Since Xbox announced its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, official approval of the deal by nations around the world has been a key topic of discussion. The FTC is scrutinising the deal over in the US, while the UK CMA is taking a good long look at proceedings over here. Well, we've now seen some positive movement on approval for the first time.
Anti-competition authorities in Saudi Arabia have publicly approved the deal, taking to Twitter to reveal the verdict. The approval is considered to be the first of many that'll be necessary for the deal to actually go through, for both Xbox and Activision Blizzard.
This is the first time we've seen such an authority come out and approve the deal publicly, although of course, other approvals may well have occurred behind closed doors. Prior reports did state that the US FTC approval could be wrapped up by the end of this month, although we haven't heard anything on that front since July. We do appear to be one step closer with this approval though!
What's the first ActiBlizz game you'd play on Xbox Game Pass? Let us know in the comments!
Comments 21
LET'S GO!!! 1 DOWN!!!
Well other countries will have to pontificate for months to show how important they are and show how they earn their money 😂
Saudi PIF currently owns Activision stocks
No disrespect to the Saudis but the really big fish are EU and of course the US regulators, they have the power to actually block this. Let's see how they respond.
I'm still not convinced about this takeover and would much prefered Microsoft to pursue Ubisoft.
Seems the rumours from a few weeks ago were correct and the deal is indeed further on than people expected.
I really can't see how anyone could realistically argue against the deal going through - but I do understand its a monumental deal that needs to be looked at, but if the 'deal' is not fraudulent, then it can't be 'anti-trust' or 'anti-consumer'.
The reason nVidia abandoned its deal for Arm was because that would give nVidia a massive lead over its 'only' competitor - AMD.
However, when A/B does go through, MS would be '3rd' at best behind TenCent & Sony, although Embracer are growing too and there is also Nintendo, EA, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Sega etc as Competition. Indie devs have so much choice of where they can get their games Published, so many games are released every week across a multitude of Platforms from a wide range of Publishers.
Point is, MS will not have significantly higher 'market share' at all, won't even be the 'biggest' Publisher by Revenue in Gaming either. MS can say that they would love Game Pass on Playstation/Switch too to offer their games on EVERY device, but those companies 'block' them so they are 'preventing' MS from distributing there. MS has a 'method' to allow PS/Switch gamers from playing ANY Xbox game on their platform and its Sony/Nintendo that are actively preventing their users from 'playing' on their preferred platform of choice.
The UK has set a date as September the first to give it's decision so we will know then
@BAMozzy spot on. MS won’t stop after Acti/Blizz deal either I feel, they’ll keep buying. The outrage we see on the internet is just from people who don’t understand the economics of the situation or from those who outright don’t like the Xbox brand and want it to fail, maybe even a mix of the 2.
@Sol4ris
Microsoft need all regulators to approve it if they want it to remain operational in all countries. Xbox wants to expand beyond the US and Europe.
Awesome news
@BAMozzy I really can't see how anyone could realistically argue against the deal going through
Because we all know PlayStation is the king.
@Fenbops And even if they did buy Ubisoft AND EA, they still wouldn't have a Monopoly or risk anti-trust laws as there are still numerous other Publishers in competition. Its not like ALL devs have NO choice but to rely on Microsoft to get their games out and still be accessible to the 'majority' or MS will force people to buy MS made hardware as their games are 'multi-platform' (Cloud, PC and Consoles)
@Snake_V5 That doesn't stop people from 'arguing' against the deal - as we have seen. Its funny that before they announced the deal, CoD was never mentioned as a 'reason' to buy a PS5 and CoD has been on a downward trend too. It was 'ridiculed' like Fifa is, until MS intended to buy A/B. Afterwards, its the 'most' important game for Sony - bigger than anything they can make or offer their own users, more important than all their Game of the Year' award winning 1st party IP's, Studio's etc, bigger than any Publishing deals Sony makes and 'vital' to Sony remaining in the gaming trade. CoD's success had a LOT to do with MS promoting it to sell 'Gold' subs and its popularity on 360 spread to Sony who had their 'own' FPS games to try and knock 'Halo' of its perch.
