New Zealand Regulator Shares Concerns Over Xbox's Activision Blizzard Takeover

Does it even matter if New Zealand opposes the deal or not?

@Kaloudz that makes sense. Haha poor NZ, I always think of Flight of the Choncords, where Murray's office has posters advertising New Zealand as "they shot Lord of the rings here", I can imagine they're just happy to be in the news for something.

Joking aside, thanks for explaining this. I can imagine MS pulling Activision out of the UK, which would probably ironically force Sony to concede that they weren't ever really concerned as much as they said they were. Of course, I can imagine that, but I might be wrong. =)

@Kaloudz I read it more as a stall than not taking a stance. Seems the name of the game right now is for everyone that wants to stop it to try to stall. However their reasoning seem like a cut and paste of reasons that have been re-hashed by every single body so far, whether they liked the remedies (EU) or not (CMA.) It's the kind of unoriginal copy the homework over the shoulder actions you'd expect form politicians engaging in CYA because they don't have a clue what's going on and don't want to tick off the wrong entities.

After a year of this we're back to "well they might foreclose the industry by making games XB/GP exclusive, or by vertically integrating cloud, because there's not like 30 other publishers competing plus one other much bigger closed platform. and what about CoD!?" They even managed to work into their reasoning "what about Sony!?!" (and "oh yeah, nvidia too even though nvidia already publicly endorsed this deal, let's pretend we're worried about them.") Which is funny because they first addressed Sony's cloud gaming to which, as a Sony customer I have to ask "what cloud gaming? You mean the one that only works on Windows and their consoles and still has no public plans to work on mobile, the only place anyone actually has an interest in cloud gaming?" Yes, Jim has "big plans" for cloud, and Matt Booty in the interview about VR also played down cloud as "to be clear, it is a very, very small market. I’m not even sure you would call it a market yet, in fact. It’s very small usage and very small audience."

We're down to governments worried about a deals effect on a market that among the 3 biggest players, the one that wants to block has no meaningful cloud product to show despite "big plans", the other fully endorses it, and the one at the center says it's so unloved it's not even a market at all.

This circus just needs balloons and elephants. We already have the clowns.

Of all the entities, EU is the only one that got it right going basically with "but of course they will - and it doesn't matter."

NZ better be careful though, after most Xbox gamers in the world have moved there recently, that could be trouble for them lol.

@Moonglow Politics: 2023BC - 2023AD.

@Kaloudz we'll know if the deal is a go by the end of the month i believe. Like you mentioned about the FTC, whoever wins in court gets their way. If MS win they were already going to do a workaround of the CMA and do something unique for the UK market as that's all they have jurisdiction over. But like with the EU before, if FTC wins deals dead. But the chances of the FTC winning are very slim.

Either way this deal will be done soon hopefully and no longer in the news.

@Krzzystuff FTC quite literally can't win. Even if it goes all the way to the supreme court, it'l ltake forever, MS and AB would have to be willing to wait for the court, but there's just not a chance the scotus that took abortion on publicly would go "lol no, 2 big companies can't merge because some future market that doesn't yet exist might suffer for it, we should keep the other company in protected monopoly status for now!" Not going to happen.

Ill just continue to ask that one way or another, come to a decision, tired of hearing about this in the news

This is a story that keeps on giving…. At some point Microsoft gets too big and the FTC will demand it be split up…. This is the first warning shot across the bow. How Disney escaped the FTC scrutiny is mind boggling.

@Kaloudz I'll be here to collect your soul if it doesn't go through.

Everything that can be said about this deal has already been said. This entire merger rests in the hands of the FTC at this point. Everything else is irrelevant. If the FTC wins, the deal is dead. If the FTC loses, which it will, the deal is done. The UK, New Zealand, etc are all irrelevant at this point. The stage is set, now it just needs to play out.

@AlwaysPlaying

This isn’t a warning shot for MS in regards to their size. This has been a warning shot across the bow of all tech companies about the overall future and ease of acquisitions. And that warning shot has been fired by not just the FTC, but most of the big regulatory bodies involved. they are cracking down on big tech mergers. Biden gave the FTC orders to challenge more big tech mergers, even if the FTC had little to no chance at winning. This is about the future of acquisitions in the big tech market, nothing more, nothing less. The FTC and CMA in particular were always going to challenge the deal. Sony could have been totally fine with it and they still would have challenged it.

