U.S. federal Judge Corley finally rules on Microsoft's Xbox-ABK deal

[Windows Central]

The past couple of weeks have seen the FTC and Xbox come to blows in federal court, over the FTC's desire to delay Microsoft's merger with Activision Blizzard. The decision is finally here.

U.S. federal Judge Corley finally rules on Microsoft's Xbox-ABK deal : Read more

 

[fjtorres5591]

Cue up the HALLELUJAH chorus.

 

[Thretosix]

The FTC couldn't even pass a preliminary injunction for the case. Waste of tax payers money. Nothing but Sony lobbyists doing their evil deeds. Sony should be investigated for their obstruction in the matter.

 

[fjtorres5591]

The FTC couldn't even pass a preliminary injunction for the case. Waste of tax payers money. Nothing but Sony lobbyists doing their evil deeds. Sony should be investigated for their obstruction in the matter.

They are. Antitrust charges are being floated in the US and even EU (Romania, to start with.) There is already a consumer case in court as of Feb 2023.

More importantly, Kahn was dragged before Congress yesterday and gave half answers and evasions, and even refused to turn over requested documents. (Try a web search for Lina Kahn contempt.)

Not that anything is going to come of it--the gerontocracy protects the gerontocracy--but at least she's being called out for her approach. One report I saw said that long time career FTC employees have been quiting in droves--which explains the halfbaked arguments the judge torched--and turned what was once rated as the 2nd best federal agency to work at, after NASA, into the 22nd and sinking.

Best guess is she resigns early next year to pursue an elected seat from San Francisco or Berkely, which is why she went to FTC in thevfirstbplace, to burnish her ideological credentials. So in that respect MS winning guves her a platform to run on, changing the laws to prevent mergers.

Just business as usual in beltwayland.

 

[Jez Corden]

Cue up the HALLELUJAH chorus.

FINALLY !

 

[fjtorres5591]

FINALLY !

BTW, with all the stuff we've learned in the last two years about how sausage is made (so to speak) there's enough material for a book.

Or at least a weeklong series, starting with ABK stock peaking at 102 in 2021 to its low in dec 2021 when they put themselves up for sale among the dramafest of lawsuits and claims and counterclaims. And everything that followed, especially all the "fun" stuff from the documents MS extracted from Sony.

A fun read to sit down for.
(Hint!)

 

[GraniteStateColin]

BTW, with all the stuff we've learned in the last two years about how sausage is made (so to speak) there's enough material for a book.

Or at least a weeklong series, starting with ABK stock peaking at 102 in 2021 to its low in dec 2021 when they put themselves up for sale among the dramafest of lawsuits and claims and counterclaims. And everything that followed, especially all the "fun" stuff from the documents MS extracted from Sony.

A fun read to sit down for.
(Hint!)

Good point. Jez, if you write it, I'll buy it.

 

[GraniteStateColin]

Great article, Jez. I LOVE your line, "I would argue they picked the wrong fight here since a damaged Xbox would give PlayStation even more dominance in a relatively static market. " Perfectly said. 100% agree.

I also think @fjtorres5591 has added some solid points. This is a fantastic example of government overreach, just trying to throw its weight around in its perpetual quest for more power and control, harming the very people it claims to serve. In this particular case, it seems to have been a combination of hubris, zeal for power, and a healthy dose of ignorance on the industry and general stupidity on the part of Kahn.

Moral of the story: Keep government small and focused on those things that nearly everyone agrees need fixing, not the edge cases where half the population (or more) thinks government meddling is a bad idea.

 

[fjtorres5591]

Good point. Jez, if you write it, I'll buy it.

Seconded. Just make it an ebook.
If you go through KDP you can have it out next tuesday.

 

[GraniteStateColin]

Seconded. Just make it an ebook.
If you go through KDP you can have it out next tuesday.

