I don't mind the complaint about CMA being undemocratic because it's a council of unelected bureaucrats, it's just trash-talk from someone that didn't get what they wanted; to be expected.
IMO the reason why this decision is really dumb is because the reason given was cloud gaming.
I think that people are missing this.
This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently closed down, or similar.
The idea of blocking a deal because maybe this technology will become much more popular one day and maybe Microsoft will be the success is IMO dumb. It's just a dumb argument.
Concerns about CoD and PlayStation at least make sense, but not given here.
Did you actually read the report that the CMA released?
They are not basing the block on some "maybe" future, but on current reality.
> Microsoft already accounts for an estimated 60-70% of global cloud gaming services and has other important strengths in cloud gaming from owning Xbox, the leading PC operating system (Windows) and a global cloud computing infrastructure (Azure and Xbox Cloud Gaming).
Microsoft already has a majority of the market. CMA asked Microsoft to provide guarantees they wouldn't abuse their position if they also owned Activision/Blizzard, and whatever guarantees Microsoft provides weren't enough to convince CMA.
> Microsoft’s proposal contained a number of significant shortcomings connected with the growing and fast-moving nature of cloud gaming services:
> It did not sufficiently cover different cloud gaming service business models, including multigame subscription services.
> It was not sufficiently open to providers who might wish to offer versions of games on PC operating systems other than Windows.
> It would standardise the terms and conditions on which games are available, as opposed to them being determined by the dynamism and creativity of competition in the market, as would be expected in the absence of the merger.
Basically, Microsoft tried to weasel their way through the merger so they can prevent other actors from competing with them on a level playing field. Exactly the kind of shit CMA should block.
The conclusion:
> Accepting Microsoft’s remedy would inevitably require some degree of regulatory oversight by the CMA. By contrast, preventing the merger would effectively allow market forces to continue to operate and shape the development of cloud gaming without this regulatory intervention.
Paraphrased: "Either we have to keep close track of them if merger is accepted, or we can just let companies compete in the market"
It made no sense at all, but there was a time when major parts of the game industry was talking about cloud gaming as if it were a thing and the media was going along.
Normally we have to let lies and bullshit from corporations wash over us, all we can do is complain on forums and still have to argue with Kool Aid drinkers.
If bullshit over cloud gaming meant Microsoft couldn't get what they wanted then it is payback... Sometimes you gotta learn that actions have consequences.
---
Also there is a huge amount of confusion about what "cloud" means. For instance most of Adobe Creative "Cloud" is a set of desktop applications with limited cloud integration. What is has in common with with real cloud products (Salesforce.com, Figma) is that you pay for it with a monthly subscription.
Microsoft would love to just get your money month after month so you can play Assassin's Creed Episode 4215 and Call of Duty: Battle of Bakhmut and they don't care if you as a consumer know what kind of hardware it is running on but you'd better be sure the bean counters are aware that they could sell a "gaming PC" equivalent cloud instance to somebody in Azure for a dollar an hour so the economics can't possibly add up. Yet the cloud gaming bullshit still keeps rolling, at the last keynote NVIDIA's CEO was saying kids might game from the back seat of a car but what phone company is going to invest the last 800% of costs to get cell phone coverage in the last 20% of places?
I have access to Microsoft's xCloud as part of my Xbox Game Pass sub. I never use it. The lag is too great. I am sure certain kinds of games could work reasonably well on it, but overall it's just such a poor experience.
I'd rather either bring a Switch while traveling or just play a game on my phone or iPad.
I can't believe the deal might fall apart because Microsoft has a "dominant" position in basically a non-existent market that there is no evidence will ever become a market. There are cloud games that work well. If the deal falls apart over this, and not the actual concerns about MS owning huge IP, this regulation is truly broken.
These are not the kinds of games that people buy PlayStations and Xboxes for. Jackbox party games? Sure. Awesome in the cloud. A turn-based strategy or RPG? Why not. Anything that requires reflexes? Not happening.
