The recent actiblizz situation has shown that Microsoft can do whatever they want, and no regulator will stop them. No regulator currently has teeth or a want to stop any aspect of big business, especially not tech. Thinking a regulator will say no to anything at this point is wishful at beat.
I mean it’s still stuck and CMA may still block it for all we know. Regulators definitely made them go through hoops for this one and it there’s a next one it’ll probably not go well after this.
So I would like to be on board with this. But if you look at every single regulator who even double taked, it was all about cloud. They don’t care about consolidation of media and they have no intention of stopping it.
I think they cared about it, saw the numbers, and realised the case can’t be made because of the current way market is setup. CMA initially wasn’t convinced but with correct calculations it got resolved. FTC actually didn’t make a big point over cloud but that this could destroy PlayStation, which also wasn’t justifiable with data. EU held similar opinions but felt it also is pro competitive given the number of IPs Sony holds.
But after ABK, I don’t think that case can be made anymore. With ABK the number of IPs and content becomes more competitive with PS and Nintendo, and they all kept saying this is a vertical merger, Nintendo or Sony wouldn’t, and thus wouldn’t be allowed.
The recent actiblizz situation has shown that Microsoft can do whatever they want, and no regulator will stop them. No regulator currently has teeth or a want to stop any aspect of big business, especially not tech. Thinking a regulator will say no to anything at this point is wishful at beat.
I mean it’s still stuck and CMA may still block it for all we know. Regulators definitely made them go through hoops for this one and it there’s a next one it’ll probably not go well after this.
So I would like to be on board with this. But if you look at every single regulator who even double taked, it was all about cloud. They don’t care about consolidation of media and they have no intention of stopping it.
I think they cared about it, saw the numbers, and realised the case can’t be made because of the current way market is setup. CMA initially wasn’t convinced but with correct calculations it got resolved. FTC actually didn’t make a big point over cloud but that this could destroy PlayStation, which also wasn’t justifiable with data. EU held similar opinions but felt it also is pro competitive given the number of IPs Sony holds.
But after ABK, I don’t think that case can be made anymore. With ABK the number of IPs and content becomes more competitive with PS and Nintendo, and they all kept saying this is a vertical merger, Nintendo or Sony wouldn’t, and thus wouldn’t be allowed.