensson's manager would have the same documents as Svensson's predecessor.

- Regarding the requests for data about the performance of SIE's gaming business, Sony has not explained why pulling and producing data from its central files, without any need for responsiveness or privilege review, would be unduly burdensome.

- Requests 14(d) and 19 are about specific documents—valuations, board documents, and regulatory submissions—related to SIE's cloud-gaming acquisitions of Gaikai in 2012 and OnLive in 2015. MS says that providing targeted information about SIE's own cloud-gaming efforts is relevant to assessing the viability of that claim and is not unduly burdensome.

- Microsoft seeks performance reviews for SIE custodians. Microsoft is not seeking to embarrass SIE's leadership; it seeks to understand the metrics on which SIE's executives and business are evaluated.

- Request 35 seeks executed copies of content-licensing agreements between SIE and third- party gaming publishers. MS says that these contracts are relevant. Microsoft says that they are aware that PlayStation requires many third-party publishers to agree to exclusivity provisions, including preventing the publishers from putting their games on Xbox's multi-game subscription service. But that they do not fully understand the extent of SIE's arrangements or how they impact the industry's competitiveness.

- Microsoft requests that Sony produce documents that SIE submitted to these regulatory authorities in connection with this transaction. SIE has refused, agreeing only to produce submissions to the European Commission and United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority, based on claims of burden.

- Contrary to the allegation that Microsoft will make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox, since announcing the deal, Microsoft has repeatedly offered to enter into an agreement to license Call of Duty to SIE—first for five years (this is new!) and then for ten, an unheard-of duration in the industry. SIE has refused. Microsoft seeks documents about these negotiations, including SIE's internal consideration of Microsoft's offers and why it has refused them.

- Request 14(f) seeks information about SIE's investment in virtual reality technology for its console, which SIE executives have highlighted as a strategic imperative and "a giant leap forward in the way we play games.

You do realise there is no scenario open for MS to get this through which results in COD not being on PS right?

 

The CMA only left open behavioural remedies (eg an even longer licensing agreement or a licensing agreement in perpetuity for COD), and generally behavioural remedies aren't enough for CMA. Or the more likely structural remedy which is COD and the companies involved in making it being sold off

 

The deal is dead in the water 

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jehurey

jehurey 3,237

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6 minutes ago, Jerrys Hair Line said:


the *balding* fakeboy thinks he’s funny :tom:

Bald Cucky Ducky is getting so angry.:hest:

 

He's now projecting his own fakeboyness, since we know he's trying to impress us with his NEPHEWS gaming hardware. LOL

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