> I don't mind the complaint about CMA being undemocratic because it's a council of unelected bureaucrats, it's just trash-talk from someone that didn't get what they wanted; to be expected.
Is it really "trash talk" if it's 100% true?
> The idea of blocking a deal because maybe this technology will become much more popular one day and maybe Microsoft will be the success is IMO dumb. It's just a dumb argument.
You have to realize that these unelected bureaucrats have to justify their pension funds and headcounts. They NEED to block something so they can brag they "protected" the UK against some "monopolistic evil foreing tech giant".
I think you are defining cloud gaming more restively then the cma. They meant games as a service, particularly when they say MSFT can offer games on Windows computers in a way no competitor can match (ie free).
The reason may be dumb but I'm anti-monopoly enough that I simply don't care. Anything that even slightly hinders companies from completely removing any form of competition in the space makes me happy.
Does "cloud gaming" encompass things like Xbox Game Pass though? Subscription model with downloadable access to all games definitely feels cloudy to me.
> This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently closed down, or similar.
It's a market. Google bungling Stadia doesn't make it any less of a market, or we wouldn't be seeing Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon (to a much lesser extent) pouring money into it.
Regardless of your bubble, lots of people use cloud gaming services. There is no way to have concrete numbers, but the Stadia subreddit still has 110k subscribers months after the service shut down. That's not "almost nobody" on the dead service.
This is what it says in the report about cloud gaming:
> In relation to cloud gaming services, Microsoft has a combination of assets that we consider is difficult for other cloud gaming service providers to match. By owning Windows, the OS for which the vast majority of PC games are designed, Microsoft could stream games from Windows servers without having to pay a Windows licensing fee or adapt games designed for Windows to an alternative OS. By having Xbox Cloud Gaming and Azure, Microsoft has both a short-term and a longer-term solution to host cloud gaming, leveraging its large and well distributed global cloud infrastructure to stream its games without having to pay a fee to third-party cloud platforms. And by having an existing console ecosystem, Microsoft has a range of popular games that it can offer. As such, we consider that Microsoft has a strong position in cloud gaming services and will remain an important competitor as the market expands and evolves.
Essentially, they have a larger foothold in cloud gaming than any other competitor, and by controlling the software and some of the most popular platforms for gaming, they have a vast advantage over other opponents to the merger, e.g. Sony.
Which makes sense. While I don't expect cloud gaming to overtake traditional local gaming in the short term, allowing Microsoft to buy some of the most popular franchises out there and the largest US publisher, may create an artificial behemoth in the field, impossible to overcome.
Since this whole argument is untestable wild guessing: maybe there was a future in which Microsoft buying Activision pushed more companies to hedge against a possible MS monopoly by properly supporting Linux, like Valve has been doing for the past years.
I hate to admit it. But that was a decently argued point that CMA made.
I was thinking about how silly it was that they were worried about a “monopoly” on a market that doesn’t even really exist and most of my opinion was formed by both my usual prejudice about ignorant government officials and listening to Ben Thompson’s take (Stratechery).
I didn’t even think about the Windows or Azure angle since I don’t use either.
Microsoft basically said that the UK is a bad place to do businesses because they didn't got what they wanted. An extremely entitled and childish comment coming from someone that should know better.
Microsoft is showing its most unprofessional and belligerent face going back to the worst times of the company. Remember the FUDs about Linux, the lies about DR-DOS, ... Microsoft is back and needs to be corrected.
I don't know how anyone fell (or continues to fall) from companies acting like the good guys when things are hard for them, because as soon as they can, they'll abuse their position. And this is not specific to Microsoft, it's every public company driven by shareholders. Why would anyone expect anything differently here?
Activision was the one who said the UK is "closed for business". All microsoft said is that they plan to appeal the decision because they believe it was based on a flawed understanding of the cloud gaming market[0].
