Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard faces roadblock as FTC sues to stop it

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The FTC says 'no' to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

, are both Xbox console exclusives"despite assurances [Microsoft] had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles."

"With control over Activision’s blockbuster franchises, Microsoft would have both the means and motive to harm competition by manipulating Activision’s pricing, degrading Activision’s game quality or player experience on rival consoles and gaming services, changing the terms and timing of access to Activision’s content, or withholding content from competitors entirely, resulting in harm to consumers," the FTC said.

"We have been committed since day one to addressing competition concerns, including by offering earlier this week proposed concessions to the FTC," Smith said."While we believe in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court."

 

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Fucking typical. The one time the FTC gets involved is the one time the deal would actually be in the interests of the consumer.

All this will do is hurt the industry, now don’t and Microsoft won’t be able to acquire a major studio, Microsoft will return the favour if Sony tries to acquire one, and no I’m not a “fan boy” i grew out of the my system is better in the Nintendo/Sega days

Quite sad. I felt microsoft getting Blizz was the only way to improve that company. I guess all blizzard fans are screwed now.

Very bad evidence of the worst.

This is so stupid. What about what the consumers want? Fans like me are stoked about this merger. Sony sucks. They act like they’re the only one that’s supposed to have third party exclusives. I wonder who’s pockets they are lining to make this happen.

That’s some of the most commie government overreach bs I’ve ever heard. That’s like suing a sports team for being too good and taking fans away.

Sheesh. I wish we can stop talking about CoD. It’s a mediocre game like Forza and Halo.

Blizzard will have to either do an Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 Steam release or disband cuz their reputation is basically impossible to salvage

Nintendo deal is off then🤷‍♂️

what a bummer.

Funny to see the FTC having Sony's back. The reasoning behind it seems stupid. Also funny to see them going against a US company for the benefit of a Japanese one. Did they move HQ or something? Absolute turds...

This will be hard for FTC to argue. At any time any company can stop providing support for a platform. There's no law that requires multiplatform support nor should there be. Sony will just lose a lot of its customers because they bet on a few titles to make them viable.

Why not just sue Sony into stopping their exclusive bs as well

MS knowing very well the deal will still go through

If M$ lost that one, wouldn't it set a precedent that other companies couldn't have exclusives to their console/platform?

CoD will be in the GamePass.

Sony has done this for years

Sony deserves crap, but consolidation sucks, so this is good

FTC ain’t got M$ money 😂 Don’t bite the hand that feeds you FTC

Where the hell was the FTC with Facebook’s acquisition of instagram and WhatsApp? Not to mention all the other monopolies?

lol. dude.

Tbh it's good. MS is buying all the major triple A studios to roadblock Sony. Reckoned ES6 and FO5 would be open... month later, nah, if you want to play the next titles you buy an Xbox. Competition is good, monopoly is bad.

sagalocc Sony and Nintendo do exactly the same thing, so what’s the issue? It’s called competition.

Going to be an interesting suit to see play out 😬

Prob be a counter sue made by Microsoft, after all they promoting anti competition by not approving this deal

I want to hear the FTC answer why Uncharted, God of War, Horizon or Last of us are NOT in Xbox... Every major console company does exclusives. Naughty dog took 26 years to make a game outside PlayStation and it's a PC game, not Xbox, or Nintendo.

The FTC will lose in court again....

M

This is a big sad for me. I was really hoping that Microsoft would get the green light. I couldn't care less about Activision. The Blizzard Studio could have really benefited from this arrangement. Would have loved to have seen Worldofwarcraft on Game Pass

Bill gates forgot to grease some of the palms in D.C eldercare facilities? the Senile farts in the Gubmitn remembered that vidya games make money?

Of course Brandon doesn't want to support an American company.

Sucks that i gotta spend over a grand for each one of them on pc.

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