What The HELL Is Going On With The Microsoft-Activision Acquisition Deal?

In January of this year, Microsoft announced that it would be acquiring Activision Blizzard in a deal worth nearly $69 billion, though as the months have passed by, the proposed acquisition has run into a number of hurdles. Of course, any acquisition – especially one of this magnitude – has to jump through all the necessary regulatory hoops before it can be finalized, but as the last few months (and especially the last few days) have made abundantly clear, those hoops are proving harder to jump through for this particular acquisition. So what exactly is going on with the Xbox-Activision deal?

Well, in the here and now, this is the big headline- just recently, it came to light that the United States’ Federal Trade Commission (or the FTC) is filing an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in administrative court in a bit to block the company's impending acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

[monkey-chin]

Let's be real if sony could afford activision they would have made call of duty exclusive, and nobody would have cared if it was on xbox or not

[AaMo]

They said it’d draw players away from PS… as PS damn near sweeps TGA

[christonchev]

FTC instead of been for the consumer its for PS, they are gonna lose and it will hit their reputation hard

[archangel]

Considering Microsoft pulled a end run around the trade commission with its Bethesda accusation and has made all future Bethesda properties xbox exclusives.

[tiaan]

sony knows COD on gamepass would be a massive driving force for console buyers, considering a large majority of people just buy a PS for COD or some sport games

[matthewcordeiro]

So Microsoft might get blocked from this merger. But Disney can buy, fox, marvel, Lucas films etc and the don’t say s&$@ about it.

[robm]

Folks seeing Call of duty as a massive prize, meanwhile I'm thinking about the moneymaker WoW could be if it were put on Xbox consoles to be played with a controller.

[taimanchan]

This is mess is created by Sony.
Keep making game exclusive and now crying about other company acquisition.
Ms have already says cod will be on steam and even switch.
Those pr keep saying ms is going to make exclusive is non sense 😂

[StraightcheD]

From all this mess, 2 things I take away are (1) sources of info our community has tend to be inaccurate and we have been mislead for a long time, and (2) the regulators have been going after big tech companies and they think sony's testimony gives them the best chance to build their case.

[baroncalamityplus]

Sony isn't interested in fairness. Sony wants exclusivity to PlayStation and they will object to everything short of that. It wasn't a secret that Sony wanted Starfield to be exclusive, when the purchase with Bethesda happen, they were working on a deal to have Bethesda exclusive to PlayStation. After Microsoft bought Bethesda, Microsoft offered Starfield to PlayStation but it would be day and date with Xbox. Then Sony said they wouldn't allow Starfield to be on PlayStation. Something they are using against Microsoft buying Activision. Its really frustrating Sony is this way. Its also frustrating that governments around the world are willing to defend the market leader to stop competition.

[onehitsword]

Microsoft has two publishers including Microsoft it's self, They don't need a third one

[Matt-lcbd]

SONY is the king of exclusives So its ok for Sony to do it but not MS??? What are we kids on the playground? If you force MS to not have exclusives all gaming platforms need follow the same rules "Sony".

[TheChodex]

If Activision games are on game pass then I think COD doesn't even need to be exclusive, just the fact that it's on game pass alongside many other games is enough for people to chose Xbox over PS this generation.

Imagine having 7+ months of almost all Activision + Bethesda + EA games + many other games on Xbox for a price of single CoD game on PS5

[charleslebi]

I hate mergers like these. The ideas of these "gigacorporations" is a bad idea. Microsoft OS is practically a monopoly and now they want to acquire large parts of gaming publishing. Fuck no, see the crap happening with Ticketmaster and Apple.

[TevyaSmolka]

I am not a fan of mergers mostly because it kind of leads to a monopoly which isn’t really good for the economy in my opinion.

[Ray__E]

This is a massive acquisition and governments are right to be cautious. Microsoft has a history of creating a monopoly. I think it's 50/50 of it being approved. If it is, I think this may be the last major acquisition Microsoft will be allowed to purchase.

[iknown]

Acquisition before games is what's going on over at Microsoft.

[jdrobin]

Microsoft would be silly to not keep COD multiplatform. They'd lose alot of money

[elliottptat]

i don’t understand why don’t doesn’t even attempt to but any relevant companies 🤦‍♂️

[williammclelland]

The deal is done the ftc have nothing and sony should be left out of COD since they didn't want to sign a deal the ftc and sony are finished