Thursday, April 27th 2023
Microsoft Boss Continues Tirade Against UK Market Regulator, Following Blocking of Activision Blizzard Takeover
Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft has been doing the rounds with the UK press, and the incensed executive continues to express anger about the nation's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) preventing his company's proposed buyout of Activision Blizzard. The UK antitrust watchdog yesterday blocked the deal on the grounds that a merging of (already massive) games publishers could result in a potentially catastrophic skew in Microsoft's favor within the fast growing cloud gaming market sector. The CMA's latest findings suggest that the takeover would "lead to reduced innovation and less choice for UK gamers over the years to come." This verdict comes as a major blow to Microsoft's gaming division following a number of victories - including Japan's competition regulator approving the takeover bid late last month. The company's gaming division (Xbox Game Studios) is awaiting verdicts from the EU commission and US Federal Trade Commission.
In a business-themed podcast interview (conducted by the BBC), Microsoft boss Brad Smith declared that the UK government's blocking of the merger represented a bad move "for Britain" in terms of attracting international business. Microsoft has been operating in country for four decades, and Smith casts doubt on that relationship - in his opinion - the mega corporation has experienced its "darkest day" in the region: "It does more than shake our confidence in the future of the opportunity to grow a technology business in Britain than we've ever confronted before. People are shocked, people are disappointed, and people's confidence in technology in the UK has been severely shaken." Smith insists that fledgling companies should look elsewhere to start a base of operations: "There's a clear message here - the European Union is a more attractive place to start a business than the United Kingdom."
According to the BBC - a UK government spokesman countered Mr Smith's claims about the CMA's decision being bad for Britain: "Those sorts of claims are not borne out by the facts." The spokesperson outlines that the UK government is more than willing to co-operate with Microsoft going forward - the UK video games market is expected to double in size within the next decade, and the spokesperson theorizes that Team Green is set to benefit well from growth the sector. Microsoft's official statement from yesterday (issued in reaction to the regulator's verdict) contained a veiled threat to curb its investment in Britain - with that context Mr Smith stated that the UK government "needs to look hard at the role of the CMA and the regulatory structure." The UK CMA's chief executive, Sarah Cardell, has also made comments to news outlets and today stated that she does not agree with the views expressed by Microsoft's leader: "I think this decision shows actually how important it is to support competition in the UK and that the UK is absolutely open for business. We want to create an environment where a whole host of different companies can compete effectively, can grow and innovate."
Industry experts have found it odd that the UK CMA had granted provisional approval of Microsoft's deal (across a broader context) last month, yet the smaller issue of cloud gaming turned out to be the main sticking point within the final judgement. Ultimately, Sony's leadership is likely celebrating yesterday's verdict - their PlayStation organization has long protested that a successful buyout of Activision Blizzard would result in an unfair market skew in Microsoft's direction. The rival games publishers have been fighting fierce over the Call of Duty franchise's future and other platform exclusives.
Sources:
BBC News, BBC Money Podcast, Bloomberg
In a business-themed podcast interview (conducted by the BBC), Microsoft boss Brad Smith declared that the UK government's blocking of the merger represented a bad move "for Britain" in terms of attracting international business. Microsoft has been operating in country for four decades, and Smith casts doubt on that relationship - in his opinion - the mega corporation has experienced its "darkest day" in the region: "It does more than shake our confidence in the future of the opportunity to grow a technology business in Britain than we've ever confronted before. People are shocked, people are disappointed, and people's confidence in technology in the UK has been severely shaken." Smith insists that fledgling companies should look elsewhere to start a base of operations: "There's a clear message here - the European Union is a more attractive place to start a business than the United Kingdom."
Industry experts have found it odd that the UK CMA had granted provisional approval of Microsoft's deal (across a broader context) last month, yet the smaller issue of cloud gaming turned out to be the main sticking point within the final judgement. Ultimately, Sony's leadership is likely celebrating yesterday's verdict - their PlayStation organization has long protested that a successful buyout of Activision Blizzard would result in an unfair market skew in Microsoft's direction. The rival games publishers have been fighting fierce over the Call of Duty franchise's future and other platform exclusives.
44 Comments on Microsoft Boss Continues Tirade Against UK Market Regulator, Following Blocking of Activision Blizzard Takeover
The problem however with this kind of consolidation is that we shift too much power to corporations. They don't need it to survive, let thém get creative instead. There is absolutely nothing wrong with capping the power level - it keeps ya sane.
I mean let's take small look in the mirror at what the Activision - Blizzard merger brought us. Boy oh boy. But perhaps D4....... But even if they hit home with that... nothing of the kind we know Blizzard by. No new Starcraft, no Warcraft RTS (even though indies are flooding the market with pretty strong contenders), scrapped plans for MMO and third person shooter... Instead we got TCG's, a pretty limited competitive shooter, and some failed clones of shit we already had.
