Xbox Activision Blizzard Deal Officially Approved In Turkey Amidst Ongoing FTC Battle

We appreciate the participation.

Lulu, what have you been smoking? Protects consumers and competition? I see….. Hasn’t selling games on the ‘Entrenched Dominant market leaders’ hardware where Activision has made such a huge amount of money over the years? Sony didn’t have to buy up billions of dollars worth of publishers to get there. If this goes the way that it most likely will, Microsoft will shore up the industry, because let’s face it they won’t stop with the AB deal and then they will be the entrenched market leader, but there won’t be anyone able to pry Microsoft away from that mantle. Gaming is going to be a total disaster in a few years. But at least Xbox has slowly been able to implement their DRM ideology’s into gaming after all, codename GamePass!! 😂

Regardless of my views on Turkey, this proves that the UK made no good points on why to block the merger

@Total_Weirdo you should be ashamed of yourself. Wanting a better deal in games for yourself does not, and should never, be a priority over PlayStation gamers being able to make fun of Xbox having no games!

I'm sure that Pure Xbox is working on it but Reuters and Bloomberg have reported that the FTC's appeal has been denied by the judge.

https://www.ign.com/articles/ftcs-latest-attempt-to-pause-deal-denied-as-microsoft-weighs-potential-cma-solution

Microsoft should go ahead and complete the acquisition tomorrow because the FTC and the CMA can't prevent that from happening after tonight.

Are people not adopting the name Turkiye?

@Banjo- the presiding judge almost always denies the appeal motion, they always back their own decision (obviously, or they would not have made it)

Now Judge Corley has denied the appeal, it will now go to the Court of Appeal and a 3 judge panel will decide

Usually this takes alot longer than 1 day, that's the big unknown in this current situation. Will they reject the appeal, will they grant a short extension to the TRO to allow the appeal court to properly look at it, or will they side with the FTC and kill the merger.

The FTCs gameplan in my opinion seems to revolve around confusion, hence the many points in their appeal motion. Usually in appeals they stick to one or two big points, and hammer them home so there is no doubt or confusion. The FTC have took a scattergun approach in the hope of confusing the appeal judges, and therefore them granting the appeal to allow for more time on thr subject. It's a risky play.

Taking an educated guess I would say there is a 65% chance the appeal is denied, and a 35% chance the appeal is granted. A little over 50/50. We should have a clearer view of the deal by the end of the day West Coast time

@Sakai The current order expires tonight. After tonight, nothing is preventing Microsoft from completing the acquisition because what has been denied is the extension of the current order. The FTC can appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the CMA can start a legal battle against Microsoft+ABK but those are future affairs. The temporary legal restrictions have ended and the extension of them has been denied.

EDIT: Using @NEStalgia's words, the hearing (and appeal) is not a judgement on whether the merger violates trust law or not. The hearing (and appeal) is for putting a preliminary injunction on the merger to keep it in a holding pattern while an ACTUAL trial to determine if it's in violation of trust law is scheduled.

Those are facts. Regarding my opinion, Microsoft shouldn't wait for the CMA to make up their mind, that would last until August and then maybe September or later if they say no again and Microsoft has to propose something different.

@Banjo- the court of appeal motion was submitted 2 hours after judge Corley denied the appeal, 7pm PT yesterday.

The FTC wants the Ninth Circuit Court to grant emergency relief to extend the temporary restraining order until when the appeals court can rule on the preliminary injunction decision. If granted, this will block the deal from closing.

If the Ninth Circuit Court doesn’t grant an extension before 11:59PM PT today then Microsoft is free to close the deal over the weekend or early next week.

This is still an ongoing thing

That is exactly what I said but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals won't grant an extension before tomorrow*, so Microsoft can complete the acquisition tomorrow. If they do it tomorrow, the next appeals and trials will affect Microsoft+ABK after the merger. If they don't do it tomorrow nor next week, it's because they are trying to sort something out with the CMA and that would be a mistake, in my opinion, because of the CMA prolonging this indefinitely due to their ill-will.

EDIT: * They didn't.

@Bionic-Spencer

Gaming is going to be a total disaster in a few years. But at least Xbox has slowly been able to implement their DRM ideology’s into gaming after all, codename GamePass!! 😂

Don't get your knickers in a twist to much there....Sony is out to save gaming by releasing consoles with the optical drive as an ADD on and that will surely save you from the DRM nightmare future😂😂.

A statement from Judge Corley said:
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services. This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted – perhaps even terminated – pending resolution of the FTC administrative action. For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.

Therefore I would expect any 'appeal' to have the same result - UNLESS the FTC has some new Evidence to submit. As stated, they spent a LONG time going through EVERY statement, testimony etc and actually states that the 'record Evidence' supports this deal going ahead as it benefits Consumers.

Playstation Gamers don't 'lose' any ABK game released and will continue getting CoD (and other ABK games no doubt) post merger. On top of that, MS has committed in writing, under Oath and publicly to keep CoD on ALL platforms in currently releases on and bring it to 'MORE' Platforms, including Cloud, therefore granting a LOT more ways for consumers to play and 'pay' for their gaming. It certainly doesn't give MS over 50% of the Gaming Market and/or of Game development to even Consider it close to a monopoly.

With Thousands of Studios all over the world, Hundreds of Games releasing every year, MS can't 'monopolise' gaming with their increased size with ABK on board. Even if MS made ABK games ALL exclusive, that would be 1-2 less games a year on PS5 - hardly likely to 'monopolise' the industry or see Sony/Nintendo unable to make Consoles/Games anymore to 'compete' for Consumers. Consumers will still want to play Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Pikmin, Last of Us, Spider-Man, Wolverine, God of War, Horizon, Uncharted etc etc etc - Games that won't be on Xbox or Game Pass Cloud...

@Banjo- looking back my initial post was worded poorly, sorry about that. I wrote appeal instead of extension.

my personal guess for the chances the ninth circuit grants an extension before 11:59 is 35%

@Sakai No problem.

Just the CMA now

(Breaking) Ninth Circuit has denied the FTC’s request for a further pause on Microsoft’s Activision deal

Microsoft is now free to close its Activision Blizzard deal after 11:59PM PT today

The CMA is now the only thing barring closing