@Kaloudz whatever you want buddy

@Kaloudz I think the fact that they're delaying makes pretty clear what way they're leaning. If they felt like this was neutral or positive, they'd have simply approved. Delay means "we don't approve, but we don't want to be seen as the obstructing party, we want to be on the good side of whoever wins, so we'll see how much traction the others have in blocking before we say so we don't look bad." But, yeah, I mean once you get to the point that Europe is fine, US, eventually will be fine, freaking China is fine...... what are we going to do, hinge the fate of the deal upon what New Zealand, Putin, and Mr. Bean think of it?

@AlwaysPlaying It's a tough one. Even though I'm for THIS merger in gaming, specifically, I'm also for breaking up the too-big companies. But after 30 years of approving consolidation to the point of 2-3 companies, globally, in any industry tops, IDK how we back down from that without going nuclear, zeroing the economy and starting from scratch. Just void all stocks and go IPO across the board or something, like an international bankruptcy.

Then there's the problem that Apple's even bigger by revenue and they don't even have a useful fault line to split them across. And the fact that the last time a company was split in the US was....uhm.............I've got nothing. The last was AT&T/Bell, but that was a different scenario because they were a regulated monopoly that was asking to be deregulated and split because the regulations prevented them from moving into more profitable new markets they wanted to move into (while politicians spun it as them doing good protecting the people from too-big corporations while they were in fact merely servicing said corporations' request.) I'm sure there's SOME example of some company being split? Maybe even something post-WW1?

Does MS have to care what every rinky dink country thinks? I mean...Britain kind of (stress kind of) matters...but New Zealand just doesn't.

@Moonglow I think the PS base assumes that govs blocking MS from buying ABK means that MS will never again be allowed to buy any games publisher at all, ever and maybe will just buy indie studios one off here and there.

I want to see them buy Kojima Productions just to watch everyone in the PS world about face and declare that Kojima was never good and was always an overrated prima donna. That would confirm justice exists in the world.

TBH IDK about "strongest hardware." I kind of feel like their focus has shifted more towards Nintendo-like where power doesn't matter, library size, and access from anywhere and everywhere are what matters. I think Sony's the one that's going head over heels competing with PC with console power, flogging the production quality and performance of games, etc. MS seems to be focused more on accessibility and if you want power, there's Windows and lots of GPU partners. If "power power power" were their shtick, I don't think we'd be seeing "we leave fps up to developers" with Redfall and Starfield, they'd be pushing performance as their brand with their studios. And Series S wouldn't be a focus. I really get the sense, and it's not a bad one, that MS is kind of joining the Nintendo philosophy that the tech arms race leads to nowhere but lower profits.

@Kaloudz LOL I thought that is what the CMA is?

Australia owes MS for FH3. They best remember that. Canada....I mean....just work a deal out with EA for 10 years of NHL on Game Pass and they'll be fine, eh?

@Cashews It only really matters in a business sense if it's territories they have business entities in. But it mostly only matters if it's territories ABK has business entities in. It's not really about where they sell but about where their business operations are governed. They can always relocate regional sales offices and call centers, but if it's places where game studios are, it's harder to work around which is where UK is more challenging.

Gamers don’t even want cloud gaming!

@Kaloudz South Africa - Part II is tomorrow and they're pretty much the last one. Canada is apparently similar to The U.S. where they can only sue to block (the Canadian Competition Bureau remaining silent =👍). Australia is just following New Zealand's lead at this point, but if all goes well against The FTC & CMA, they'll both probably approve. Though their verdicts ultimately won't matter.

@Kaloudz LOL, we're dating ourselves, I think

@Kaloudz Back on April 17th, South Africa's Competition Commission recommended the Competition Tribunal to approve the deal "without conditions." As for the PI hearing timeframe, IDK maybe. I recommend following Foss Patents, he'll cover everything on those days.

@NEStalgia I mean what would NZ really block anyhow- we block Microsoft! Okay, we won't sell our OS there any longer I guess. I'm sure they are simply be used as a proxy for other governments. Much like the UK and FTC here in the states.

No one seems to have issue with Tencent buying everything. Funny.

@Cashews Yeah, it's less about selling products and more about business, so if there's some big ABK business unit in NZ it would be operating in violation of regulations, etc, etc. If there's not.....it doesn't matter much and they can just move the business unit across the sea to Japan. China. Anywhere.