I think anyone would be grumpy if they didn't get what they wanted and they will have to pay a 3 billion Dollars penalty to Activison when the Deal falls Apart
If you read the report then the CMA comes across terribly. They don't understand basic technical facts. Apparently a competitor to Microsoft told the CMA that they solved latency issues with cloud gaming by increasing GPU power. Someone should alert the nobel prize committee about conquering the speed of light.
They make other bizarre claims like apparently everyone that subscribes to xbox game pass does so for cloud gaming. Cloud gaming isn't even offered in most markets. There is no way people are subscribing to game pass for cloud gaming, its not even good.
Its obvious to anyone with a brain that peer-to-peer is the way forward with game streaming because it solves the latency problems.
I think a lot of people are ignoring MS. It does seem more like an I'll judged emotional outburst than a reasoned reaction. The competition authority in the UK is well respected so their conclusion is going to be given great weight by the EU and the US. Given the EUs track record, they're likely to be stricter than the UK, so the CMA adjudication is a good forward indicator that the deal is basically dead.
Using cloud gaming as an argument to block this merger, sets a dangerous precedent.
Effectively, CMA is dreaming a future where cloud gaming has taken over. It is passing a judgement based on where the industry could go, rather than where it is now. This allows a bureaucratic organizations to impede companies based on arbitrary & unsubstantiated fears.
The future is unknowable and unpredictable. The last console generation really dragged on because there was concern that consoles were dying. Well, this generation is selling better than ever. PC gaming is exploding in popularity too. The Switch is a sensation.
All the cloud gaming predictions haven't happened. Mobile gaming hasn't killed traditional gaming either.
In fact, it turns out that all those precautions were largely wrong. There is a huge market for high-quality games you play on local hardware for maximum visual and input fidelity.
I too find it very dangerous for government regulators to be predicting a future that industry can't themselves predict. They are not experts on this industry and don't conduct user and market research. They are literally just guessing.
It is equally likely that cloud gaming never becomes a thing because phones keep getting more powerful and eventually they take the place of the future that cloud gaming was supposed to represent. Apple could eventually allow you to hook/locally stream an iPhone to a TV to use it as a console.
There will always be a market for hardcore hardware like consoles and PCs, but who is to say that the more casual option will be cloud gaming and not some world in which mobile devices can be used as less-powerful home gaming machines?
> It is passing a judgement based on where the industry could go, rather than where it is now. This allows a bureaucratic organizations to impede companies based on arbitrary & unsubstantiated fears
Seems disingenuous that MS wouldn’t leverage their monopoly on client/game OS into the cloud as well. It at least doesn’t seem arbitrary and unsubstantiated. And prevention is better than reaction in many cases.
I think it's fair that Microsoft is upset that they cannot do what their competitors have already completed.
If the UK proceeds with a mandatory breakup of Sony's holdings, I would then approve of how they're regulating the market.
If they, however, allow one titan to build an unstoppable first-party monopoly but bar only some of the competition from catching up, then I have serious concerns and misgivings with the misguided protection of the existing #1 business.
What would happen if Activision is acquired anyway by Microsoft? Could they simply exist as two separate entities in the UK, and a unified entity elsewhere? With all of the repercussions that entails for the users? Or simply they exit the market in the UK?
It seems like that nobody cares about anything of the players of Activision games. A lot people supports this takeover simply becase they hope Microsoft could be a better manager at making decisions about how the games are made and how the service operates. We simply want Bobby Kotick out, and Microsoft's acquire is our best chance.
"The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter.
AFAIK most US agencies are similarly disconnected or worse.
Whether "unelected" is a meaningful criticism to level at government systems is a separate question though. I feel like most roles are not ones where the voter could realistically have enough knowledge or education to actually make good decisions about who to appoint to roles with obscure or complex mandates. We seem to take democracy as an absolute good in all cases sometimes even though uninformed decisions can have catastrophic effects.
EDIT: I really shouldn't have to clarify this but apparently we're at the point where "this article poorly argues its thesis" is interpreted by some readers as "I love monopolies and/or activision"? So to be explicit: I think we need more antitrust enforcement, not less, but the article seems to make this case in a clumsy if not deceptive way
> If I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter.
