Etsy is selling Reverb, six years after it purchased the online marketplace for musical instruments. Reverb didn't say how much money is changing hands, but Etsy purchased the company for $275 million in 2019. In its announcement, Reverb said that the investors Creator Partners, which was founded by former SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor, and Servco, the owner of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, have entered an agreement to buy the company. The marketplace will not be merging with either investor and will be "privately-held [and] independently operated" like it was before Etsy's acquisition. 

Reverb CEO David Mandelbrot said the deal is expected to be completed in the coming weeks. He assured users that they can continue buying and selling on the platform without any disruption during the process. He also briefly talked about what the company is working on for its users, including preparing for the pilot of a new selling option that would allow people to get paid faster and to drop off their instruments locally without even needing to create a listing for them. This could help buyers who want to get their gear locally when available or those who don't want to pay extra on top for tariffs. Reverb is also working on a way to make it easier for find what a buyer is looking for and on a way for sellers to be able ship their instruments more safely. 

T-Mobile will acquire the majority of US Cellular in a deal worth approximately $4.4 billion. This means that T-Mobile will own all of US Cellular’s stores, some of its spectrum assets and some of its customers. The deal includes a combination of cash and up to $2 billion of assumed debt, according to a press release by US Cellular. The companies expect to finalize the purchase by mid-2025, though the deal must attain regulatory approval.

All told, T-Mobile will walk away with around 30 percent of US Cellular’s wireless spectrum, which it hopes to use to improve coverage in rural areas and offer better connectivity to current US Cellular customers throughout the country. Current customers will be able to keep their plans or switch to a similar T-Mobile contract.

US Cellular will retain 70 percent of its wireless spectrum and towers. Additionally, it will lease space on around 2,100 additional towers to T-Mobile. "The decisions we announced today are in the best interests of our customers and our shareholders. T-Mobile is the right partner for our wireless operations," said Laurent Therivel, CEO of US Cellular.

This is just the latest consolidation move by T-Mobile. The company recently acquired the Ryan Reynolds-backed Mint Mobile, via the purchase of parent company Ka'ena Corporation for around $1.35 billion. T-Mobile also merged with Sprint back in 2020. It’s basically Pac-Man, but instead of dots it hoovers up smaller cellular carriers.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that T-Mobile had teamed up with frenemy Verizon to “carve up” US Cellular’s wireless spectrum, but it looks like that deal has either fallen through or will be significantly delayed.

Nintendo is buying (PDF) Florida-based studio Shiver Entertainment from the Embracer Group, which is splitting up its rather messy gaming empire and is letting go of certain assets. Shiver was founded in 2012 and is mostly known for working with publishers and developers to port games to the Switch, including couple of Scribblenauts titles and Hogwarts Legacy. Nintendo will acquire the "boutique-sized studio" in full, making it a fully owned subsidiary that will continue working on Switch ports and developing software for multiple platforms. 

The Japanese gaming company isn't known for gobbling up small studios and developers. In its announcement of the deal, it said it's aiming "to secure high-level resources for porting and developing software titles" with this purchase. By buying Shiver, Nintendo is also showing that it's committed to the Switch platform, which will remain its primary business for years to come. 

As Nintendo Life notes, Nintendo may have decided to purchase Shiver to acquire its talent, as well. The studio's CEO, John Schappert, is an industry veteran who used to oversee Xbox Live, the Xbox platform software and Microsoft Game Studios. He also served as Chief Operating Officer at EA and at Zynga. Nintendo didn't say how much it's paying for the studio, but it doesn't sound like the purchase will make any considerable impact on its finances. "The Acquisition will have only a minor effect on Nintendo’s results for this fiscal year," the company wrote in its announcement. 

Comcast didn't wait too long to reveal how much its bundle of Netflix, Apple TV+ and Peacock Premium will cost or when Xfinity users can sign up for it. The StreamSaver bundle, which was announced a week ago, will run you $15 per month and it will be available next week.

You won't quite get the best version of all the services, though. The bundle includes Netflix Basic and Peacock Premium, both of which include ads. That Netflix tier also only supports HD streaming rather than 4K. There's only one tier of Apple TV+ available, and that includes 4K streams.

