Well, the results are here. In the USA the FTC was trying to block Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard but Microsoft has won the fight. Now Microsoft are one big step closer to actually properly closing the deal, and a rather big consolidation of the gaming industry given how big Activision Blizzard are.
As per the decision:
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.
This means the temporary restraining order against the acquisition will be removed on July 14th, unless the FTC obtains a "stay pending appeal from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals".
Microsoft still have a fight ahead in the UK though, since the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) blocked the deal but naturally Microsoft is appealing the decision with a hearing set to begin on July 28th. So they're not completely out of the woods yet but it's probable Microsoft will end up winning there too. Update 16:21 UTC - Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President Microsoft, put a statement on Twitter:
After today's court decision in the U.S., our focus now turns back to the UK. While we ultimately disagree with the CMA’s concerns, we are considering how the transaction might be modified in order to address those concerns in a way that is acceptable to the CMA. In order to prioritize work on these proposals, Microsoft and Activision have agreed with the CMA that a stay of the litigation in the UK would be in the public interest and the parties have made a joint submission to the Competition Appeal Tribunal to this effect.
What do you think to this outcome?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: Raabenso why bother replacing him?
Because he's not worth 125+ million dollars.
At best, maybe 30. 125 is just insulting.
Last edited by cybik on 11 July 2023 at 5:58 pm UTC
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Linux_Rocks Jul 11, 2023
The only positive outcome from this merger is Microsoft cleaning house and lessening the toxic culture at Activision-Blizzard.
Outside of that, this is shit. I don't trust Microsoft. Whether it's this, or their "<3" Linux crap. I know it might sound paranoid. But I feel that the latter is just them trying to ruin Linux from the inside. I remember the old Microsoft and their practices. They're back at it buying whatever they can. Though if they do somehow managed to ruin Linux. At least there's still FreeBSD.
I only use Microsoft products and services when I absolutely need to. Then when it comes to gaming I'm not an anti-fanboy. So if a game is on Xbox that I want. I'm not gonna miss out on it. Plus my pirating of most of my OG Xbox games cancels that out anyways. XD
Outside of that, this is shit. I don't trust Microsoft. Whether it's this, or their "<3" Linux crap. I know it might sound paranoid. But I feel that the latter is just them trying to ruin Linux from the inside. I remember the old Microsoft and their practices. They're back at it buying whatever they can. Though if they do somehow managed to ruin Linux. At least there's still FreeBSD.
I only use Microsoft products and services when I absolutely need to. Then when it comes to gaming I'm not an anti-fanboy. So if a game is on Xbox that I want. I'm not gonna miss out on it. Plus my pirating of most of my OG Xbox games cancels that out anyways. XD
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Quoting: PikoloThe Judge's son works at Microsoft. Hopefully the appeals court can fix this
That's similar to how Microsoft got in in the first place... Gate's mother was on the IBM board of directors. There's no way they'd have chosen that mickey mouse operating system on its own merits. DOS (well, CP/M at the time) was utter garbage, it was sold for a song and Gates stayed up a few nights porting some essentials like a Basic interpreter and then chummed BBS's and lists with open letters urging people that they need to pay for software.
"Oh, but look at how much Microsoft has done for the computing industry!" I counter that with who knows what we could have had, if not for those bloody creeps throughout the history of PC computing.
Even what WE have now (our Linux and software environment and yes, especially our gaming technologies now), is geared towards interoperating with them.
Last edited by Grogan on 11 July 2023 at 6:19 pm UTC
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Quoting: Grogan"Oh, but look at how much Microsoft has done for the computing industry!" I counter that with who knows what we could have had, if not for those bloody creeps throughout the history of PC computing.
Next time someone says that, tell them that multics (in the 60s, before unix) was multi user. First actually multi-user windows was vista. That's a set back of ~40 years. If DOS had file permissions like Unix did, we wouldn't be in a world of rampant viruses. That's a 30-year set back too.
Yeap, they _have_ done much for computing, mostly in the form of ruining it.
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hazukashiidesu Jul 11, 2023
Quoting: StalePopcornGet your M$ accounts now, bitches—they'll be linked to your SSN and .gov accounts before you know it.
Pulled out the xbox a few months ago to introduce some family to Halo, fired it up just to find all my local accounts were gone and the only way to play was to sign everyone into a M$ account... needless to say we opted to do something else instead.. the xbox isn't much more than an overly expensive bluray player now.
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wvstolzing Jul 11, 2023
Quoting: MisterPaytwickWait, SuSE is actually picking to have competition over stagnation ? That's nice.Looking a bit harder at it, I guess it's wait and see again, sounds pretty opportunistic.
