After the competition watchdog blocked the takeover earlier this year, Microsoft’s president Brad Smith hit out at the CMA’s decision, which it said was “bad for Britain” and contradicted “the ambitions of the UK to become an attractive country to build technology businesses”.
But the CMA’s Ms Cardell said with the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, which makes Assassin’s Creed, “we’ve made sure Microsoft can’t have a stranglehold over this important and rapidly developing market”.
Under the restructured agreement, Microsoft has agreed to transfer the rights to stream Activision games from the cloud to Ubisoft for 15 years outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
The deal with Activision also means Microsoft will own its studio solely purposed for mobile games, with hopes of expanding on the successes of titles such as Candy Crush.
The takeover further cements Microsoft as a video game giant and could catapult it ahead of Nintendo to become the third-biggest player in the industry behind Sony, the owner of the PlayStation console, and market leader Tencent.
“[It will lead to] more choice, more innovation, better value and improved gaming experiences and a healthy, competitive market,” said Ms Stewart, who is also a former head of ICT at the Cabinet Office government department.
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So let me make sure I’m reading this right. They let the deal go through because Microsoft gave Ubisoft the cloud streaming right to activation for the next 15 years. The argument being this deal will stop Microsoft from becoming a monopoly in the gaming market due to cloud gamings speculative importance in markets future.
Call me crazy but cloud gamings gonna take at least 15 years to be an important part of the market if it ever gets there in the first place. I can’t tell if regulators are stupid or wholly corrupt.
I’m not interested in their games either, my issue with it is that a lot of people are, and MS is trying their hardest to get a monopoly in the industry and/or turn everything into streaming-only subscription crap
That’s not what I meant and you’re literally wrong lol, incredible games are made every year. My problem with this is that Microsoft is trying to turn gaming into its corporate cloud-only monopoly.
Good games are still made, but the top shops, with respect to size and funding have priorities that aren’t aligned directly with enjoyment and story telling. There is a lot of requirement to be online, gambling addiction based mechanics, unfinished releases, MRR goals, and strong arm tactics by publishers for platform exclusivity. Perhaps I am literally wrong about my view, but it is my opinion nevertheless; wasn’t trying to start a debate.
User satisfaction is regularly an afterthought to profit, as is expected in capitalism but not always ideal for the consumer. And less competition doesn’t help.
It’s never been a better time to be a gamer. Fantastic games are a dime a dozen and consoles have never been nearly as powerful for low end games. It’s a fantastic time to be gaming.
Except Microsoft is building up a monopoly on gaming, buying what they can, consolidating its properties so they can then transition to a streaming-only model where nobody owns anything (I know you don’t technically “own” the games you buy either but at least you can have them on physical media to keep, back up or sell) and the only way to play anything is to pay a monthly subscription fee and to use only what Microsoft allows you to use (i.e. no more Linux gaming)
I don’t exclusively mean piracy, but also piracy isn’t theft because you’re not taking anything away from anyone, you’re making a copy of some files 🤷♀️
The notion that piracy is theft is capitalist bullshit designed to manipulate people’s emotions by equating a company not making as much profits as they theoretically could have to theft lol
Eh, I’m of the opinion when the old giants get stale or acquired into a grand corporate strategy new studios will spring up to fill the vacancy in the market.
Lmaoooooo that’s absurd. Y’all just want to be angry. It’s a fantastic time to be a gamer.
RE4, TotK, Hifi rush, street fighter, mk1, Diablo, starfield, armored core, lies of p, bg3, octopath 2, Hogwarts , pikeman, amnesia , like a dragon, fire emblem, age of wonders, assassin’s Creed, attic heart, blasphemous 2, company of heroes, darkest dungeon 2, dredge, Forza, immortals of avium , lords of the fallen, total war, Spider-Man in a few days, remnant, survivor, system shock, etc.
I’m sure I missed quite a few good games and that’s 23 only.
Activision already ruined blizzard and is/was a shit company. Anyone buying their games still is a sucker who loves being ripped off. Nothing of value was lost here.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. You do you I guess.
I will say it’s not technically free, game pass has a fee, ergo you’re paying for it.
I don’t know enough, nor care enough to weigh in on the implications of this deal.
I play Minecraft Java and Factorio and really am not interested in any other games as I found these two be be good for what I enjoy and they don’t ask me for more money all the time.
“more choices” per the new CEO. Speech has absolutely been neutered by corporations in the last 30 years. Literally the opposite. “Product enhancements” announced by an airline, everyone starts looking for what is worse.
I don’t know, maybe I should be angry or something. But Activision/Blizzard have been pretty shitty for a while now. This will just be more of the same and more of me continueing to not buying their games.
I grew up on Blizzard and Activision games, but the good feelings and nostalgia wore off when they started treating beloved franchises like DLC piggy banks.
Looking forward to see how this will improve the quality of Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard-EA-Ubisoft’s games and those of the competito- oh, never mind. None left.
No-one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies - nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival.
No-one, except for racists who work for the genocide of that population.
But this doesn’t mean that we should start saying that the organisation whose supporters have carried them out is a terrorist organisation, because that would mean we were abandoning our duty to stay objective.
That makes it sound as if the Hamas was a regular, military organization with legitimate goals, which eventually settles their dispute at the negotiating table. And I think that’s giving a false picture of that organization. But let’s hear what they have to say about themselves:
Quoted from article 7:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
Quoted from article 13:
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.
These people (Hamas, not Palestinians) see it as their religious duty to kill all Jews.
I think the BBC’s position makes sense in most conflicts, but not in this one. They probably just try to appease both sides, with an explanation that sounds reasonable, if you don’t look too much behind the curtains.
Barry Green recounts the moment in June 1983 when the JET fusion laboratory in Oxford undertook its first experiment.
The chosen model was tokamak, which uses magnetic fields to confine the plasma - a hot, ionised gas - inside a vessel.
And the hope of producing enough energy to power homes remains a long way off - 59 MJ is only enough to boil about 60 kettles’ worth of water.
Joelle Mailloux is the JET science programme leader overseeing the third round of deuterium-tritium experiments which end on Saturday.
She says the key challenges they are focusing on are making the plasma more stable, spreading the power load and looking at improving materials in the reactor to withstand the conditions.
Paul Methven, STEP programme director at the UK Atomic Energy Agency, told the BBC: "On endeavours like this, you need to be simultaneously really ambitious and also realistic.
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I mean we’re increasing restrictions on solar and some fairly high profile politicans are talking about the lost benefits of oil and coal so… I’m pretty sure going our own way involves some kind of reversion to steam power medicine based on the four humours.
bbc.co.uk
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