In any case, the bundle will save you $10 per month compared with signing up for those services separately, given that Peacock Premium will increase by $2 to $8 per month in July. Netflix Basic with ads is $7 per month, while Apple TV+ is $10.

If you're interested in signing up for Now TV (which includes more than 60 linear streaming channels such as AMC and the History Channel), you can also add that to StreamSaver. The cable-esque Now StreamSaver bundle is $30 per month. Now TV alone typically costs $20 per month, though it includes Peacock Premium.

This is the latest instance of streaming rivals coming together to offer their services at a lower price, but Comcast is beating a previously announced bundle of Max, Disney+ and Hulu to the punch. That bundle is set to arrive this summer.

Meanwhile, a package combining sports streaming services from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery will arrive later this year. The name of the joint venture was recently revealed as Venu Sports.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is concerned that the merger Three and Vodafone announced last year could lead to "substantial lessening of competition" and might conduct an in-depth investigation into the deal. Three years after Virgin Media's merger with O2, Three and Vodafone revealed their intention to enter a joint venture agreement that would knock off a standalone mobile network from consumers' choices in the region. go

Apparently, CMA regulators launched a preliminary investigation into their proposed deal back in January and had identified potential issues that could come with combining two of the four remaining mobile network operators in the UK. Those issues include the possibility of the merger leading to higher prices and lower quality of service, since competition typically helps keep prices low and compels operators to make investments meant to improve their network quality. In addition, the CMA is worried that having fewer networks could affect mobile virtual network operators' ability to negotiate for the best deals possible for their customers.

When the two companies announced the merger in 2023, they said that together, they will "have the scale needed to deliver a best-in-class 5G network" and open up "new opportunities for businesses across the length and breadth of the UK." But CMA regulators say their claims "need more detailed assessment." They've now given the companies five working days to respond to their concerns with "meaningful solutions," otherwise they'll proceed towards conducting a more in-depth investigation. 

In 2015, Three also made an attempt to purchase O2 for £10.25 billion ($12.9 billion), but the CMA and the European Commission blocked the purchase after concluding that it would reduce competition and lead to higher prices. The CMA approved the joint agreement between O2 and Virgin Media, a landline, cable and broadband operator, however, after it found those very same concerns to be unfounded. 

Saber Interactive has reportedly found an exit strategy from the death grip of its parent company, Embracer Group AB. Bloomberg reported Thursday that “a group of private investors” will buy the studio in a deal worth roughly $500 million. Saber would then become a private company with about 3,500 employees.

Engadget emailed a spokesperson from Saber for confirmation about the alleged buyout. The studio declined to comment.

The alleged agreement would be one of Embracer’s most significant cost-cutting moves since the collapse of a reported $2 billion deal with a group backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Some criticized the imperiled deal as the gaming equivalent of “sportswashing,” using popular sporting acquisitions and partnerships to boost beleaguered governments’ global images. That followed US intelligence’s conclusion that the Saudi regime murdered The Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi in late 2018.

Other cost-cutting moves at Embracer have included laying off about 900 employees in September, cutting another 50 or so jobs at Chorus developer Fishlabs and implementing more layoffs at Tiny Tina’s Wonderland developer Lost Boys Interactive, Beamdog, Crystal Dynamics and Saber subsidiary New World Interactive. Embracer also closed Saints Row studio Volition Games and Campfire Cabal.

LucasArts / Aspyr

According to Bloomberg, Saber’s sale won’t affect the studio’s role in developing an upcoming Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) remake. That game has already changed hands once: One of Saber’s Eastern European studios took over from Aspyr Media in the summer of 2022.

Aspyr had reportedly already been working on the game for years before providing a demo for Lucasfilm and Sony in June 2022; a week later, Aspyr fired its design director and art director. (Reports of the KOTOR demo costing a disproportionate amount of time and money may indicate a possible reason for the fallout.) By late that summer, Saber had taken over the development of the highly anticipated — and indefinitely delayed — remake.

