“Microsoft had the chance to restructure during our initial investigation but instead continued to insist on a package of measures that we told them simply wouldn’t work. Dragging out proceedings in this way only wastes time and money.”
Get bent CMA. Every other country regulator approved it, you were the only ones that were dragging out proceedings. CMA only succeeded in making themselves look like clowns to the entire planet.
Why are you so invested in this?
Honestly I’m for this because it will increase Xbox market share. The PS4 had so much of a monopoly that making exclusive ps4 games with a bit of incentive from Sony seemed like the right choice. While I ordinarily wouldn’t want any sector to get more consolidated, this will probably at least make things more competitive with new IP. Obviously the already existing IP owned by each company will mostly end up walled gardened, but probably less of the new stuff from third parties will. And Microsoft is likely going to be a better handler of that Activision IP than Activision was.
It’s a weird stance for them to take. What fools the CMA are to question the competitive nature of it all!
I mean their reasoning was really poor. Cloud gaming? As much as I like it, people aren’t really going for it. Stadia worked so well. But it obviously was costing far more than it was making. Xcloud is doing far more poorly than MS expected and apparently just gets used as a glorified demo machine by most. Playstation gives exactly half a shit about their cloud gaming in spite of having it the longest.
I wonder when this will be completed and how quickly games will start coming to game pass.
The plan is to finalise today (as reported by The Verge), but Activision anticipates putting games on Game Pass over the course of 2024.
Personally? I’d expect something before Christmas. Got to push those end-of-year console sales after all.
