Microsoft Signs New 10-Year Deal Despite UK ActiBlizz Verdict

the more of these deals that get pushed through in the meantime, the better the odds of MS' success

I see your points, perhaps a few more similar deals with EU based Cloud gaming companies might be more in line with what EU regulators demand. Let's see were it goes, looks like Microsoft are not yet ready to throw in the towel.

Each additional one of these ten year deals convinces me more and more convinced that MS KNEW that cloud was always going to be a problem. It also makes me think that the fact MS feels that these deals are needed then the CMA decision isn't as ludicrous as people are saying.

Cloud gaming is the new gaming tech innovation for the current gen console

@Titntin I am still waiting for that hug you promised me but totally understand where you are coming from. Take care.

@Titntin your choice mate but why not just ignore articles about this if you’re fed up of them? There are still articles about games, this week alone I’ve been in threads commenting on QB, Control, Alan Wake 2, Star Wars, Gears etc. We are still talking about games if you look around.

Fight the power.

@Fenbops that makes too much sense for him.

I tried telling people that this wasn't over, it was perplexing how many thought it was over the other day and celebrated.
With more deals being announced and cloud providers like nvidia and boosteroid already publicly criticising the decision, there is plenty of legs left in this story.

I have also seen alot of people online say the CMA have never lost an appeal, which is completely wrong, they have several times, they even lost one a few months ago at the end of last year.

I'm not sure if it will go thru or not, but this is not the end. (I wish it was)

It's funny that the CMA is saying this is bad for competition and all the Xbox cloud competitors are saying that they want this deal because it will be beneficial for them. Almost like....the CMAs decision wasn't based on rational reasoning. They definitely trying to stack their deck for the appeal. But alas it's all about the EU now.

@Titntin I wholeheartedly agree. It would be fantastic if Pure Xbox put as much effort into covering actual games as they do in covering the Activision Blizzard acquisition or telling me what's coming to/leaving Game Pass every other day. That's information I could get from official channels.

In fact, I generally get more information on games that will come to Xbox/PC from reading Nintendo Life and Push Square than I do from Pure Xbox. Surely that's an issue?

@KaijuKaiser I think I may have been having a little joke there mate.

@Kaloudz the EU dislike big tech. Don’t be thinking EU is a walk in the park.

The big regulators are starting to catch up with major firms getting even bigger and more influential. If one of the major regulators has an issue, you can be sure the others do too.

I wonder if microsoft is taking 100% of the revenue like in the other deals which is totally not greedy or sketchy

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Exactly, the EU weren't afraid to stand up to Apple on charging ports so they wouldn't be afraid to stand up to MS either. Although I do think that they will approve the deal on this occasion.

They keep making these agreements because, ultimately, this deal will go through. And Microsoft knows this. This is where the industry is now. I'm old enough to remember when album sales actually meant something. Nowadays, almost no one buys music. They just stream it via subscription. We are now doing that with gaming. Sony just announced that they have sold 38 million PS5 consoles. I'm sure in some alternate past universe, that does matter. But, it's 2023. Meanwhile, Microsoft is probably saying "sure, and we have more than 50 million GP subscribers." Subscription based service is where the money/future is in gaming. This is why Microsoft is making all of these 10 year streaming deals with all of these companies, including Nintendo. Sony is quickly becoming the odd man out. I am baffled that almost no one sees this or admits this. Everyone still has their tongue up Sony's A**. There is a reason why Microsoft is a trillion dollar company and Sony is not.

@Titntin Enjoy your adventures away.

@Romans12 You're right, there is a reason that Microsoft is a trillion dollar company and Sony is not but it has absolutely nothing to do with gaming. The Xbox gaming division is heavily subsidised by it's parent company (MS), whereas PlayStation is largely one of the divisions that keeps its parent company (Sony) afloat. Microsoft is only making the moves it is because of the money it makes elsewhere, and because of the infrastructure they have in place because of who they are.

CMA: "In a sector that's barely got investment before now, we feel that Microsoft's deal would hurt the industry,"
Cloud Gaming: "Microsoft practically managed to pull cloud gaming into the mainstream, and is offering as many platforms as possible a chance to benefit."

Several years ago, Sony piloted the Playstation Now platform, which was indeed cloud streaming games. The problem was that the catalogue was poor and the system itself somewhat subpar, with a ton of caveats, including that it only worked on PS4, PS5 and Windows. They merged the functionality into the PS+ Premium tier a few months back.