Embracer bought Saber for $525 million in 2020 as it scooped up gaming studios left and right. It acquired at least 27 companies during that period, folding some of them (Demiurge Studios and New World Interactive) into Saber. Bloomberg reports that the deal to sell Saber to private investors includes an option to “bring along multiple Embracer subsidiaries.”

One studio that’s far too big to be included in this transaction is Borderlands developer Gearbox Entertainment. However, Kotaku reported Thursday that Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford told staff this week that a decision about the studio’s future had been made. He allegedly said he’d be able to share more details with them next month.

In the meantime, a cloud of uncertainty envelops Gearbox — and Embracer’s other remaining studios. “I’ve personally been looking for roles elsewhere not just due to the Embracer layoff fears, but due to pay,” an anonymous developer reportedly said to Kotaku. “Vague and in a holding pattern is definitely par for the course at the moment and has been for most of 2023.”

Octopath Traveler developer Acquire has been purchased by FromSoftware’s parent company, the Kadokawa Corporation, for an undisclosed sum. The Japanese conglomerate announced the acquisition in a quarterly earnings report published today, as revealed by Gamesindustry.biz.

The purchase makes Acquire a sister company to FromSoftware and Spike Chunsoft, among others. For the uninitiated, FromSoftware is the developer behind little known games like Dark Souls, Elden Ring and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Spike Chunsoft is also no slouch, as it's behind the Danganronpa and AI: The Somnium Files franchises.

Acquire has made many games beyond Octopath Traveler and its sequel, including No Heroes Allowed VR, Akiba's Beat and Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed. Kadokawa said the purchase should help the company “generate synergies” with its “existing game-related subsidiaries.” We don’t know what that means, but hopefully it refers to a bizarre Octopath Traveler and Elden Ring crossover title.

Kadokawa also says the move will enhance its “line-up of console games.” This is true, as the original Octopath Traveler sold over three million copies and the sequel sold a million copies in just three months. Those are big numbers for JRPGs with old-school mechanics. The company hasn’t announced whether it’ll still rely on Square Enix for publishing future entries in the Octopath franchise, but with those sales numbers it’s a fairly safe bet.

Last year’s Octopath Traveler 2 arrived to mostly positive reviews, though we dinged it for the same reason many people took umbrage with the original. The eight storylines don’t intersect enough, making the whole thing seem kind of random and disconnected. Still, the games are gorgeous and manage to capitalize on nostalgia for retro gameplay mechanics. They “feel” like classic Square Enix RPGs, even if they struggle with some of the execution.

One week after Microsoft laid off nearly 2,000 employees in its gaming division, the Federal Trade Commission is accusing Microsoft of contradicting its pledge to allow Activision Blizzard to operate independently post-acquisition. The FTC filed a complaint in a federal appeals court on Wednesday, arguing that last week's downsizing, which affected employees of Activision Blizzard, "contradicts Microsoft’s representations in this proceeding." The FTC is asking for a temporary pause of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard as it further investigates potential antitrust issues.

In its arguments to the FTC, Microsoft said it would treat Activision Blizzard as a vertical acquisition and suggested that it wouldn't need to institute layoffs, since there would be no redundancies. On January 30, Microsoft announced it was cutting 1,900 jobs across Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and Xbox after identifying "areas of overlap" specifically between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. This is the core of the FTC's complaint.

"Microsoft’s recently-reported plan to eliminate 1,900 jobs in its video game division, including in its newly-acquired Activision unit, contradicts the foregoing representations it made to this Court," the FTC's complaint said. "Specifically, Microsoft reportedly has stated that the layoffs were part of an 'execution plan' that would reduce 'areas of overlap' between Microsoft and Activision, which is inconsistent with Microsoft’s suggestion to this Court that the two companies will operate independently post-merger."

Though the UK's Competition and Markets Authority approved Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October, the FTC hasn't seen satisfaction regarding its own antitrust concerns. The FTC is still challenging the acquisition, which means there's a possibility that Microsoft will be forced to divest all or part of Activision Blizzard.

In Wednesday's complaint, the FTC argued that the recent layoffs also undermine its own ability to order relief for employees who were negatively affected in the acquisition.