The business secretary would typically be an elected as a member of parliament (MP, equivalent to a congress person). The leader of the majority party in parliament will form a government, mostly appointing elected MPs to government roles. So the business secretary has been elected, but not as business secretary.
This is ignoring the absurdly anachronistic House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament, who are mostly life appointments by various governments over the years (but also includes some hereditary peers, and an assortment of senior Church of England bishops). Lords can also be appointed to ministerial positions, although typically not the biggest jobs.
Well direct democracy for everything is a consistent position but I doubt that Microsoft unironically thinks that all appointed government posts are unaccountable.
>"The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter.
I don't have any skin in this game having not really played a games console for 6-7 years but when Microsoft started throwing their toys out of their pram and invoking Brexit I was pretty sure the CMA were probably right, if for the wrong reasons.
Don't get me wrong, I think Brexit was a monumentally stupid thing to do but it's was so far from relevant here that anyone invoking it was clutching.
I think it is clearly a government's job to ensure the health, safety, and prosperity of a country and its citizens.
Not allowing two big companies (is this the biggest merger ever?) join together for any reason that is in any way detrimental to the populace is clearly a good thing and within a government's remit.
I'm not sure why people are piling on so much scorn and derision against CMA.
For a living, I influence high level corporate strategy in the games industry. I’ve consulted for all the biggest companies in the space, including all the tech giants’ various gaming-related groups.
Let me be abundantly clear: the decision is utter nonsense. I’m not going into the details here, but the decision is an abysmal abomination and should be very concerning to all technology businesses, both because it signals that a relevant regulatory body is willing to make arbitrary and horribly-justified decisions with major material impacts, and because a story is emerging about the international regulatory collusion that drove this. It ABSOLUTELY IS an undemocratic power grab from politically-driven regulators that abrogates their core duties in favor of empowering themselves and their own political factions.
Additionally, it’s extra embarrassing for the UK because it signals an overly cozy relationship with Sony (which has more operations / employees in country) that reeks of regulatory capture by a local lobby. That and a willingness to jump through hoops for an ambitiously activist US FTC. Unfortunately, the net result is the UK coming off as a complete joke. I’m strongly advising clients to avoid expanding operations in the country and to genuinely consider abandoning the market.
Take it or leave it, but I write this all as someone who had otherwise been strongly arguing AGAINST the deal, because I think it’s bad for the games industry. But this kind of sloppy and arbitrary behavior from regulators is even worse, for all gaming and tech businesses… and, to some degree, for all business in general.
Edit-
I can’t elaborate on my reasoning here, but the full picture is out there for anyone interested in looking into it. This is a long and thorough rundown of the situation that serves as a good starting point: https://naavik.co/digest/microsoft-activision-blizzard-timel...
Microsoft is just throwing a tantrum over the CMA in the UK having a backbone to see for what Microsoft really is doing and this horizontal integration of existing multi-billion dollar franchises is bad for gamers. Even the UK Government isn't buying into Microsoft's bullshit of bringing title like Call of Duty to Nintendo Switch just to close the deal. [0]
Microsoft hasn't changed their anti-competitive behaviour. The methods are different but the strategy is the same, which they have gotten very clever over the decades.
> Microsoft hasn't changed their anti-competitive behaviour.
And the biggest evidence of that is that MS still uses their monopoly to step over Linux and other OSes at every chance:
> We found that the Microsoft Cloud Remedy had several shortcomings: [..] Microsoft would not have to supply Activision’s full range of games to providers that may decide to operate using a non-Windows PC operating system (eg Linux)
They literally would only allow competitors to gain access to Activision's catalogue if they promised to use it with Windows and only Windows.
I'm sure Be and others are having flashbacks. I am, at least.
And the worst part is that the EC would have very likely bent over and accepted this. Now I will never know, since the UK rejecting it makes it toxic.