Microsoft, meanwhile, turned a bunch of stripped down XBOX Series X consoles into server blades, offering the best possible experience on mobiles, PCs and both the XBOX One and Series consoles, using the same logic as services like GeForce Now, Shadow and Luma use to stream a high end PC to your home.

The amount of cloud streaming platforms that have gone bankrupt due to the server costs, with even the successful ones not being very profitable, means the only reason Microsoft is the only game in town as far as the CMA are concerned...
...is that they're effectively the only one that's still fully afloat.

@Kevw2006 Exactly my point. It will not end because of available revenue. And Microsoft constantly innovates the gaming industry by looking ahead. Look, I like my PS5 and I use it for exclusives. But the future is not console sales.

This will be mighty embarrassing for MS if the deal doesn't get approved.

@Romans12 I'm curious now, what constant innovations have MS brought to the gaming market?

@Kevw2006 GamePass is probably their biggest innovation in recent years, it's so good that it forced Sony to come up with something similar and it's changed the way a lot of people approach playing and buying video games. That's a pretty big deal.

That and they're forward thinking with them turning the Xbox brand into an all around gaming services brand, not just a game console.

@JayJ PS Now pre-dated game pass by around three years. MS just improved on the idea, made it more of a focus and added first party games but it wasn't an innovation.

@JayJ to be fair, a lot of Gamepass built off what PS+ did — especially in its early days when it had a set library for several months. And PS+ was iterating on services that came before, going all the way back to The Sega Channel.

All roads lead back to how ahead of their time Sega always was.

(Tounge-in-comment aside, I totally think MS found a innovative way to market and position GP thanks to that massive warchest)

@PsBoxSwitchOwner It's a catch-22 that depends on how well the regulators bother to study the gaming market. They dislike big tech, yes, but when you look at the gaming market it's a bunch of monopolies in each sector right now. In console Sony itself is boasting over 80% market in their territory which is not exactly big tech and not exactly not big tech, and in mobile there's the Apple/Tencent freight train while MS is the one willing to tow along the bit players as part of their strategy. Big tech A, or big tech B. Especially with cloud....there isn't really an alternative. That's a nightmare of cloud itself, but for EU in particular if they look properly at the state of gaming in their territory, they really won't be happy with the status quo either. Will they see that or just be blinded by big tech and not look though.

@Titntin IDK, I'm scrolling down Push and I see 3 business articles about Sony's never-ending success, 2 articles about ABK merger, and a third featuring a picture of Bobby which automatically makes it the worse site. Then the rumor and twitter articles, and also a few things about games. Seems par for the course, but they have more articles overall because they have more staff.

But I also agree wholeheartedly with @Markatron84, I tend to get more info about games I'll likely buy on XB on Push than I do on Pure. It's all a bit chicken and egg, Pure can't do that because pure has no staff because Pure has no traffic because Xbox has no games and all that... Someone suggested that Hookshot just merge all the sites into a gaming supersite rather than 4 separate sites for individual things. I kind of don't like the console war aspect of that, but OTOH, I don't see how they can resolve this issue of limited staff, filler content, duplicate content, awkward SEO headlines, etc with separate sites.

@Kevw2006 MS started doing that because the CMA and EU said cloud was a sticking point and they'd be looking for remedies. Before that MS was only focusing on PS because that's what the regulators were focused on. Sony was the first 10 year deal offer, then Nintendo, the cloud deals opened up after the regulators said that's their concern.

@Kevw2006 PS Now was nothing like GamePass. That was a streaming service for old games. GamePass lets you download new games.

@EvenStephen7 Nope, PS+ did what Xbox Live Gold started.

Everything Sony has done has been copying what Xbox innovated.

@JayJ PS+ launched in 2010. Xbox Games With Gold launched in 2013.

You’re right that Xbox Live Gold started earlier but they didn’t have “free” monthly games. Then again, PS2 was online a year before that already and Dreamcast had online games before both Xbox and PS2. Everyone iterates on one another.

Regardless, my original comment was obviously being silly and not meant to start some kind of debate. I just was having a laugh at how The Sega Channel was ahead of its time.

@Sebatrox Oh geeze, Patcher thinks it'll go through and GP is very profitable success. Whelp. That's it, Xbox done. Hope you like your new PS5!

OTOH that video made me end up watching an interview with Bobby. I don't think I can forgive this.

@FraserG While I share a lot of TinTin's sentiments (I too care less and less about this stuff and just want to play games), I also want to take the opportunity to say thanks too. I know in a lot of ways this is an unenviable and thankless job. I also know you guys have your hands tied to a degree: you're a small staff and, being honest here, at the moment your news choices basically revolve around updates to existing games, news on 3rd-party games, or the Activision-Blizzard case. That's not a lot to work with, especially if you have a daily content quota. That's honestly why I love the weekend thought pieces that are broader in scope (I think Ben typically does these?); they're a great way to bring value and make the best of a slow news cycle. But I think you guys are killing it and have always come up with creative and interesting ways to keep me coming back.

