"In a ruling submitted today, Judge Corley said the following:
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. "
It’s amazing to me how short-sighted this decision is. Yeah sure keep wide access to CoD for 10 years to get the FTC off their back and then watch all that fall away immediately after. For us this is potentially decent gains in the short term but certainly contributes to this industry turning to crap long term.
Hmm where have I seen that before
What’s really nice is that the big studio games are shit anyways, they’ve made it easy to enjoy life without feeling like you’re missing out on some dumb crappy games that rip you off.