Microsoft's layoffs join an avalanche of mass firings in the video game industry, specifically in the past few months. An estimated 10,500 people in video games lost their jobs in 2023 — and already in 2024, 6,000 workers have been laid off.

Samsung chairman Jay Y. Lee's legal troubles may be in the rearview mirror as a Korean court acquitted him of stock manipulation and accounting fraud charges over a 2015 merger, The Financial Times has reported. The ruling allows Lee to continue leading Samsung, which saw a sharp decline in revenue last year. 

Seeking a five year jail term, prosecutors accused Lee of manipulating the share price of two Samsung subsidiaries to smooth the way for a merger that allowed him to consolidate his power. However, the Seoul Central District Court ruled that the prosecutors failed to prove that. "It is hard to say that Lee Jae-yong [aka Jay Y. Lee] . . . spearheaded the merger, and that the merger was done just for the sake of Lee’s succession," the judge stated in the ruling.

The verdict will allow Lee and Samsung to focus on its declining smartphone and memory chip businesses. Samsung recently lost its smartphone sales crown to Apple, and is now behind SK Hynix in the new and hot market of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used by NVIDIA and others to create artificial intelligence (AI) models. 

The decision was heralded by business groups including the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, but not everyone in the country agreed. "The ruling will free Lee of legal risks, but I am at a loss for words in terms of the country’s economic justice," Park Ju-geun, head of corporate thinktank Leaders Index, told the FT. "This goes totally against all previous court rulings on the merger."

Lee was originally sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 after being found guilty of bribing public officials over the same merger. He walked free after a year in detention, but the South Korean Supreme Court overturned that decision and ordered the case to be retried.

While Lee was sentenced with two-and-a-half years of prison time in early 2021 in that retrial, he was paroled half a year later in a development that civic groups had described as another example of the justice system being lenient towards the country's elite. (Korea's former president Park Geun-hye also went to jail for her role in the same affair.) 

In 2022, Lee was given a pardon by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, ostensibly so he could help the country overcome its economic crisis. Ironically, Yoon is the country's former chief prosecutor and oversaw the original convictions of Lee and Park. 

Amazon and iRobot, maker of the Roomba vacuum line, just announced that they would be dropping their proposed merger. The potential acquisition was announced back in August of 2022 and was immediately the target of antitrust watchdogs, particularly in the EU. The European Commission (the EU's executive branch) officially announced it was looking into the $1.4 billion dollar deal last July and it raised formal concerns over the potential impact on competition in November. 

iRobot also just announced a large round of layoffs now that the deal isn't going through. The company says it is laying off about 350 employees, which represents 31 percent of iRobot's workforce.

Unsurprisingly, Amazon's statement on the matter blasts regulators for the "innovation" that would come with Amazon scooping up yet another company. "This outcome will deny consumers faster innovation and more competitive prices, which we're confident would have made their lives easier and more enjoyable," said Amazon SVP and General Counsel David Zapolsky in a statement. "Mergers and acquisitions like this help companies like iRobot better compete in the global marketplace, particularly against companies, and from countries, that aren't subject to the same regulatory requirements in fast-moving technology segments like robotics."

iRobot's statement was more muted. "The termination of the agreement with Amazon is disappointing, but iRobot now turns toward the future with a focus and commitment to continue building thoughtful robots and intelligent home innovations that make life better, and that our customers around the world love," said Colin Angle, Founder of iRobot.

While the companies didn't mention the pressure from the EU specifically, Bloomberg notes that a veto looked likely. And while that might not have immediately killed the deal, Amazon and iRobot appear to have decided to shut things down completely rather than work through any proposed changes to make the deal more palatable to regulators. 

Earlier in January, the European Commission was said to have warned Amazon that the deal was on thin ice. However, according to Reuters, the company declined to offer any potential remedies to soothe the bloc's concerns over the acquisition. As outlined in the original agreement, Amazon is paying iRobot a $94 million termination fee now that the deal is dead.

This isn't exactly the first time Amazon and the EU have butted heads. They previously squared off over the company's handling of third-party seller information. In 2022, the two sides reached an agreement over Amazon's treatment of third-party sellers.