It is a tough one. Microsoft is already huge and has some unclear intentions. They say they want some killer apps to serve as flagship games. But Sony is concerned they'll stop releasing games for Playstation. However the Xbox division is so far behind Sony it doesn't seem particularly worrying to me.
Microsoft looks like a giant in gaming when including PC gaming but there Valve takes most the distribution money.
I think this will ultimately result in more and more companies bypassing the UK. The CMA has proven to make arbitrary decisions unrelated to real competition concerns. While the EU is a large enough market for now, the UK could potentially just be skipped. All European markets are fading into irrelevancy, if the UK decided to be extra difficult to operate in, it will just accelerate its decline.
Nope. Ben Thompson's take here is actually more compelling. The CMA is hoping to help the nascent cloud gaming market when many a company has tried and failed and is -- I think -- needlessly punishing Microsoft in order to help the cloud gaming initiative that hasn't even proven is a viable business model.
this is honestly the most bizzare story in gaming ... first you have Sony that claims this acquisition will give MS an unfair advantage in cloud gaming yet they run all their cloud workloads on Azure, then you have the UK that agrees with Sony yet we all know they're just afraid that all the Activision players would leave their platform. And now people are acting like MS is the bad guy because what? they have money?
What I find interesting is MS has until July to close this deal but the FTC case only starts in august. Also the FTC is also suing to prevent this case from closing… if two of your biggest markets are trying to stop you from closing your deal, maybe just stop.
[+] [-] daniel-s|2 years ago|reply
IMO the reason why this decision is really dumb is because the reason given was cloud gaming.
I think that people are missing this.
This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently closed down, or similar.
The idea of blocking a deal because maybe this technology will become much more popular one day and maybe Microsoft will be the success is IMO dumb. It's just a dumb argument.
Concerns about CoD and PlayStation at least make sense, but not given here.
[+] [-] capableweb|2 years ago|reply
They are not basing the block on some "maybe" future, but on current reality.
> Microsoft already accounts for an estimated 60-70% of global cloud gaming services and has other important strengths in cloud gaming from owning Xbox, the leading PC operating system (Windows) and a global cloud computing infrastructure (Azure and Xbox Cloud Gaming).
Microsoft already has a majority of the market. CMA asked Microsoft to provide guarantees they wouldn't abuse their position if they also owned Activision/Blizzard, and whatever guarantees Microsoft provides weren't enough to convince CMA.
> Microsoft’s proposal contained a number of significant shortcomings connected with the growing and fast-moving nature of cloud gaming services:
> It did not sufficiently cover different cloud gaming service business models, including multigame subscription services.
> It was not sufficiently open to providers who might wish to offer versions of games on PC operating systems other than Windows.
> It would standardise the terms and conditions on which games are available, as opposed to them being determined by the dynamism and creativity of competition in the market, as would be expected in the absence of the merger.
Basically, Microsoft tried to weasel their way through the merger so they can prevent other actors from competing with them on a level playing field. Exactly the kind of shit CMA should block.
The conclusion:
> Accepting Microsoft’s remedy would inevitably require some degree of regulatory oversight by the CMA. By contrast, preventing the merger would effectively allow market forces to continue to operate and shape the development of cloud gaming without this regulatory intervention.
Paraphrased: "Either we have to keep close track of them if merger is accepted, or we can just let companies compete in the market"
[+] [-] PaulHoule|2 years ago|reply
Normally we have to let lies and bullshit from corporations wash over us, all we can do is complain on forums and still have to argue with Kool Aid drinkers.
If bullshit over cloud gaming meant Microsoft couldn't get what they wanted then it is payback... Sometimes you gotta learn that actions have consequences.
---
Also there is a huge amount of confusion about what "cloud" means. For instance most of Adobe Creative "Cloud" is a set of desktop applications with limited cloud integration. What is has in common with with real cloud products (Salesforce.com, Figma) is that you pay for it with a monthly subscription.