So again, just wanted to say thanks for the effort and hard work from you and team. These things often go unsaid but they're not unnoticed.

Also I know I've brought this up before but I'll shoot my shot again: I'd still love for some crossover stuff from you guys and other Hookshot sites. As a console-agnostic gamer I feel that I kind of both belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time (especially in the comment sections at times!). Not sure if crossovers are forbidden by the higher-ups or what kind of red tape they'd entail, but it could be another great way to bring value and maybe a fun content series. I know I'm certainly not the only one who owns and plays on multiple consoles, especially here on Pure Xbox.

@JayJ But you could argue that without PS Now game pass might never have existed, we'll never know. They're both the same concept but one was initially streaming and the other was download. Like I said they just expanded and improved the concept. Truth is they all copy off each other and try and improve on improve things.
I'm still waiting on a true innovation that MS has made, paying for online? Yeah we can all thank them for that one.
Saying everything Sony has done is copied off MS is inherently false.

@EvenStephen7 Very well put. I know this is often a thankless job, as I have worked on news sites. So I will say thank you to @FraserG and everyone in the staff. Even with all the MS-ABK news, this one's my favorite site of the four.

@NEStalgia i liked the thought of merging all Hookshot sites into one when reading your comment. But then I realised how detrimental that would be to all sites involved.

Go to any Activision Blizzard acquisition story on PX and read the comments, then compare the comments to a similar story on PS. On PS it's all "boo Microsoft" and on PX it's "boo Sony". Now imagine throwing those two viewpoints together; it'd be an utter s**t-show. Not that either community is entirely to blame, as both sites frame the merger in a light that will appeal to said communities. To be honest, it reminds me of the late 90's/early 2000's when magazines like Nintendo Official Magazine UK would use phrases like "Phony Greystation" and "Sega Dreampants" with a straight face.

@Kevw2006 exactly. If the deal was a clear cut as so many “experts” claimed - no way would Xbox be throwing 10 year deals like candy.

Their whole strategy has been one to try and push the deal through. These deals are now all sounding a bit silly.

@Markatron84 this whole saga has brought out the worst in many. Especially in the last few days. Ridiculous overblown reactions on both sides. People really wanted COD for free and were so invested I’m actually quite shocked.

Ditto on the celebrations on the other side.

The xenophobic comments towards the U.K. have been OTT too.

Mixing comments would be a disaster.

I personally can’t wait for it all to be over whichever way it goes.

I won’t play COD if it’s free on my GPU or if I have to pay for it, I’d like more third party games and more competitive markets so that’s my only horse in the race and even then it’s a grey area on this deal with the Bobby stuff and the fact they already sleep on all their IPs.

It’s a mess.

@Titntin I have to agree. I’ve especially struggled that the xenophobic comments against the U.K. have been allowed to stay here. Like the U.K. is a mess but so is everywhere. The CMAs decision shouldn’t be triggering the abuse it is.

I’ve said it from the start the focus should be games and not acquisitions and even gamers now seem more interested in discussing dividing and abusing each other.

So what you own a Playstation and I own a steam deck or whatever - let’s all be civil and discuss a love of gaming.

I own Xbox SX, ps5, oled Switch and steam deck.

The relentless defend “my console” narrative is pathetic.

This whole sorry affair has brought out the worst in so many and quite a few posters here I thought were nice people really aren’t. The bile they’ve posted is disgusting.

Also so many are still willing to die on a hill when they’ve been misinformed and don’t understand the topic.

Either way.

I look forward to games. Especially the massive pipe line of xbox games apparently coming…. Let’s hear more about them and not acquisitions all the time.

@Stocksy I look forward to games.

This is the sentiment that gets lost all too often. In all the talks and arguments about mergers, acquisitions, exclusives and whatnot, people spend way too much time arguing than just celebrating and looking forward to good games. The constant barrage of ActiBliz "news" does nothing to help.

@Stocksy It's not just the xenophobic comments that are a bit far. Claims of corruption just because a decision hasn't gone your way is taking things too far too.

Ironic thing is cloud gaming is about 10 years away from being relevant, if at all. Believe it was Paul Tassi shared math that VR is 100 more popular and/or install base than cloud gaming. Let that sink in for a moment. VR, folks. That super success it is eye roll

Until data caps are removed, better infrastructure, no latency, cloud gaming is just a pipe dream. Will never hit big in mainstream until those conditions are met.