Yeah; I mean, SuSE the business couldn't act any other way; but what's puzzling is what they're promising -- a 'hard fork' of RHEL that 'plays nice' with clones makes sense if it's meant to receive the care & attention RHEL itself receives. But SuSE isn't making that big of a commitment; & although the news articles stress the $10M they say they're investing into this, that amount is about half of what Rocky started with in the first place. & SuSE already has its own enterprise OS. It's pretty weird. Maybe they want Rocky & Alma to become SLE clones?
.... ok sorry about the weird tangent.
More on topic: fsck Microsoft!
Quoting: ShabbyXYeap, they _have_ done much for computing, mostly in the form of ruining it.
This can't be stressed hard enough.
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slaapliedje Jul 11, 2023
Quoting: ObsidianBlkCurious what you have against Activision that makes them worse than the Blizzard side?Quoting: Purple Library GuyIt sucks. More consolidation is bad. I have no fondness for Activision Blizzard, but then I'm not a big fan of Microsoft either and neither of those is the main point. Corporate behemoths are too big; in general they should be getting chopped into smaller pieces, not allowed to stitch together into even gianter Frankenstein leviathans.
I feel most countries (USA especially) have long ago abandoned even the pretense of fighting against monopolistic behavior. I cannot say how bad this merger will be over time. I fear, in maybe a decade, it will be bad for people not on Windows or XBox... then again, I have a very negative bias against Microsoft and A/B (especially the Activision potion), so take what I said with a grain of salt, I suppose.
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slaapliedje Jul 11, 2023
Quoting: wvstolzingThe funniest bit about the whole IBM/RH drama is Oracle trying to step in to be the good guy. Kind of seems like RH vs Oracle vs Suse... and the collateral damage is likely to be Alma / Rocky. If Oracle or Suse had a truly open community enterprise linux, there really wouldn't be a need for Alma / Rocky. But I somehow don't see that really happening from Oracle, and Suse suddenly deciding they want to be compatible with RH is weird...Quoting: MisterPaytwickWait, SuSE is actually picking to have competition over stagnation ? That's nice.Looking a bit harder at it, I guess it's wait and see again, sounds pretty opportunistic.
Yeah; I mean, SuSE the business couldn't act any other way; but what's puzzling is what they're promising -- a 'hard fork' of RHEL that 'plays nice' with clones makes sense if it's meant to receive the care & attention RHEL itself receives. But SuSE isn't making that big of a commitment; & although the news articles stress the $10M they say they're investing into this, that amount is about half of what Rocky started with in the first place. & SuSE already has its own enterprise OS. It's pretty weird. Maybe they want Rocky & Alma to become SLE clones?
.... ok sorry about the weird tangent.
More on topic: fsck Microsoft!
Quoting: ShabbyXYeap, they _have_ done much for computing, mostly in the form of ruining it.
This can't be stressed hard enough.
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Quoting: ZeloxI really think this is good. Blizzard was dead once activision got their hands on them. And it’s been going worse and worse every year.
Microsoft really have some good games, they seem to release stable and solid games. I also hope this can change the culture in blizzard and bring them back to not just be about money and greed as activision like.
And there is still plenty of competition on the gaming market and I also hope we get to see blizzard games on steam :)
why would money changing hands at a higher level change the inside culture at blizzard? Microsoft won't do anything about this, this is only about the sales figures of CoD, this is not the CEO of Microsoft waking up in the middle of the night and worrying that Activision wrecked havoc on the Blizzard internal culture.
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Quoting: slaapliedjeThe funniest bit about the whole IBM/RH drama is Oracle trying to step in to be the good guy.I am trying to imagine Oracle being the good guy. I am failing miserably, but the mind is boggling!
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slaapliedje Jul 12, 2023
Quoting: Purple Library GuyRight? The 'big red' vs 'big blue'. We are indeed in interesting times...Quoting: slaapliedjeThe funniest bit about the whole IBM/RH drama is Oracle trying to step in to be the good guy.I am trying to imagine Oracle being the good guy. I am failing miserably, but the mind is boggling!
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StoneColdSpider Jul 12, 2023
QuoteWhat do you think to this outcome?Not surprising at all....... Though its really bad for us the consumer.......
We dont need more games behind walled gardens........ All I can say is that im glad im not really interested in modern games...... I can happily live in Emulationville...... Well until they change the laws to make that outright illegal.....
Last edited by StoneColdSpider on 12 July 2023 at 2:34 am UTC
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ElectricPrism Jul 12, 2023
QuoteYou load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MTCen9-RELM
Edit: (I think we're going backwards in time to Behemoth Company Towns)
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 12 July 2023 at 2:37 am UTC
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boltronics Jul 12, 2023
I think it will go through, and I'm fine with it.
