Question: When was the last time an entertainment company acquisition/merger was blocked? These aren’t necessary things so I doubt the FTC cares much.
Outright blocked. Not often.
Concessions, fairly often. For example Disney had to divest regional fox sports networks when they bought Fox. They were sold off to Sinclaire media and renamed Bally Sports.
Mobile phone mergers usually come with concessions like selling off portions of wireless spectrum or things of that nature.
EDIT: Adding example T-Mobile/Sprint merger wins FCC thumbs-up on 5G promises - CNET
But the deal isn’t out of the woods yet. The US Department of Justice also has to approve it, and the agency hasn’t yet issued a statement on whether the concessions to the FCC will be enough. On Monday, Bloomberg reported the department’s antitrust section might try to block the deal.
Among the concessions, according to Pai: Within three years of the deal closing, the companies plan to have a 5G network that covers 97% of the US population, and within six years, 99%. For rural Americans, the coverage would be 85% within three years, and 90% within six.
So things like that are common. Promises to do XY and Z.
Another example was when Charter Spectrum bought Time Warner Cable internet. They had to agree to things like not putting in data caps for X number of years etc.
It’s important to note that the FTC may not view this as an entertainment deal but a tech deal, there’s a lot of different scopes and markets they could try to narrow this deal down to when they look at it. It can be anything a wide scope like Entertainment or Tech to something more narrower like gaming or even narrower from that
Not saying OP has any validity, but you clearly haven’t followed American politics over at least the last six years… I won’t even touch on the slam dunk impeachment’s removal that failed because of “biases that were not checked at the door”. I’m not fearmongering or even implying the acquisition will be blocked, just saying that American politicians are far from the bastions of objectivism that you imply Scott. Also, lobbying is very much still a thing in this country, and I would not put it past certain parties lobbying for putting up a fight against Microsoft (regardless of whether it’s right or not).
So, I’m not sure why the other thread was closed (I didn’t see it) but see no reason why it can’t be discussed. The Bungie deal will also have a review by either DoJ or the TFC, it’s standard practice for an acquisition of this size. A review does not correlate to issues arising. For those saying that because Bungie is private, there wouldn’t be any issues, it’s irrelevant; Zenimax was private and there have been plenty of private acquisitions that have met with concessions or denials. Btw, use the bat signal next time Brit (tag me) 
FTR: given the myriad of circumstances around Microsoft’s position in the industry, relative openness of their platform, etc, I expect the acquisition to go through, most likely without any concessions, regardless of what some octogenarian congressman may imply with their saber-rattling.
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Yet those things aren’t pure entertainment products or companies. They are broadcasting, phone, and internet services which are already heavily regulated and have all sorts of rules in place. The government doesn’t regulate the amount FPS games that must be available on a console. They aren’t going to care if COD or Destiny is exclusive or not.
September/October 2022 imo
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Isn’t the main concern the EU regulators not FTC ? They are historically more strict right ?
And we also know EU gamers are more likely to be Playstation fanboys…
What sort of thinking is that? They’re not children on the internet fighting over plastic boxes
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That quickly? Wow. I’d have guessed March 2023.
In the interest of objectivity, it is just as likely as anything that it could blast right through with minimal resistance. We just have to wait and see.
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Yeah, agreed, once things get going behind the scenes we’re not going to hear anything until it’s just done.
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If they are the first to get it right, then they shouldn’t be penalized for this. Also, I am not sure how much this helps Microsoft, but having Game Pass does not mean there are no other ways to access the games (i.e. digital/physical purchases and what not).
Brand loyalty is a thing, haven’t you noticed online many people stick with a brand like it’s their identity.
You’re being ridiculous if you think EU regulators are going to be thinking “huh duh, Playstation better, Xbox has no games” while looking at the case. The fact that you even think that’s a possibility comes across as fanboyish on your end.
from how ive read this sight they still need expediance for business confidence so
step 1 MS and Acti submit the papers to FTC,
step 2 FTC says nothing for 30 days (tacit approval with chance to bring up later) ask for more docs and extend another 30 days or ask for concessions
step 3. MS / acti can then sue if they feel the FTC was unjust in thier process and then its up to the courts
The government probably wants the deal sorted ASAP as well with all the court cases they have ongoing. I do think as a “concession” they’ll be asked for a pledge on cleaning up the working conditions and ensuring it’s no longer a hostile work environment with monitored targets. Obviously MS are planning to do that anyway but part of the pros of the deal has been touted as better working conditions so that makes an easily agreed concession
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Wouldn’t be posting on a site called XBOX era if I wasn’t a GamePass fanboy.
Love me all these games for a cheap subscription fee per month.
My loyalties stay as long as Xbox offers a better deal than competitors. If Stadia succeeded I’d be there in an instant.
If they take an angle of gaming subscription services, that actually isn’t too bad for Xbox. There’s a ton of things that would have to be included in that category. There’s subscriptions to MMOs, season passes, things like PS+, Nintendo Live, Apple Arcade, etc.
It’s more interesting if they start to take an extremely narrow view and say something like cloud gaming streaming subscription services. However, even still in that case there would be GeForce Now, EA Play, PS Now or Spartacus, UPlay, Amazon Luna, and Google Stadia. At that point the question would likely be how much market share do they have relative to Spartacus. If Spartacus has something like 45 million from combining PS Plus with PS Now then they’re in a good spot, as in that case they’d still have a roughly 25% share of that very narrow marketplace. Now if Spartacus didn’t roll those services together and just had like 5 million subs then it gets interesting.
This is also why I think it will pass. It would be terrible optics for the FTC to block the deal and let the workers continue under the current Activision leadership given what has happened there. There are going to be easier cases. At worst they will ask MS to keep COD multiplat or something. This way it looks like they did something, but the workers get better conditions as well. I don’t see the FTC wanting to actually block the deal. Bad optics for them and would be hard to argue in court. They don’t wanna be seen losing as well.
Emerging market. Someone has to be first. As long as they’re not doing things to prevent competitors from emerging, there is no anti-trust argument.
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