Yeah, sure is funny. Fortunately China is everyone's friend infinite Chinese business growth worldwide benefits everyone, because they're our friends, and we're not at all xenophobic, so everything will be fine if we just trust them.

@NEStalgia I had to Google it - Exxon Mobile merger 1998 FTC required them to divest of 2400 gas stations.
Reynolds Tobacco 2014 FTC still thinking on it in 2019 and still has not made a decision.
edit AT&T was split into 8 companies after a decades long DOJ trial…

There goes $523.07 in annual revenue for MS.

@AlwaysPlaying heh! Exxon was a concession not a split, AT&T is the one they wanted to be split to escape the limitations of being an already regulated official monopoly so it wasn't government force but government helping them deregulate, and Reynolds.. Yep still undecided.

Indeed not a single forced break up I can find. Standard Oil maybe is it. Which became Exxon, and Mobil and... Yeah.... 😢

I’m not sure why people think this is going to happen. Microsoft themselves said if the FTC was granted their injunction the deal was dead. The injunction was granted.

@47AlphaTango

Say what? The preliminary injunction has not been granted. That’s what the hearing set for this week is all about. You’re getting ahead of yourself.

These countries are questioning if Microsoft games is becoming a monopoly and has too much power. All these comments suggesting certain countries don’t matter or that Microsoft is just going to steamroller over legislature implies that they are too powerful. Having Microsoft as the only game in town would not improve gaming quality- we need competition to keep standards high and prices low.

Does new Zealand even have good enough internet to use the cloud lol

@Zoidpilot4 probably not, their concerns is about once again cloud gaming that CMA put up with.

@NEStalgia "FTC quite literally can't win". I wouldn't bet onto that. Look at what CMA did, blocked the merger for a cloud gaming that is not even full stable yet. Pretty weak argument at CMA. Unless someone is manipulating FTC.

I'm pretty positive it will go through and if it does that will slow down Xbox purchasing for a few years. But if it doesn't ? Ms would have nearly 70bn ear marked for expansion into the gaming market so I could only imagine what that shopping spree would look like 🤣

@old-dad lol shopping spree, then if the acquisition is blocked then MS can go and buy japanese studio( ahem...... ahem...... Square enix).

@Belkan oh fan boys would be leaping off buildings 🤣

@MrGawain

Having MS as the only game in town? PS is currently killing MS in the gaming market. If any argument can be made about a particular company having a monopoly, its Sony. Of course, nobody has a monopoly and the regulatory bodies know this. The gaming market is extremely healthy and massively competitive. This is theater as the regulatory bodies want to crack down on big tech mergers, or at least appear that they are doing so.

@Belkan

There is a big difference between the CMA and FTC. The CMA has the authority to stop a deal, the FTC does not. Only a federal court can block a merger in the US and the FTC's case is EXTREMELY weak. And MS's lawyers absolutely destroyed the CMA a few weeks back in its initial appeal. The CMA lawyer actually started stuttering almost incoherently it was so bad.

We have noted your concerns. Lol. This deal is going through. Bye.

@47AlphaTango In what world are you living in? Lol. This is absolutely going to happen. Just a matter of time. Educate yourself.

@Kaloudz okay so as it turns out, it actually was a hearing after all.....whoops.

@Belkan The difference is CMA has the power to block things. FTC doesn't. FTC has the power to file a lawsuit and their power ends there. A suit through the very very pro-business federal courts. Even if by miracle chance of bribery the court and appeal manages to rule against (it won't), then it could be appealed to the supreme court. The supreme court that feels so confident in their position which would be considered "conservative" in US political speak, they flipped Roe (the abortion precedent.) There's truly zero chance at the top level of an anti-big business merger ruling. We're never going to hear Clarence Thomas say "I think this company is too large and needs government to prevent it from doing more business"...that's not going to happen in this universe.

The only risk for MS with the US is simply that the process of appeals that high can take a year plus, and they may chose they don't want to wait it out, but if they wait it out it's a guaranteed win. Most likely they won't have to wait that long, though.

The courts could require concessions, but actually blocking a merger is extremely rare. One of the few times was AT&T buying Sprint, because AT&T had no case for why they actually needed it and were at the time the dominant market leader buying one of their only 2 competitors. It would have been like Playstation buying Xbox which was an obvious anti-competition problem. But it's a rare block by the courts unless it's so extreme like that.

(Edit: And it was already answered by @RighteousNixon above!)

@Kaloudz Coming days, around the first week of next month.