Microsoft was right, in that the PS4/Xbox One generation was the time when most people built up big digital libraries. Fortunately for me (and dare I say, most of us here), that was mostly done on Steam.
I can't see Microsoft ever being able to compete in the PC space, even with PC GamePass. You can pick up a Humble Choice subscription at a comparable price, keep the games permanently, plus get all the games in the Humble Games Collection and the Vault included with that. You can pause/cancel your subscription and still play all your games online, etc.
When it comes to playing games on TV (the traditional console space), Valve has made it so convenient with Steam OS to play games that way with a controller. I use HoloISO to play games that way on my big 4K TV and a controller almost every day.
Purchasing games on Steam means that I can upgrade my computer and still play games from a decade ago. Sony would rather you pay an upgrade fee to play on a newer device. Nintendo may not give you the option at all. Xbox sometimes has backwards compatibility... but nothing beats Steam (or GOG for that matter).
When it comes to COD games, they will also continue to be on Steam, so that's no problem for me (not that I really play them much anyway).
When it comes to Blizzard games, they aren't on Steam and historically their battle.net launcher has been a problem in the past under Wine. MS will probably get rid of that eventually, in favor of the Xbox app. When that day comes, maybe these games will eventually find their way over to Steam as well! The legacy Blizzard games are already on GOG, so it's actually not that much of a stretch.
Worst case scenario, all games go exclusively to Microsoft Xbox and Windows, and require a subscription that massively goes up in price. Even then I wouldn't really care, because there are so many other great games to play, and I don't have time to play everything, so it wouldn't actually negatively impact me.
Microsoft was right, in that the PS4/Xbox One generation was the time when most people built up big digital libraries. Fortunately for me (and dare I say, most of us here), that was mostly done on Steam.
I can't see Microsoft ever being able to compete in the PC space, even with PC GamePass. You can pick up a Humble Choice subscription at a comparable price, keep the games permanently, plus get all the games in the Humble Games Collection and the Vault included with that. You can pause/cancel your subscription and still play all your games online, etc.
When it comes to playing games on TV (the traditional console space), Valve has made it so convenient with Steam OS to play games that way with a controller. I use HoloISO to play games that way on my big 4K TV and a controller almost every day.
Purchasing games on Steam means that I can upgrade my computer and still play games from a decade ago. Sony would rather you pay an upgrade fee to play on a newer device. Nintendo may not give you the option at all. Xbox sometimes has backwards compatibility... but nothing beats Steam (or GOG for that matter).
When it comes to COD games, they will also continue to be on Steam, so that's no problem for me (not that I really play them much anyway).
When it comes to Blizzard games, they aren't on Steam and historically their battle.net launcher has been a problem in the past under Wine. MS will probably get rid of that eventually, in favor of the Xbox app. When that day comes, maybe these games will eventually find their way over to Steam as well! The legacy Blizzard games are already on GOG, so it's actually not that much of a stretch.
Worst case scenario, all games go exclusively to Microsoft Xbox and Windows, and require a subscription that massively goes up in price. Even then I wouldn't really care, because there are so many other great games to play, and I don't have time to play everything, so it wouldn't actually negatively impact me.
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One big corporation I have no love for swallowing another I feel the same way about.
Since I (mostly) care about indies nowadays anyway, they can eat each other up all they want.
Since I (mostly) care about indies nowadays anyway, they can eat each other up all they want.
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officernice Jul 12, 2023
Every fibre in my body should be against it... But Activision is so terrible, it can't get any worse. They are even selling products that do not work anymore like multiplayer in COD World at War. Not to speak of neglecting all the old MPs to be riddled with hackers, never giving proper discounts on decade old games.
Let the circus begin.
Let the circus begin.
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I don't really like the whole monopoly going on, but maybe it'll be some kind of good. I mean, we've got Halo Infinite on Steam deck. Maybe it'll be a boon for Linux gaming in some indirect way. Maybe Activision and Blizzard games will come to Steam instead of needing another launcher.
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CyborgZeta Jul 12, 2023
I'm not surprised. US Courts have shown themselves to be utterly impotent when it comes to consolidations and mergers.
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Quoting: CyborgZetaI'm not surprised. US Courts have shown themselves to be utterly impotent when it comes to consolidations and mergers.
Bribery is effectively legalized in the US.
That's supposedly democracy folks, nothing to see here
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mr-victory Jul 12, 2023
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI don't have a good memory for acronyms; what's a UWP?Universal Windows Platform. The package format used by Microsoft Store and PC Game Pass. UWP is incompatible with Wine, therefore anything in UWP is a no-go on Linux. The problem is that if Actibilzzard games get locked down to Game Pass or MS Store they cannot be played on Linux.
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