Great wall of China approves Activision Blizzard

https://www.ign.com/articles/china-approves-microsofts-acquisition-of-activision-blizzard

"China's State Administration has approved Microsoft's attempted $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, joining a total of 37 regulators including the EU and Japan."

This has been confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson to IGN.

What are your thoughts on this news? Can CMA stand alone? What if every country but the UK approves?

Wow, 🇬🇧 is a joke. Even evil dictators approving American merges. That’s sad

Definitely looks like the good ol' UK is the outlier here. Interesting to see how it plays out. Eventually 😒

Xbox studios call of duty, PlayStations biggest and best selling game

@simple-facts: This is the simple fact and also Minecraft 😁

Egads you people are tragic.

So how is siding with evil dictators a good thing?

@mesome713: agreed lol 🤣. CMA giving UK a black eye, bruising their reputation.

Can't wait for the next approval. I'm going to make a new thread for each approval, next one, maybe Netherlands, or Finland, maybe an African country like Nigeria or Zimbabwe. Heck yeah

Wonder where randy went? 🤔

I hope the CCP acquires the Halo IP.

@simple-facts: And it'll still play best on PlayStation 😆

I'm shocked on the sole basis that China, one of the most anti-American nations in the world, would allow this.

And again, I have to ask, is MS just handing out more cash for this to happen via paying off politicians?

@joshrmeyer:

Say thank you to Phil and Xbox.

Xbox..for the players

MS says thank you for the 70 dollars 😂

There's always the chance that, in the not-too-distant future, it will frequently be Chinese companies under regulatory scrutiny. Maybe it's not in the Chinese state's interests to set any boat-rocking précédents as far as monopolies are concerned.

So... Brexit Britain is the odd one out?

If you look at where Xbox is popular and not so popular... The UK is the largest overseas Xbox market, whereas Xbox isn't anywhere near as popular in the EU, and way behind in Japan and China. Since Xbox is well behind the competition in the EU, Japan, and China, the Activision buyout could help level the playing field in these markets.

On the other hand, since the US and UK are the largest Xbox markets, the Activision buyout would have a big impact on the US and UK markets. Xbox has a much stronger presence in these markets, so they're more concerned about the impact it would have on their local markets. Hence why the UK opposed the merger, and the US is taking so long to make a decision.

@simple-facts: I don't play company wars. But I will thank MS for becoming third party and releasing their games on playstation. Playstation: the best place to play Xbox games 😆 In all seriousness though, I bought the cod PS5 bundle and barely played that game. Doubt I'll buy the next one.

@blaznwiipspman1: I’m right here watching you and your brethren embarrass yourselves.

What don't you guys get. Deal is dead without CMA. MS isn't pulling all their products out of an entire market for Xbox, a product that doesn't make them money.

One step closer to becoming 3rd party 🙂

@Sagemode87: don’t bother. They don’t understand, nor do they care. They’ve received their marching orders from the higher up Xbox shills and are just regurgitating hopium.

Then here's hoping the FTC wins this fight.

I thought you wanted Xbox to win the fight? Or was that another sheep?

He never approve this MS/Activision merge and neither did I when the news started popping out. Not like Xbox needs a win from the start anyway.

Microsoft says 37 countries have approved the merger

EU = 27 countries

Other countries that we know approved = 8 (Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Serbia, Chile, Japan, Ukraine, South Africa, China)

Other countries we don’t know of which approved = 2 (who might these 2 mysterious countries be?)

I probably confused him with Mesome then.

The two places that happen to be the largest Xbox markets.

Nope! Not me. I hate these buyouts, generally. The only one I'm making no fuss about is SEGA buying Rovio, other than that, I hated it when Sony bought all those anime related companies (Ani-Plex - which I learned from you, Funimation, Crunchyroll, and RightStufAnime), I hated it when Nintendo bought Next Level Games (maybe a blessing in disguise they didn't buy Rare more I think about it...) and I hate MS and all their buyouts (Bethesda, Double Fine, Obsidian, etc).

@nintendoboy16: Fair enough. All these buyouts and mergers end up doing is allowing the game industry to be controlled by a few corporations. Nowadays, most notable developers are owned by just a few corporations, namely Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Tencent, EA, Ubisoft, Bandai Namco, Sega Sammy, Square Enix and Embracer.

The same goes for the movie, music and anime industries. You'll find most of the notable movie, music and anime studios are now also owned by just a few corporations. Interestingly, Sony is one of the big players in all these entertainment industries. Although Microsoft is still the bigger corporation overall because the tech industry is more lucrative.

CMA is ridiculous. The world will declare war on CMA, and the next Call of Duty game will be based on that war. Its title is "Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare 4 - CMA".

But does Somalia or Zimbabwe approve of this is the question?