I am not a financial guru or anything, but I would guess that because Activision-Blizzard will still exist as an independent subsidiary, their financials simply flow through MS Gaming as a whole. Activision will likely still be publishing their own games still.
Phil Spencer: to close the deal this week we need a blood sacrifice.
Major Nelson: I volunteer!
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Shame itâs counting west coast time. Therefore 11 hours to go.
Hoeg about to go live
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Edit:
Quick OT: Larry has always been one of the nicest, most genuine people Iâve talked to/had dealings with in the industry. Years before I joined the team here, he was the first contact I made at Xbox - over a faulty One X actually - and from the first interaction, he was lovely and went out of his way to help Catherine and I. One of the genuine greats in the industry and I wish him nothing but love and the best for all his days 
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Yes. But if Microsoftâs role in the gaming industry becomes more of a games publisher than of a platform holder, potential acquisitions would count as horizontal mergers? Or would it be still a vertical merger due to the role platform holders play in the industry, regardless of revenue?
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Im not sure that is the correct way to look at it though. I dont believe the law looks at the percentage of your revenue that comes from one thing or another, more so the size of the business within the market as a whole. MS gaming as a whole would still be vertical, they are still a platform holder and publisher, publishing on multiple platforms.
If your publishing arm is making 100billion a year, but only has 8% of the market, it wouldnt be considered monopolistic to acquire another publisher unless that tipped the share of the market substantially.
(again, my read as a general layman)
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Nah. Still vertical. Its only horizontal if they manufacture hardware (or i guess, cloud provider). Nintendo would probably be prphibitedâŚbut thats easily solved, if Nintendo wanted to sell to XboxâŚthey would announce they are not making hardware anymore and going third party like Sega did.
Imma be playing Diablo IV on Game Pass before the year ends, amiriteee?
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To summarize, the only real hurdle and barrier now to closing is the merger deadline.
If the appellate court doesnât grant a stay or doesnât grant a stay that goes past the merger deadline, then this deal is closing.
If the appellate court grants a TRO that extends past the merger deadline, then ABK and MS need to not walk away from the deal. Based on all reports, evidence and common sense, both parties do not want to abandon this merger when theyâve basically defeated all the regulatory hurdles. I think a few more weeks of waiting for the appellate court to overturn the appeal is trivial for the parties to take on.
I would say regardless of what the appellate court decides on the TRO, this deal is 99% done. The 1% comes ABK and MS walking away after a TRO extension.
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Wish we can have Halo announcer here so he can be like:
10 hours to win!
Iâm not close to answer worried about this decision as I was earlier. Firstly MS have completely eviscerated the FTC in their motion.
Secondly the talk from the FT of an extension of the merger agreement makes complete sense in light of the last week events and makes even a temporary stay pointless.
Now that essentially all merger terms can be met by end of August I see no reason at all for either side to walk away.
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https://twitter.com/FOSSpatents/status/1679956830364094467?t=lcJN5vKakRmXRFrA-iENVg&s=19
So maybe in 3 hours?
that this will all be over soon. (Bing ai)
For those who want to spend the rest of day spamming F5 
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Thank God itâs Friday.
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https://twitter.com/qwik/status/1679963669810282497?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
The man canât wait to work on Nintendo platform again. Well. CoD I mean.
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Itâs a close call between NES and Genesis as my favorite console of all time. /tangent
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