In terms of should the merger go thru or fail over concerns issued that's up for debate and depending on who you ask are valid concerns or invalid ones. It's a contentious subject with multi-billion dollar corporations like Microsoft. It's not uncommon for mergers to involve multiple countries and for monopoly concerns over giant corporations to be raised over them.
On a secondary note they are obviously afraid of Sony as the PC space (look up Armored Core 6 on TPU) will be getting (Thanks to GTA5) what made the PS what it is. Japanese Content. Anyone who has played Genshin Impact or some of the free Games like Phantasy star on Epic know what I mean but I know that anyone who enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn is salivating for Horizon Forbidden West.
On a 3rd note the cost of Games is stupid but contrary to the narrative the quality that can be found in every genre is crazy. Do you like Tower Defence? Orcs Must Die 3 will blow you away. Do you like ARPG? Grim Dawn is arguably the best ARPG ever made made POE is free. Do you like RTS? TWWH3 or COH3 are killer. Do you like Turn based RPGs like Xcom? There are plenty of Great games there too like Warhammer Chaos Gate. Do you like Racing Games? Project Cars 2 is so huge that you will totally enjoy that sim but Grids Legends will have you finish it in a weekend. Like MMO FPS? Try Hell Let loose or Angels Fall. The thing is most of those Games I found on the best service for developers and Gamers Humble Choice. Tomorrow I will be playing Aliens Fire Team and giving my nephew a copy of Death Stranding.
Why Nvidia’s GeForce Now has become so controversial with game developers - The Verge
The idea of MS making a competing product to CoD if they could not buy CoD is a possibility sure, but at the same time, they might just want to buy it because they know they are not going to be able to compete, heck look at how gamers treat the very existence of the Epic Store, here you have competition and everyone hates them for it....
And if a CoD clone would come people would lable it as a lame clone and stick with CoD, is it possible to clone CoD and market it in such a way that people gravitate to that instead? probably. Will MS or any company even attempt it? no, waste of time and money most likely.
So why not just buy CoD and just like I suggested, be one company above it, then it does not matter for the consumer.
and I once again would like to hammer on the fact that this has NOTHING to do with cloudgaming so that UK argument is just silly.
Nor the idea of choice because they and you as well insinuate there would/will be competition (that currently does not exist either) if the deal is canceled, which is one hell of a baseless crystal ball argument.
And actually sure, give me those three pages without blinking, games that would have been totally awesome and numerous if they werent bought by big corporations, heck you could ask why they would even need those big corporations to own them in the first place....
EDIT: actually nvm on the last part, this is a silly argument all in all.
You are talking about big business consuming even more businesses, height of capitalism, bad stuff and in general I do agree with that.
Its just in this case that I think literally nothing of value is lost or gained from MS buying A/B apart from maybe that scumbag company becoming slightly less scumbaggy.
A/B produce shitty games that drain people purposely from their money, praying on those mentally less strong, personally I would see them gone rather bought up, but I dont see any possible negative consequences from this purchase emerging.
Worst case is no CoD competitor, oh no....whatever shall we do....
Microsoft must have some genius plan up their sleeve by appealing to broke customers who don't buy games or consoles that would make a healthy ecosystem. Same goes for Epic with the EGS. Making your store's only appeal the free games is nuts and only attracts cheapos.
So a country with less than 0.8% world population still manages 11% revenue for a global company.
What a small insignificant country, no company cares about such little revenue and can easily pull out!!
MS are already in the lead for cloud gaming and will stay there as it is.
The lobbying by MS has been rather overt with biased research, academics, lawyers, adverts, politicians etc.The rest of the world will back the UK not MS. The UK and USA share a similar position. It is unrealistic to entertain this.
99,5% where Microsoft was the publisher are junk games so why not Activision Blizzard is a Junk Company.
Best example in the new COD there are Skillbased Hitboxes :laugh: :roll: :laugh:
But YEAH the press is mostly too garbage and try to hide this fact and do not publish it.:kookoo:
COD the new Candy Crush Saga :nutkick:
execs not use to hearing no I suppose??
For big companies($1bil+), organic growth(by hiring individual people) is not realistic/possible. Buying smaller companies is the only way to grow. Asking a 2 trillion company to grow organically is simply ridiculous.
I'm sure the reasons for denial are hogwash - Sony lobbied (read: paid them) for sure. But be that as it may, Brad(and all Microsoft & Activision Blizzard executives) need to restrain from emotional outbursts and focus on facts to be able to deliver this merger.
We do think highly of ourselves, that's true but then the free world is free in large part due to them, and they also did invent computers and have a say in a lot of what followed, did you enjoy the industrial revolution btw, and John Dalton gave adequate Ip research to give the basic start to ALL things chemistry.
And that's mostly just Manchester :p
I think less of the rest of the UK but it is still Great IMHO.