Microsoft would love to just get your money month after month so you can play Assassin's Creed Episode 4215 and Call of Duty: Battle of Bakhmut and they don't care if you as a consumer know what kind of hardware it is running on but you'd better be sure the bean counters are aware that they could sell a "gaming PC" equivalent cloud instance to somebody in Azure for a dollar an hour so the economics can't possibly add up. Yet the cloud gaming bullshit still keeps rolling, at the last keynote NVIDIA's CEO was saying kids might game from the back seat of a car but what phone company is going to invest the last 800% of costs to get cell phone coverage in the last 20% of places?
[+] [-] doctor_eval|2 years ago|reply
And anyway, who elected Microsoft?
[+] [-] pwthornton|2 years ago|reply
I'd rather either bring a Switch while traveling or just play a game on my phone or iPad.
I can't believe the deal might fall apart because Microsoft has a "dominant" position in basically a non-existent market that there is no evidence will ever become a market. There are cloud games that work well. If the deal falls apart over this, and not the actual concerns about MS owning huge IP, this regulation is truly broken.
These are not the kinds of games that people buy PlayStations and Xboxes for. Jackbox party games? Sure. Awesome in the cloud. A turn-based strategy or RPG? Why not. Anything that requires reflexes? Not happening.
[+] [-] 908B64B197|2 years ago|reply
Is it really "trash talk" if it's 100% true?
> The idea of blocking a deal because maybe this technology will become much more popular one day and maybe Microsoft will be the success is IMO dumb. It's just a dumb argument.
You have to realize that these unelected bureaucrats have to justify their pension funds and headcounts. They NEED to block something so they can brag they "protected" the UK against some "monopolistic evil foreing tech giant".
If you can't innovate... Regulate!
[+] [-] georgeecollins|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willio58|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akhosravian|2 years ago|reply
Microsoft believes in cloud gaming, and regulators have been caught with their pants down by thinking they knew better than industry. Repeatedly.
[+] [-] rospaya|2 years ago|reply
Is there a country where the organization ruling about competition cases is elected directly?
[+] [-] CodeWriter23|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbevans|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sofixa|2 years ago|reply
It's a market. Google bungling Stadia doesn't make it any less of a market, or we wouldn't be seeing Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon (to a much lesser extent) pouring money into it.
Regardless of your bubble, lots of people use cloud gaming services. There is no way to have concrete numbers, but the Stadia subreddit still has 110k subscribers months after the service shut down. That's not "almost nobody" on the dead service.
[+] [-] manuelabeledo|2 years ago|reply
> In relation to cloud gaming services, Microsoft has a combination of assets that we consider is difficult for other cloud gaming service providers to match. By owning Windows, the OS for which the vast majority of PC games are designed, Microsoft could stream games from Windows servers without having to pay a Windows licensing fee or adapt games designed for Windows to an alternative OS. By having Xbox Cloud Gaming and Azure, Microsoft has both a short-term and a longer-term solution to host cloud gaming, leveraging its large and well distributed global cloud infrastructure to stream its games without having to pay a fee to third-party cloud platforms. And by having an existing console ecosystem, Microsoft has a range of popular games that it can offer. As such, we consider that Microsoft has a strong position in cloud gaming services and will remain an important competitor as the market expands and evolves.
Essentially, they have a larger foothold in cloud gaming than any other competitor, and by controlling the software and some of the most popular platforms for gaming, they have a vast advantage over other opponents to the merger, e.g. Sony.
Which makes sense. While I don't expect cloud gaming to overtake traditional local gaming in the short term, allowing Microsoft to buy some of the most popular franchises out there and the largest US publisher, may create an artificial behemoth in the field, impossible to overcome.
[+] [-] pid-1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarface74|2 years ago|reply
I was thinking about how silly it was that they were worried about a “monopoly” on a market that doesn’t even really exist and most of my opinion was formed by both my usual prejudice about ignorant government officials and listening to Ben Thompson’s take (Stratechery).
I didn’t even think about the Windows or Azure angle since I don’t use either.
