Rumor: FTC Could Rule on Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Acquisition by Late November - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 05 October 2022 / 3,714 Views
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US might release its ruling on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by late November, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with Dealreporter and reported by Seeking Alpha.
The report claims the FTC is still working at the staff level, however, it is expected to progress through the Bureau of Competition and the commissioners over the next several weeks.
The sources claim staff at the FTC have expressed concerns over the proposed acquisition and they have been in talks with competitors, including Sony and Google.
Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard was announced in January of this year and needs approval from several regulators around the world.
UK regulators, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), this week set a deadline of March 1, 2023 to publish its final report and decision on Microsoft's proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition. This is part of its more in-depth Phase 2 investigation.
The CMA has previously expressed concerns as the acquisition would give Microsoft control over some of the most popular games in the industry like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.
Microsoft filed the Activision Blizzard deal with the European Commission last week. A provisional deadline of November 8 was set by the regulators to either approve the deal or to choose a more in-depth investigation. The goal of the investigation by regulators is to decide if the acquisition will reduce competition in the video game market.
Saudi Arabia's competition authority in August became the first place to approve Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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If the deal goes through,
Kotick leaves, CoD becomes more accessible across all platforms.
If the deal gets blocked,
CoD will remain butchered with deals with Sony and only benefiting their own audience.
That's some next level spin.
COD does not become more accessible. It's on a 3 year window to its biggest audience and now in the hands of a publisher who has already turned huge historic third party games into exclusives. They can leverage the franchise as they see fit.
I think Azz's point is that in the short term CoD will be more accessible. The long term, we have no idea. But, MS' strategy seems to be increase access to their games. So, it may not always be available on PS, but it won't be locked to XB either. Cloud gaming takes the hardware limitation away, or at least it is beginning to.
Spin? Have you got a short memory? Remember CoD in the 360 days? Remember how big it was? You know the PC market is a bigger audience than PS right? You know Nintendo is also just as big if not bigger than PS right?
You come out and say they have accessibility towards their biggest audience?
CoD would be tons bigger if all platforms were treated equally.
Clearly you xbot kids didn't remember CoD was butchered with deals with m$ xbox360 and only benefiting their own audience...
Not only everyone right about your pathetic spins but also a hypocrite and delusional
Or it doesn't release anymore on a platform with by that time over 80 million users.
Same old few in this comments all the time. Its kinda funny and now i cant wait for this deal to finish.
I think it is not going to happen, but do in enjoy reading their fan base praise anti consumer practices. Third party exclusives are bad, end of.
Why do you think it won’t happen? Please elaborate.
Ftc would not deny it, microsoft suplies the military of the US.
They wouldn't stop supplying the military if the FTC refused for whatever reason (I think the deal will likely go through, BTW). You think MS is going to give up gorging at the government trough?
I don't think it should be allowed to happen but the FTC has been weak for decades now. This will go through without issue. EU is much much more strict about this kind of stuff and is a much more consumer friendly in general. I could see MS having issues in the EU.
I'd be interested to hear how buying up a large publisher to lock their games out of two lucrative markets gives more more people a chance to play their games, since those games were previously available on almost every platform under the sun before. That looks more like giving fewer people, not more, a chance to play their games. Generally, that's both consumer-unfriendly and anti-competitive, which is in itself consumer-unfriendly.
If they lock it out from Sony in future, then they have gamepass players which is over 25 mil, then they have mobile users via cloud which is huge then they have pc users via gamepass, steam and epic which is also huge. There's a chance Nintendo might get some via cloud which is also big. Even if Nintendo doesn't get any, the amount is far bigger then what it was before. You have to remember not many people around the world can afford buying new games. Gamepass is far more affordable so more people will use to play new games. In nz the price for gamepass ultimate if u pay monthly for a year comes to 240 nzd. That if u buy physical copies is just 2 to 3 ganes. But gamepass u get hundreds to play from. It not just gd for consumers but gd for developers as they can take more risk and try something new. That's because there's at least 25 mil on gamepass who would try. Even if half try it, that's alot of engagement for a new ip :)
Lots of things are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. That doesn't mean they should just be ignored. This is anti consumer and will lock people out of the largest game franchise there is. Call of Duty has been the top selling game for years now. So no I don't think a company should be able to come in, buy the top selling game, and lock other consumers out of it. In the end it doesn't really matter to me because I can always play COD but I just don't want my fellow gaming brethren to be hurt by this. This consolidation of the industry is not good.
The Government already has some sort of control over all industries. We are simply talking about what level of control they should have. There is no true freedom in this country or any other. We are all operating under various rules that control us in some fashion. Which is the way it should be. We've seen what companies try to get away with under the radar. Now imagine if there was no Government in their way to stop them from doing whatever they wanted.
Would you be ok with MS buying Sony and Nintendo as well? Or is that where you are ok with Government control?
Government and big business are one and the same. You are incredibly naive if you think that government keeps business in check. The only thing that keeps big business in check at all is the consumer. And, to the extent that consumers are able to do so, it is despite the fact that government and big business collude to make it hard for us to do.
The Government has not been perfect, far from it. As I already stated the FTC wont do anything about this and only EU will do something if anyone. The EU is notorious for being much more consumer friendly than here in the US.
To say the Government doesn't keep business in check though is naïve. There are literally thousands of cases we could go over where businesses have been sued and put in check by the Government. Hell they've made movies over a lot of these court cases.
You have thousands of cases of government interfering in business at the behest of other business interests.
Anyway, you're clearly living in some sort of alternate reality where big business and government aren't in bed with each other. There is nowhere in the world that this is an accurate picture. Not the US, not the EU, not eastern totalitarian states like China.
And the idea that protection of the consumer has anything at all to do with this particular case is nonsense. If anything, Microsoft buying Activision will make the game easier for consumers to access. They will no longer have to buy a piece of hardware to get it.
So if you own a playstation you wont get locked out of playing COD eventually? The answer is yes you will. That means people are getting locked out. No one is arguing that you don't have other options. If people are ok with that, that's fine. I just hate to see this sort of stuff happen. We as gamers should want all of us to have all games available to everyone. Why anyone supports these companies doing stuff like this I have no idea.
How are u locked out of u can access gamepass via pc, tv, mobile phone. Do u don't have to buy an xbox to play it.. For me if u are only locked out if theres no way of playing it without buying xbox. Warzone is more likely to be all. Platforms permanently as its makes quite the money.
You wanting everyone to access all games is a dream that we all want but will never happen. I love that dream of yours and hope it happens. Nintendo and Sony don't have history of sharing.
While you are correct that I am not a fan of Microsoft buying Activision, I wouldn't be a fan of Sony buying someone like Square Enix or Capcom, or Nintendo buying Sega. If big third parties need to be bought, I'd rather they are bought by other third parties that can make better choices with their games. There is no reason Microsoft can't get Call of Duty on gamepass without buying them.