Its the hypocrisy of Fanboys that leads to arguments. At the start of the XB1 era, CoD was associated with MS and MS had 'more' exclusives too - but then 'power' mattered because who wants to play CoD, BF, AC4 etc on XB1 when PS4 was 'better'. Then when Sony got into their stride with 3x more studio's developing 'exclusives', they mattered more than having the most powerful Console on the market - the XB1X. Point is, fanboys will always argue about 'something' - even if they were arguing for the complete opposite yesterday...
Therefore there will be arguments when there isn't anything realistically to argue about...
I'm not a fan of all these mergers, I think there should be MORE companies, not LESS. It defeats the entire concept of a free market the more everything merges into a few global players, or even a few regional players, and our economic system looks more and more like a modern take on feudalism than any kind of free market (or "capitalism" because somehow even hardcore laissez-faire free market proponents feel the need to quote Marx when referring to themselves...)
All that having been said, though, if we're going with the oligarchic corporate republic model, it's insane that this much hand waiving is being made over a buyout between two companies that are not even direct competitors, it's a vertical, not horizontal integration, and numerous other competitors exist including the proxies of the CCP. In a world that's satisfied with duopolies, as long as either Sony, or Tencent, or for that matter Apple or Valve exists, MS could buy every other company in the industry and still not be a monopoly worth blocking based on how every other industry has had their consolidation regulated (or lack thereof.)
We have 3 telephone companies, 3 chemical companies, 4 oil companies, 2 energy companies (plus a handful of tiny government coop type setups), 4 railroads, 3 primary retailers, 35 years ago there were dozens of each. Industries have consolidated down to 2-4 players.
This is the same regulation system that permitted the only 2 satrad providers to merge into one because "terrestrial radio, iPod, and streaming were competition", the same regulation system that permitted Amazon to buy the only companies making warehouse automation robots simply to prevent their competitors having access to automation. The same regulators that allowed Dow and Dupont to merge because "chemistry is no longer the future". In the US regulation system "we can't achieve infinite ROI unless we consolidate the industry into a single entity" counts as a valid reason for M&A. "Anti-trust" is a sham. It doesn't exist. It's window dressing to make it look like we're not the People's Democratic Republic of America, even though we are.
Maybe the EU does more real evaluation, but guaranteed they can be bought, and not even for that much money. Nobody's stopping Activision. Nor the next buyout. Nor the 3 after that. They'll make a pageant about it, but all they're doing is upping their bribe check.
I don’t understand why two US companies need approval from foreign nations. Is it something to do with operating in other parts of the word? Needless to say, I don’t get it.
Thanks in advance to whoever explains it! 🧡
@InfamousOrange Technically no country outside the US can block it from happening, however since there's international investment, registration/incorporation/etc another country refusing to recognize it essentially bans either company from doing business there under a blocked merger, so it would be problematic for MS to go through with it if any country they desire to do Xbox business in blocks it, it would effectively mean pulling Xbox out of that country. Ending selling Xbox in Saudi or Brazil won't kill them, but it'll hurt their overall business goals, ending selling Xbox in EU obviously is a non-starter.
@BAMozzy having gamepass on playstation & Nintendo would make no sense for them as all the games on gamepass that are multiplatform that people might buy on those consoles would be free with the gamepass subscription a cheaper version of it that only includes games that are Xbox exclusive would make sense but then they wouldn't be native & how many people would sign up to stream a handful of games
@Would_you_kindly If you can ONLY afford one Console, as most people/kids/friends etc are forced to have, not those 'rich adults' that can afford to buy themselves 'multiple' consoles, having JUST a Playstation and having access to ALL Xbox Exclusives, a handful of 3rd Party AAA games, indies etc that you can play 'through' your console with 'your' controller for $10 a month maybe very appealing.
Even if it is 'just' streaming at a downsampled to 1080/60, that's a 'small' price to pay for day 1 access to games that you can also play on your mobile, your laptop or whatever other devices you may have. If you 'like' some of the games on Game Pass, then maybe that would convince people to 'buy' the games they 'can' on PS to get the Native experience but that's still a 'benefit' to both Gamer and Dev.
