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After months and months of litigations, legal actions and disclosed documents from all involved parties, a California judge (Judge Corley) has come to a ruling submitted today in the case, which has been on going for the last few weeks.

Judge Corley has submitted a ruling DENYING the FTC's preliminary injuction motion against Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, with the following statement:

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox.

It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services. This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted—perhaps even terminated—pending resolution of the FTC administrative action.

For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.

The ruling will allow Microsoft to close the merge with Activision Blizzard ahead of its scheduled July 18th deadline, which is just a week off from the ruling, and while this surely allows Microsoft to carry on with the merge, there's still the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) in the UK blocking the proposed merge overseas, with an appeal hearing scheduled on July 28th.

Europe in general has given the merge the green light according to several regulators, so basically it's only the UK's CMA which is currently halting the full merge for some additional time, and while it is possible that Microsoft might still go on without the UK's intervention, the most likely case is that they could extend the agreement to a date after the CMA hearing to clear the merge up worldwide.

UPDATE: Just a few minutes after the news of the court ruling, both Microsoft and the UK regulators have agreed to pause their battle to negotiate, which could mean that Microsoft might have a clean slate to go ahead with the acquisition without issues, if they do resolve the negotiations.

Source

 

[chrisrlink]

Sierra, good times. Hopeful for the revival of some of their classics.

personally sicking lawyers on fan games of series your never showing interest on reviving is the worse even worse than nintendo suppprisingly

 

[Jayro]

This pisses me off, Microsoft doesn't need to buy up every fucking developer, and the anti-trust lawsuits need to start pouring in.

 

[White_Raven_X]

I have a PS5 because I like the fact that they have exclusive games. I'll never buy an XBOX because every game will also be available on PC and my desktop is powerfully enough to run anything at 4k with unlocked FPS. Sony will keep making exclusives and Microsoft will keep losing money to PC gamers who are either hackers or pirates who don't pay for the games.
COD is not the holy grail of FPS games in my books... Let's see what happens to COD in 10 years anyways.

 

[Xzi]

Diablo 4 was a surprise hit thanks to Vicarious Visions, but the rest of ABK really has nowhere to go but up. Hopefully MS brings all Bnet games to Steam instead of just CoD.

 

[Valwinz]

I have a PS5 because I like the fact that they have exclusive games. I'll never buy an XBOX because every game will also be available on PC and my desktop is powerfully enough to run anything at 4k with unlocked FPS. Sony will keep making exclusives and Microsoft will keep losing money to PC gamers who are either hackers or pirates who don't pay for the games.
COD is not the holy grail of FPS games in my books... Let's see what happens to COD in 10 years anyways.

what exclusives? the PC games ?

 

[Viri]

Don't give a shit about ABK or Microsoft. I used to care about Blizzard, but they killed all my good will with StarCraft 2.

But the case was funny to follow in the court room.

Post automatically merged: Jul 11, 2023

Though I doubt much will change if they don't kick out Bobby...

He's gonna get gone, but don't feel too bad for him, he's going to get a very very heavy "golden parachute".

Post automatically merged: Jul 11, 2023

what exclusives? the PC games ?

That's why I don't really mind Microsoft buying them. Even if they do make something I have an interest in, I can just play it on PC.

 

[Bladexdsl]

guess that means Nintendo has COD for at least 10 years.

i'm sure it will turn out fine this time. after all the switch is a tiny bit faster than the wii

 

[17hitcombooo]

the only reason I want MS to aquire them is cause the head of xbox division say they're intrested in Sierra and the revival of classic series like the various quest series (Police, Space,King's etc) all actiblizz have been doing is sicking lawyers on fan games and letting those series stagnate and also give those game original developers their jobs back or let them have a say or give story advice in development

i just hope they can actually give their other acti devs something to do than just livin in the call of duty mines

 

[Kioku]

wdym? That seems like a pretty obvious conflict of interests.

It would be if her son worked in Xbox…

It’s just funny because NOTHING was said about this beforehand… but because Sony was on the ropes, they have to find something to grasp for out of desperation. I’d bet that if the judge ruled in favor of the FTC, or if it seemed Microsoft would have lost, nobody would have been the wiser.

 

[Xzi]

i'm sure it will turn out fine this time. after all the switch is a tiny bit faster than the wii

Switch 2 is supposedly on par with PS4, so it should be fine even if still quite ugly compared to next-gen versions. Steam Deck is more on par with a PS4 Pro.

 

[lordrand11]

Sierra, good times. Hopeful for the revival of some of their classics.

I'd be hype for a hit and run remake or remaster tbh

 

[RedColoredStars]

The fact that Sony is so freak out off losing COD tells you their current state.

They bet all on western studios and is now paying the price. They have nothing to offer after they turn their back on japan

Most amusing thing about all of this? The people commenting on how Sony is now doomed over COD. LOL! You have to be some kind of special to actually believe that bs. I have all three current gen consoles and a pc so I don't really care what is or is not an exclusive, or which system it's an exclusive for. Their current state? PS5 sales are still ahead of Series X|S by approx. 15 million. Apart from that, I think the majority would agree MS's first party exclusives as a whole are pretty poor in comparison. If anything, MS needs COD to stay afloat. Sony will be perfectly fine.

what exclusives? the PC games ?

So PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4 console exclusives don't exist? And why do I never see people like you make the same argument when a game is referred to as an "Xbox Exclusive"? Why don't I ever see "what exclusives? the PC games ?"

 

[codezer0]

The only thing that would be a positive about this is if Kotick gets the boot.

I'm still pissed off Microsoft allowed Todd Howard to keep his job. Eff that guy, too.

 

[Xenogeist]

I thought Spiderman is gonna save Sony according to the Fanboy.

P. S Im PlayStation fan, not Fanboy.

 

[RedColoredStars]

I thought Spiderman is gonna save Sony according to the Fanboy.

P. S Im PlayStation fan, not Fanboy.

Same, fan but also a fan of the competition. So fanboy-ism aside, facts are facts. Fact is that Sony doesn't need saving. MS did. They've lost in console sales to Sony for every generation since the original Xbox, including the current.

 

[KingVamp]

Well, I never thought that the deal would start on the Switch anyway. Not even because of power, but timing.

Salt of some fans aside, I see a renewal of people wanting Killzone.

 

[xdarkx]

I'm just glad this is finally over.

Also, the fact that there are still people complaining or being salty is funny to me. The last I checked, Activision-Blizzard was looking to sell itself. If Microsoft fail to acquire Activision-Blizzard, some other big company will try their hands on acquiring them. Regardless of which company acquire them, the result would be more or less the same.

 

[Lazyboss]

I just hope Microsoft will just shut up about this matter now, this case became so annoying.

 

[Fusion]

I just hope Microsoft will just shut up about this matter now, this case became so annoying.

It wasn't Microsoft making a noise, it was all the media coverage constantly on it.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

This pisses me off, Microsoft doesn't need to buy up every fucking developer, and the anti-trust lawsuits need to start pouring in.

Tencent can do it.
Embracer can do it.
EA can do it.
Take Two can do it.
Sony can do it.

.....but MS shouldn't be allowed to do it?