Sakai

Looks like the CMA are backing down already and have asked for a stay of litigation to try and settle this without the CAT.

"In a further development today, Microsoft president Brad Smith has said the FTC's decision has prompted it and the CMA to agree that a "stay of litigation" is now "in the public interest" - sparking further hope for Microsoft of a breakthrough on these shores.

"After today's court decision in the US, our focus now turns back to the UK," Smith said today in a statement shared to Eurogamer. "While we ultimately disagree with the CMA's concerns, we are considering how the transaction might be modified in order to address those concerns in a way that is acceptable to the CMA.

In order to prioritise work on these proposals, Microsoft and Activision have agreed with the CMA that a stay of the litigation in the UK would be in the public interest and the parties have made a joint submission to the Competition Appeal Tribunal to this effect."

CMA are going to agree to remedies and it will be a big win for the UK regulator. This is what the FTC should have done the whole time but unfortunately ideology got in the way, and now they look stupid.

Probably worth an update to the article

It would not suprise me if after this, the FTC dropped their trial in August, as no matter what, they need a federal judge to side with them. And that's not going to happen based on this judgement.

The FTC does not have the power to block or divest, a federal court does.

It's a really bad day for the FTC, especially as they failed on every one of their points. It's also a really bad day for the CMA, who now have no support from any regulator or judge around the world.

TotK is a brilliant game, fully deserves its massive success

PS Plus extra needs day 1 releases like this to be considered competition for Gamepass. Sony really need to improve the service a lot to get to a similar level

I have not actually played any 2023 releases on PlayStation yet, as I am still playing Ragnarok, but Final Fantasy 16 will be my next ps5 purchase for sure.

But counting everything, my favourite game releases so far this year have to be Zelda and Wo Long. Both awesome but for different reasons

Maybe it's because of safety protocols or verification keys or something, but why did they redesign the whole system and not just release a USB blu Ray drive and discontinue the disc version, so the only option was to buy a digital ps5 and a USB disc drive if you wanted one. Sounds like a much simpler solution

Isn't this what people have been saying for years, with regard to physical sales.

How come it's only an issue now that it's talking about an exclusive and one that is underperforming? When it's a multiplatform game, nobody cares and celebrates the charts because playstation has higher physical sales percentage.
Pretty funny to be honest

Team Ninja are my favourite developer, love ninja gaiden, nioh and wo long. Wo long was maybe a little too easy. But 2 things got me sweating a little

1. "Numerous side-quests that are more like Ubisoft side-quest designs" - That doesn't sound good, at all

2. The map full of map markers/map vomit has got some serious Ubisoft vibes about it - again not good, at all

I would prefer if this wasnt open world but I have faith this will be good. Team Ninja don't let me down too often.

Just please don't make it some casual friendly, barely-a-team-ninja-game, open world collect-a-thon with icons and fetch quests everywhere. For the love of god no!

Can't wait to play FF16 once I complete Ragnarok, but it seems to have come and gone with little more than a wimper, and the hype just hasn't been there at all. Square cant be happy.

How long are we guessing until they come out and say it did not meet sales expectations?

Ragnarok again this weekend on my Zelda break. Enjoying the spear! Really cool weapon

@lacerz the judge herself mentioned it on the very first day of the pre-trial. Understandably, both parties said they had no issue at all with it. She is the same Judge who presided over the "gamers lawsuit" aswell

@GodofCapcom you obviously didnt read them very well then lol. Your the only one console warring in here. another one added to the ignore list

@GodofCapcom I didn't give my opinion on anything. I never said if I am pro or against the merger. I present some facts about the topic that were missing from the article to help people. @UltimateOtaku91 is a friend on here who I talk with alot. If that's your idea of being a fanboy I don't know what to tell you lol. What a wierd comment

@UltimateOtaku91 I believe the email was already dismissed by the same Judge in the Gamers Lawsuit. It's just one guys thoughts in a court of law.

When Booty was in court last week, he had to testify about this email. Pete Hines also had to testify about some of his emails aswell.

Not sure why the email has blew up again today, when it was discussed ad nauseum last week

74% seems like a huge drop, but until digital is included we just won't know the full picture.

But I can see why Square were concerned before launch of low preorder numbers, 74% is huge, probably should have cut the marketing budget in half at least

Il be picking up my copy after I finish Zelda and Ragnarok

Taking a break from Zelda and playing Ragnarok this weekend. Happy gaming everyone!

MGS1 looks really rough in the video

@Jedihillis "This review does take the day one patch into account. Based on my testing, the update did improve performance, but only slightly."

@Neither_scene The CMA dropped the home console theory of harm. They are not concerned with that anymore, only Cloud

I guessed 85 on metacritic and its currently 88, so I was not a million miles away, just a little lower.

I will be buying this as my next game, when I have finished Zelda and Ragnarok, but that could take a while!

Shame the performance was not fixed from the demo, as it was my friends biggest issue. He said performance mode on the demo was awful, but he was probably exaggerating a little, he likes to do that

What a flimsy argument, I would have thought they would have come up with something a lot more water tight than that to argue for a PI.

A console argument rejected by every other regulatory body around the world, including the UK. facepalm

That review history for FF games is shockingly bad. 40/40 for 13-2, wow. The 38/40 for FF15 is shocking, they even scored Forspoken 35/40, what were they thinking

Ragnarok was on sale at various places like Game in the UK for £35 and less, so I suspect that had a lot to do with it hitting 4th again. Still yet to finish Ragnarok due to Zelda, but enjoyed what I played, even if it doesn't quite hit the same heights as 2018 so far

@Cordyceps Got to agree. I am looking forward to FF16 and its my most hyped PS5 game this year, but even I am sick of hearing it over the last few weeks. Its been well over the top and some of the costs must be huge.