[+] [-] hourago|2 years ago|reply
Microsoft is showing its most unprofessional and belligerent face going back to the worst times of the company. Remember the FUDs about Linux, the lies about DR-DOS, ... Microsoft is back and needs to be corrected.
[+] [-] capableweb|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voxic11|2 years ago|reply
[0] https://twitter.com/BradSmi/status/1651182266406584320
[+] [-] ff2400t|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbevans|2 years ago|reply
His remarks the other day are going to age terribly. He's basically everything Ballmer was but as a lawyer.
But, we should expect more of this if mega corporations are allowed to continue growing their market caps beyond the GDP of G7 nation states.
[+] [-] snowski3|2 years ago|reply
They make other bizarre claims like apparently everyone that subscribes to xbox game pass does so for cloud gaming. Cloud gaming isn't even offered in most markets. There is no way people are subscribing to game pass for cloud gaming, its not even good.
Its obvious to anyone with a brain that peer-to-peer is the way forward with game streaming because it solves the latency problems.
[+] [-] drumhead|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] screye|2 years ago|reply
Effectively, CMA is dreaming a future where cloud gaming has taken over. It is passing a judgement based on where the industry could go, rather than where it is now. This allows a bureaucratic organizations to impede companies based on arbitrary & unsubstantiated fears.
[+] [-] pwthornton|2 years ago|reply
All the cloud gaming predictions haven't happened. Mobile gaming hasn't killed traditional gaming either.
In fact, it turns out that all those precautions were largely wrong. There is a huge market for high-quality games you play on local hardware for maximum visual and input fidelity.
I too find it very dangerous for government regulators to be predicting a future that industry can't themselves predict. They are not experts on this industry and don't conduct user and market research. They are literally just guessing.
It is equally likely that cloud gaming never becomes a thing because phones keep getting more powerful and eventually they take the place of the future that cloud gaming was supposed to represent. Apple could eventually allow you to hook/locally stream an iPhone to a TV to use it as a console.
There will always be a market for hardcore hardware like consoles and PCs, but who is to say that the more casual option will be cloud gaming and not some world in which mobile devices can be used as less-powerful home gaming machines?
[+] [-] meroes|2 years ago|reply
Seems disingenuous that MS wouldn’t leverage their monopoly on client/game OS into the cloud as well. It at least doesn’t seem arbitrary and unsubstantiated. And prevention is better than reaction in many cases.
[+] [-] criley2|2 years ago|reply
If the UK proceeds with a mandatory breakup of Sony's holdings, I would then approve of how they're regulating the market.
If they, however, allow one titan to build an unstoppable first-party monopoly but bar only some of the competition from catching up, then I have serious concerns and misgivings with the misguided protection of the existing #1 business.
[+] [-] manuelabeledo|2 years ago|reply
Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard would create the second largest gaming company in the world by revenue.
In comparison, Sony's largest acquisition was Bungie, which was 30x smaller than Activision-Blizzard.
Also, the ruling specifically addresses cloud gaming, not consoles.
[+] [-] endisneigh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shanoaice|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manuelabeledo|2 years ago|reply
You mean like what they did with Halo? That worked out alright.
[+] [-] kevingadd|2 years ago|reply
"The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter.
AFAIK most US agencies are similarly disconnected or worse.
Whether "unelected" is a meaningful criticism to level at government systems is a separate question though. I feel like most roles are not ones where the voter could realistically have enough knowledge or education to actually make good decisions about who to appoint to roles with obscure or complex mandates. We seem to take democracy as an absolute good in all cases sometimes even though uninformed decisions can have catastrophic effects.
EDIT: I really shouldn't have to clarify this but apparently we're at the point where "this article poorly argues its thesis" is interpreted by some readers as "I love monopolies and/or activision"? So to be explicit: I think we need more antitrust enforcement, not less, but the article seems to make this case in a clumsy if not deceptive way
[+] [-] anonymous_sorry|2 years ago|reply
The business secretary would typically be an elected as a member of parliament (MP, equivalent to a congress person). The leader of the majority party in parliament will form a government, mostly appointing elected MPs to government roles. So the business secretary has been elected, but not as business secretary.