@EvenStephen7 Sega Channel! Now that was something special in it's day. WAY ahead of it's time.

@Kevw2006 Oh I definitely think the competition between the two breeds improvement all around.

I guess that's why I have always been for this deal, it will make Microsoft closer to Sony and therefore force Sony to try harder.

@JayJ I was a SNES kid but I wanted a Genesis and Sega Channel SO bad. Thanks for nothing, mom and dad.

@Markatron84 Yeah, merge all the comments and you basically just get IGN and Reddit. On the other hand keep seperate sites and you have a lack of news and staff and duplicate articles on different sites that are slightly rewritten to cover the same thing.

Maybe unified news/front pages that show up identically on segregated comment sites or something. There's not a good solution because humans are tribal sewage with feet, and gamers are worse.

Bill Gates went up against the US government over what he had bundled on Windows operating system he didn't give a damn. Now the UK government thinks they can topple Microsoft it can't manage itself with all the corrupt politicians

And after 10 years they take full control of CoD and use it to assume a dominant position in a cloud gaming market that will become viable as the years progress.

This is exactly what the CMA are concerned about. They'll see right through it. And threatening the UK shows that they are prepared to leverage their position in markets to get their own way.

Not a good look MS.

The weird thing about this is the CMA specifically mentioned Cloud and then MS does a deal for cloud based gaming. All they have done here is reaffirm what the CMA said, that they will hold a massive share in cloud gaming and doing deals shows again that MS get to make calls on those deals and MS terms as its thier games they want to stream through other providers. I don't think this is a good look and I think the CMA will be looking closely along with other regulators. Just my opinion though and I could be very wrong indeed.

keep fighting the good fight MS , jim ryan has to be stopped

@Kevw2006 @JayJ

Just to clear things up about your innovation discussion:

From Wikipedia
"Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services.[1] ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 [2] defines innovation as "a new or changed entity realizing or redistributing value". Others have different definitions; a common element in the definitions is a focus on newness, improvement, and spread of ideas or technologies."

Again from Wikipedia
"An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an idea is unique enough either as a stand alone invention or as a significant improvement over the work of others, it can be patented. A patent, if granted, gives the inventor a proprietary interest in the patent over a specific period of time, which can be licensed for financial gain."

So by definition, innovation is accurate since it's expanding upon (or making better) an invention.

Even if Microsoft copied idea from Sony regarding Game Pass Streaming, Microsoft made it more accessible and better performing and therefore innovating Cloud Streaming capabilities.

Also, don't forget that Sony and Microsoft are in a partnership to expand Sony's Cloud capabilities using Azure.

@GADG3Tx87 The CMA has exhibited that they have no idea about the current state of console or "cloud gaming". They are telling MS the only way to buy ABK is to relinquish control over it. They are asking MS to agree to things the ABK does not do now, has never done, and will not do in the future.

Can't get the access from ABK, so they are trying to seize an opportunity to shoehorn it into the sale. Their demands are unreasonable and overreaching. The CMA is attempting to hold the deal hostage for the entire globe.

Could be the CMA's goal to make the stipulations so unreasonable that MS and ABK refuse. Or they original sentiment, that they are clueless, married to trying to ensure a piece of the pie for the UK (all by piggybacking MS Cloud efforts and CoD...of all things).

@Kevw2006 don't forget kojima productions partnered with Microsoft to use it's cloud gaming technology. Something fresh and new.

@Belkan That does sound promising but we don't really know much about it at the moment so it's hard to say either way.

Why don't Microsoft just sign their own 10 year deal with Activision to bring it's titles to Gamepass? 😅

@Krzzystuff or maybe its because its an unbiased decision ,and have nothing to gain from a cloud deal....Good grief.

@Widey85 maybe xbox players need to start buying games, and not waiting for it to appear on game pass,ms has shot themselves in the foot,buying up large studios and publishers, is the only way they compete.

@Skedaddle ooh look at all that indie crap 😂

@GamingFan4Lyf please don't use Wikipedia to prove a point ,its the equivalent of saying "Bob down the pub told me"

@Widey85 ive got an xbox i hardly use it, I dont have time to trawl through all that crap on gamepass ,its a fact that the majority of xbox gamers do not buy their games ,jedi survivor 82 percent physical sales on ps5 ,and this is the case for most big releases

@Widey85 millions of people still buy physical, just because you don't know anyone, doesn't mean they don't exist, maybe get more friends.