sales2099 said:
I merely have to look at the front page of this site to see a case for Sony monopolizing the console industry. Take out Nintendo for not being as direct a competitor as Xbox and it’s even more so evident. You can’t look at Xboxs marketshare and tell me MS is monopolizing the industry...it’s blatantly contradictory. |
No, you don't need to just look at the front page of a website to determine when that Sony is monopolizing the console industry... There's a reason there are whole books and courses devoted to anti-trust law. You can't just go to court and say "Your honor, I present exhibit A, the frontpage of VGChartz. I rest my case. Mic drop."
The first thing you'd have to do is establish that "console industry" is a valid antitrust market. If I were Sony's lawyer I would argue that is not a proper market in terms of the Sherman Antitrust Act. For instance in United States v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co, the Supreme Court ruled that a company that controlled 75% of the cellophane market did not have a monopoly, because you had to include any reasonable substitute product in the market. I.e. any sort of flexible plastic wrapping. In the videogame industry there are several products one could substitute for a PS4.
The Switch serves the same function as the Playstation 4. It plays videogames. It even plays many of the same videogames. It is sold at the same specialty retailers. This site tracks them in the same place, as does NPD or Famitsu, and fans constantly bicker over which is better. By your own words it is a competitor, even if it's "not as direct" as XBox. You can't chuck it out because it's inconvenient. It doesn't have to do the exact same thing, just has to be close enough. The fact that I can play Zelda on one and Horizon on the other doesn't mean the products are in a separate market. Maybe to a gamer the difference is significant enough to classify them separately, but not in a court.
And of course, there is the XBox One. The fact that it is not selling as well as the PS4 right now is immaterial. It is an option that people have available to them. Unless you want to argue that the XBox One is so vastly inferior that nobody can reasonably choose it over a PS4. And, even if you did limit the console market to just PS4 and XBox One, Xbox has nearly a third of that market. That's not an insignificant part. Being the best seller in your market does not mean you have a monopoly.
In addition to the Switch and XBox One, there is the fact that PCs are a potential substitute for a PS4, offering the ability to play the majority of games available on the PS4. That includes a sizeable chunk of Sony's first party titles through PSNow. You of course would claim that PCs are not consoles, but console market is not legally a thing. Trying to convince a court that a machine that can play almost all of the same games, is not in the same market would be an uphill battle.
The important thing is that there are at least three replacement products people turn to if they don't like what Sony is doing. The PS3 is the perfect example of this. Sony completely dominated the console market with the PS2, and they thought that they were so dominant that they could sell their next machine at vastly above the market standard. Tons of customers said "nope fuck that" and bought an XBox 360 or a Wii instead, or got a better PC. Obviously, Sony did not have a monopoly of the gaming market, and they were far more dominant back then.
Which brings us to the second thing you'd have to prove, that Sony is somehow preventing competition. If people by and large decide that the PS4 is better than the XBox One, then that's not a monopoly, that is competition. It's only a monopoly if Sony is doing something unfair to prevent other companies from competing. And, I can't see anything that qualifies. Clearly as the Switch and PC markets show it is perfectly possible for other companies to thrive in the market. And, Microsoft clearly believes that competition is still possible, as shown by the fact that they're still making consoles.
The basic question you have to ask is "Does Sony get to do whatever the fuck they want?" And clearly they do not. If Sony decided that they were going to charge 90 dollars for the standard edition on all PS5 games, I think it's pretty clear that the XBox Series X/S would outsell it. Competing and winning doesn't mean you have a monopoly. Preventing anyone else from competing through unfair practices makes a monopoly.