Although I’ve semi-defended the CMA’s decision here, I think it is a mistake and furthermore I think it reveals a problem with the 2002 legislation. A decision like this must be political, given the importance of big tech to the UK economy.
Not saying the government shouldnt pick a fight with MS, but it would work better over a more clear cut matter, ideally with the EU taking action at the same time (and yes, Brexit bad there as in so many things).
In the EU such matters are ultimately the purview of a commission, where the commissioners have much more direct control over the bureaucracy. In the US the FTC commissioners are politically appointed (although the terms are quite long). But the CMA is much more protected from political influence.
I would agree, I guess I don’t understand how the CMA is staffed, but it would be important for the citzens of a country to have a say in what their government is doing about making decisions on how businesses operate in the country.
In the USA, the government is heavily involved in these decisions, which is good, because if they make bad decisions, at least we have the ability to vote against the people who allowed it.
I can see the merits of having an agency that is protected from political influence, but political influence also means that the agency has to answer to voters. It is really damned if you do, or damned if you don’t. The CMA could make decisions harmful to UK citizens and have no political accountability, or you could say they are making the hard decisions correctly without political influence.
To me, personally, and maybe it is because I am an American, I want to be able to have my voting power considered for as much as possible.
I skimmed through it, theres nothing of substance really. Microsoft’s CMA appeal will be successful because “reasons”. It reminded me of this thread actually, people bizarrely invested in a positive outcome for Microsoft.
There are 3 main things I see, as someone who has zero investment in either Microsoft or Blizzard games. Whether this goes through has zero bearing on anything for me as I don’t have Game Pass, and no intent to get it, dislike most of the darlings Blizzard makes, and whose tastes skew heavily away from everything AAA
This is absolutely a key thing for me. ActiBlizz is toxic AF, and needs to be cleaned house. For the sake of the employees of ActiBlizz, I see Microsoft as a big potential for improvement
Also very much this, though this ties into the above
Finally the other reason is about just being utterly turned off by the whole Sony framing on this. Given their position in the market and how they are far more guilty of withholding games from other systems, I have multiple Microsoft published games like Ori and the Blind Forest on my Switch FFS, the crying about how unfair it would be for Microsoft just… it’s pretty damn rich really.
Jim Ryan knows he can say just about anything in this case, up to and including “Satya Nadella eats babies,” and it won’t meaningfully affect proceedings.
This isn’t about normal dev tools, this is prerelease for their next console. Providing that information, much less a dev kit, would give MS a substantial advantage. Sure it would be NDA’d and siloed but the incentive would be too tempting. Sony’s response there is not unreasonable.
