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The clock is ticking on gaming’s biggest acquisition | The DeanBeat

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

In the antitrust case against Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition, there are jokesters who are wondering which side the Federal Trade Commission is really on.

The FTC sued to stop the merger and the judge in the case — U.S. District Court judge Jacqueline Scott Corley — ruled in Microsoft’s favor on Tuesday. The judge wondered if the FTC was really arguing that Microsoft’s acquisition was unfair to Sony, and she urged the FTC’s lawyers to focus on the potential harm to consumers. After all, consumers are the ones that antitrust law protects.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.