I recommend instead going through scribl.com -- pays more per sale to the author, not limited to Amazon for distribution like KDP (but includes Amazon and also a "Send to Kindle" option for any purchases directly at scribl.com), you'll get a free personal assistant assigned to help with all the technical facets to self-publishing including formatting and conversions or to create an audiobook edition, plus CrowdPricing ensures books are priced fairly, rewarding both authors and customers. Full disclosure, I work with Scribl, so I do have an obvious bias, but on the metrics, I believe it truly is the BEST place to self-publish.

 

[fjtorres5591]

I recommend instead going through scribl.com -- pays more per sale to the author, not limited to Amazon for distribution like KDP (but includes Amazon and also a "Send to Kindle" option for any purchases directly at scribl.com), you'll get a free personal assistant assigned to help with all the technical facets to self-publishing including formatting and conversions or to create an audiobook edition, plus CrowdPricing ensures books are priced fairly, rewarding both authors and customers. Full disclosure, I work with Scribl, so I do have an obvious bias, but on the metrics, I believe it truly is the BEST place to self-publish.

1- How fast can that personal assistant get an arbitrary submission out the door?
2- How much hand-holding do you think Mr Corden needs?

I'm not saying KDP is the best or cheapest but the track record for media companies like TIME and WSJ looking to get topical books out ASAP why the mainstream is actually interested is KDP.

For more typical projects there are more options ranging from KDP to Ingram to Direct2Digital to even B&N but sometimes you have to go with the automated 900lb gorilla.

It doesn't get much faster than login, set terms, upload, hit enter.
Note the KDP does not demand exclusivity--you can go with KDP and still go wide--and like Ingram, they do POD for fast access to the dead tree pulp crowd.

Different strokes and all that.
Carry on.

 

[GraniteStateColin]

1- How fast can that personal assistant get an arbitrary submission out the door?
2- How much hand-holding do you think Mr Corden needs?

I'm not saying KDP is the best or cheapest but the track record for media companies like TIME and WSJ looking to get topical books out ASAP why the mainstream is actually interested is KDP.

For more typical projects there are more options ranging from KDP to Ingram to Direct2Digital to even B&N but sometimes you have to go with the automated 900lb gorilla.

It doesn't get much faster than login, set terms, upload, hit enter.
Note the KDP does not demand exclusivity--you can go with KDP and still go wide--and like Ingram, they do POD for fast access to the dead tree pulp crowd.

Different strokes and all that.
Carry on.

Since you asked:

KDP is fine for what it is: a purely Amazon-based market for ebooks. If you think you might have readers that get books through B&N, Google Play, Kobo (very big in Canada and some other parts of the world, #2 to Amazon overall), Apple Books, etc. then KDP is not good, because it ONLY puts books on Amazon (an important market to be sure, but far from the only one). It also has all the ethical concerns of giving your business to Amazon like that, which may or may not matter to any given author. They also exert some fairly draconian price controls on authors, where they cut the rev-share rate to 35% if the author wants to experiment with pricing -- they do this for good reasons (protects the perceived value and a healthy market pricing range for books), but in a very heavy-handed way where Scribl's CrowdPricing achieves better results without the heavy force of taking away the author's revenue.

To your question on speed, first there's no NEED to use Scribl's assistants, they're just there to help if you want (and I'm sure you're right that Jez is unlikely to need their help). If you self-publish a book through Scribl today, it will probably be live on Amazon within 24 hours (add a day or so if you want Scribl to review and assign a free ISBN). Sometimes much less, sometimes a little more. It probably is slightly faster to go live going through KDP, but then if you ever plan to sell the book any place else, you have to go through the whole process again and keep track of collecting your revenue from all those different outlets (e.g., B&N's Nook press, Kobo's Writing Life, Google Play's book account (a real mess to setup, but then a pretty good source of revenue), etc.). I would never publish through KDP for that reason, even if not using Scribl. I'd go through a D2D or PublishDrive or some other distributor over KDP. But those guys, without Scribl's patented CrowdPricing system, are forced to take a much larger cut of the sales revenue, leaving a relatively small slice for the author.