Its better than having to play on a just a mobile because you can't afford/justify buying an Xbox and means you also get to play games like Redfall, Starfield and access to Zenimax and A/B studio games (Old and New) as well. Elder Scrolls 6 for example too - if the 'only' option is Game Pass on Playstation so you at least get to play it in the 'same' way you play native games and Playstation has a decent wifi and can be hardwired too for the 'best' internet connection, then that's better than playing on a small 'mobile' screen with some peripheral to make it easy to use your controller (or try touchscreen in some cases) and much 'cheaper', than buying a Series S for 'native' play and/or more for 'best visual' quality too...
That's who its aimed at, who its 'for', and I would expect 'enough' would - maybe NOT the 'die-hard' Sony fanboys and those who 'refuse' to play via streaming but many would and the 'rest' would already have the means to play locally (Xbox/PC)
And as for Nintendo, MANY games never released on a Nintendo Console - and certainly never been playable on a Portable dedicated gaming console either - so playing Fallout, Elder Scrolls etc would be a 'great' reason let alone the 'new' AAA games that wouldn't release on Switch. Streaming could be 'better' than Local - Doom, Wolfenstein - both very scaled down visually and capped to 30fps, or the 'XSX visuals downsampled to 1080p and running at 60fps' - the difference in frame rate alone more than offsets any 'lag' incurred by streaming and the higher resolution, much higher visual settings etc offset the occasional compression artefacts you may see.
Yay. Free bone saws for everyone!
@BAMozzy I don't really see sony or Nintendo benefiting from having Microsoft's subscription service unless maybe they were to get a cut of the money from the subscriptions bought on their consoles
@Would_you_kindly And that's the reason they block MS from releasing Game Pass on their systems. If you can play games like MLB21/22, B4B etc on Game Pass, you are less likely to buy it on PS, let alone buy it through the PS store. Sales of those games would drop so Sony's revenue would drop.
I understand why Sony in particular would be so opposed to having Game Pass on their platform - especially without having a competitive rival to match to put on Xbox. Instead of 1st party 'exclusives' and/or history dictating the console choice, everyone gets the opportunity to access all the games. For platform holders, the USP maybe just the fact that 'their' own games will NOT be playable natively on their 'rival' platform due to not being built for that OS/API's. No one 'misses' out on games due to hardware choice.
The cost of hardware and shipping it around the world means that Sony/MS lose 'money' on every unit sold - not sustainable, economic or ideal as that contributes to the reason they 'lock' you in to their system. Its so they can charge for Online access, can have NO digital storefront competition, charge 3rd parties to release software etc etc to recuperate 'money' lost on Hardware. Its more a matter of time before these disappear - like HiFi systems. Yes 'cheap' record decks etc are sold as are 'high end' separates but the 'dedicated' music systems have gone. In the future, cheap 'consoles' will exist for 'low end' gaming/nostalgia, PC's will exist and 'dedicated' High end separate PC components to 'build' a high end gaming device will be an option, but the hardware that straddles the casual to high-end consumer in the middle will go - replaced by streaming.
@Would_you_kindly I would imagine Sony would benefit from having gamepass on PlayStation by the game sales - which would still go through their store. They'd also of course benefit from additional hardware sales which they may have lost to people picking up an Xbox over a PlayStation, of course...which then offers more potential to people getting into their eco system (I would imagine you'd still need plus even if they did have gamepass on)
I would imagine it would be a cut down version of gamepass...but it wouldn't be just a handful of games. This is why MS are buying publishers. Activision is as big a publisher as EA...add Bethesda, ID ect to that catalogue...and then xboxs own studios...they'll easily have as many games on that service as Ubisoft or EA alone have on theirs...and then there may still be EA play on it too...as I don't know how well that's doing as a stand alone on PlayStation.
The benefits of gamepass on PlayStation seem pretty obvious to me. And I think if Sony's live service games don't take off...and day 1 pc releases aren't enough...the next stage for sony will surely be day 1 releases of their own games on their subscription services before gamepass...but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if at some point we do see gamepass on a PlayStation console.
Nintendo... Well vast majority of games you can't buy on the Nintendo store. So I would imagine Nintendo would be paid my MS to have gamepass on there...and benefit via hardware sales....leading to more software sales of their own games, and keeps the aging switch hardware in the conversation
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