This is ignoring the absurdly anachronistic House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament, who are mostly life appointments by various governments over the years (but also includes some hereditary peers, and an assortment of senior Church of England bishops). Lords can also be appointed to ministerial positions, although typically not the biggest jobs.
[+] [-] dingledork69|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eynsham|2 years ago|reply
Well direct democracy for everything is a consistent position but I doubt that Microsoft unironically thinks that all appointed government posts are unaccountable.
[+] [-] scatters|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] permo-w|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kranke155|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fafqg|2 years ago|reply
You should see the European Commission.
[+] [-] VBprogrammer|2 years ago|reply
Don't get me wrong, I think Brexit was a monumentally stupid thing to do but it's was so far from relevant here that anyone invoking it was clutching.
[+] [-] flumpcakes|2 years ago|reply
Not allowing two big companies (is this the biggest merger ever?) join together for any reason that is in any way detrimental to the populace is clearly a good thing and within a government's remit.
I'm not sure why people are piling on so much scorn and derision against CMA.
[+] [-] elefanten|2 years ago|reply
Let me be abundantly clear: the decision is utter nonsense. I’m not going into the details here, but the decision is an abysmal abomination and should be very concerning to all technology businesses, both because it signals that a relevant regulatory body is willing to make arbitrary and horribly-justified decisions with major material impacts, and because a story is emerging about the international regulatory collusion that drove this. It ABSOLUTELY IS an undemocratic power grab from politically-driven regulators that abrogates their core duties in favor of empowering themselves and their own political factions.
Additionally, it’s extra embarrassing for the UK because it signals an overly cozy relationship with Sony (which has more operations / employees in country) that reeks of regulatory capture by a local lobby. That and a willingness to jump through hoops for an ambitiously activist US FTC. Unfortunately, the net result is the UK coming off as a complete joke. I’m strongly advising clients to avoid expanding operations in the country and to genuinely consider abandoning the market.
Take it or leave it, but I write this all as someone who had otherwise been strongly arguing AGAINST the deal, because I think it’s bad for the games industry. But this kind of sloppy and arbitrary behavior from regulators is even worse, for all gaming and tech businesses… and, to some degree, for all business in general.
Edit- I can’t elaborate on my reasoning here, but the full picture is out there for anyone interested in looking into it. This is a long and thorough rundown of the situation that serves as a good starting point: https://naavik.co/digest/microsoft-activision-blizzard-timel...
[+] [-] rvz|2 years ago|reply
Microsoft is just throwing a tantrum over the CMA in the UK having a backbone to see for what Microsoft really is doing and this horizontal integration of existing multi-billion dollar franchises is bad for gamers. Even the UK Government isn't buying into Microsoft's bullshit of bringing title like Call of Duty to Nintendo Switch just to close the deal. [0]
Microsoft hasn't changed their anti-competitive behaviour. The methods are different but the strategy is the same, which they have gotten very clever over the decades.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/04/uk-government-says-th...
[+] [-] AshamedCaptain|2 years ago|reply
And the biggest evidence of that is that MS still uses their monopoly to step over Linux and other OSes at every chance:
> We found that the Microsoft Cloud Remedy had several shortcomings: [..] Microsoft would not have to supply Activision’s full range of games to providers that may decide to operate using a non-Windows PC operating system (eg Linux)
They literally would only allow competitors to gain access to Activision's catalogue if they promised to use it with Windows and only Windows. I'm sure Be and others are having flashbacks. I am, at least.
And the worst part is that the EC would have very likely bent over and accepted this. Now I will never know, since the UK rejecting it makes it toxic.
[+] [-] trynumber9|2 years ago|reply
Microsoft looks like a giant in gaming when including PC gaming but there Valve takes most the distribution money.
[+] [-] bgorman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdsdfe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vxNsr|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewstuart|2 years ago|reply