@4kgk2 Whoever is footing the bill, its excessive. But I hope you are correct, I have not heard anything like that.
Last I heard they were really worried as Pre orders were low, even when considering only releasing on PS5, as reported on this very site.

No wonder SE are never happy with the sales figures of their games, when their marketing budget is so astronomical.

You reported here a few weeks ago that SE were already not happy with pre order numbers, as they were lower than expected, even when factoring in only launching on PS5.

Wo Long was awesome. Really liked that game.
Lies of P x Wo Long is the gamepass Collab we never knew we needed. Could be promising, or it could be worthless cosmetics.

@tallythwack if your character is on the floor in DMC, you are doing it wrong.
That's a bit of a shame, the depth of DMC combat is what makes it great and engaging.

Maybe FF16 will offer depth in other ways. I look forward to finding out. Thanks for the heads up!

Is the combat like DMC where you have several weapons and several guns and you switch between them all regularly to extend combos etc? Like DMC has all the swords, nun chucks, and even a motorbike to swap between....

I skipped the demo and I am waiting for the full game to come out. But was just wondering exactly how close the combat is to DMC. In my head I imagine it more as "DMC lite/my first DMC" if that makes sense. Can anyone confirm

Open world/modern day "fluff" is one of my least favourite parts of modern gaming.

Linear 1 player games like Ninja Gaiden black and Ninja Gaiden 2 are a decent length. And because the games are so good, and the diferent difficulties are challenging, the replay value is off the charts aswell.

The delay sucks but I still think this game looks really awesome and capcom usually deliver great games

2 weeks time and it should be alot clearer what is going to happen. They will get a 2 week temporary order

Looks interesting and capcom are awesome. I didn't actually realise during the show that this is day 1 gamepass. What a get for that service

I'm going to wait for the full game, but a friend of mine is saying the performance mode is really bad, and a few on here have mentiondd it aswell which is a little concerning. Look forward to the full game!

If Starfields delivers on everything shown then it's going to be some achievement. The size was really impressive

Jim Ryan flavoured PlayStation is just not the same. Sad to see

was that a gamepass logo i see at the end? Day 1 gamepass? Nice!

Best thing about the show was that most of the games showed some gameplay and not just cgi after cgi

Final Fantasy 16 i think once I finish Zelda and Ragnarok

@UltimateOtaku91 i buy all my games on ps5 physical, so I am not as informed on the various intricacies as some others may be.

Maybe they can use that psn credit argument you mentioned in their defence, but it could just be labelled as whataboutism and not really helpful to them. We will just have to see how it all plays out.

@UltimateOtaku91 i believe that if it is sucessful then UK gamers will be able to make a claim of their share of the £5billion, depends how many games etc they have purchased from Sony. The £5billion was an estimate from Neil and consumer group Which?. The codes available to buy online for Playstation are from bundles i believe, not made available from Sony. Its an illegal grey area are not the same as what Microsoft and Nintendo do. Its why everyone is only after Sony, i believe, but until these cases play out, nobody really knows but Sony and the people claiming. I sure dont

@Kidfried Nintendo and Microsoft supply keys to other sellers, direct from them, so its only Sony in the firing line unfortunately. The only keys available for Sony games online are from console bundles and other similar methods, that are then resold. This is also a legal grey area i believe, but I could be wrong. Just going off what i have read.

We will just have to wait and see what happens really

This is one of the points raised in the £5billion gamers lawsuit against Sony, lead by Alex Neil, that is currently being heard by CAT here in the UK.

Seems everyone is starting to go after them for it, and it's going to be hard for Sony to argue against

Wouldn't that put it below the ps4 total sales? I thought they wanted to beat the ps4? Wierd quote from Jim

The copium has been out of control since the showcase. So many insiders trying to save face, and failing miserably. Its OK, your not an insider, and now we know it. No need to make up more stuff, yet again. Switch pro anyone?

Sony had a bad show, it happens, making games is long and hard. Things are just not ready yet. Why so many people can't seem to accept that, is crazy.

I was excited when I thought Bungie was finally returning to single player gaming, since Halo Reach (that was years ago now, but a great campaign)

Then somebody told me its a pvp extraction shooter and it just instantly killed my hype dead. It could be awesome, but these kind of games are just not for me, at all. Hope you all enjoy it as Bungie rarely miss

Still on with Zelda and loving it

Copium, copium everywhere.

If Sony wanted to go second, they would not have arranged for their showcase to go first, after Microsoft had already announced their showcase months ago. Makes no sence, absolutely zero.

Alot of first party studios have recently released a game, or have only recently started making a game. It's a simple case of nothing is ready yet. People just need to relax a little, making games is hard

Tom Henderson and all the other "insiders" are just trying to save face, as they kept saying how amazing and stacked the show would be. That they had seen the lineup. Now everyone knows they are not really insiders, dont really know anything, and just throw mud at a wall.
A broken clock is correct twice a day. Say enough stuff and eventually they will be right about something. I don't know how many times they have to be wrong, until people stop listening to them. It's tragic

Making games is hard

@Kevw2006 the middle option of a poll would be neutral not positive. That much is obvious to anyone.

I'm not sure what straws you are trying to grasp, this isn't a dictionary, it's a poll

@Kevw2006 in a poll with 7 options, I'm not sure you can class the middle option as positive. At best it would be neutral. That would mean 3 positive options, 3 negative options and 1 neutral.