JWeinCom said:
sales2099 said:
Cerebralbore101 said:
sales2099 said:
ClassicGamingWizzz said:
sales2099 said:
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sales2099 said:
Imo calling Bethesda a “poached” developer warranted my response. Like the acquisition was without honour or something. It was done with mutual agreement with a premium that is unheard of in this industry. But sure that dastardly MS “poached” poor and innocent Bethesda.
So that’s where I’m coming from and I hope the mods see that too.
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As a 3rd party dev, Bethesda existed in the wild. Any gamer that wanted to play a Bethesda game could play it on their platform of choice, with the exception of Nintendo. But even then there are a few Bethesda games on Switch. Now, if MS goes through with Bethesda exclusivity they will have removed all those Bethesda games from the wild, making them PC/Xbox only. I'm sure Bethesda is more than happy to be purchased, but that's beside the point. If MS does indeed plan on buying up even more studios simply to spitefully keep them off PS5, then they are insanely hypocritical, and damaging to gaming as a whole. MS can do whatever they want with their own home grown content. If you made a game you have every right to sell it however you want. But trying to moneyhat 3rd party games off of PS5, simply because you want to monopolize the gaming industry is a scumbag move. Anyway, call it whatever you want. Poaching, Scalping, Extreme Moneyhatting. Either way it goes against their previous PR spin nonsense that "Exclusives are evil. Sony is evil for making better games than us, and then not selling those games on our platforms!!!"
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Both Sony and MS bought studios. What each studio made before hand is irrelevant. To me going 1st party takes the dev off the market. They objectively aren’t expected to make multiplat games because we know it’s a simple matter of ownership. But a dev staying 3rd party doing exclusive content...that’s dirty.
But there really is no moral high ground you can take as a Sony fan, especially talking about “damaging gaming”. Sony drove Sega out of console gaming. The beat Nintendo so bad that they will never return to traditional consoles ever again. All their consoles have to be underpowered and have a unique hardware quirk to remain competitive. Sony almost drove out Xbox until Phil convinced MS to back them.
You talk about MS trying to monopolize the gaming industry and scumbag moves...look no further then Sony having a rich history of choking out competition. As long as PS has more marketshare, Xbox should be buying and buying and buying and buying until Sony doesn’t have anybody left to moneyhat and we can finally have some long overdue equilibrium.
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Microsoft should buy everyone and everything to make things even !!!
If they buy everything they create a monopoly , do you even think before you write these...
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Monopoly is dictated by marketshare, not assets owned. So taking Nintendo out of the equation as they are doing something different from Sony and MS, the marketshare Sony has tells me it is they who have a monopoly. Doesn’t matter what MS buys until their marketshare is at least over 50% they ain’t no monopoly, yet.
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Please start a thread called Sony Has A Monopoly on the Console Industry!
Then please explain how Sony has used unfair business practices according to the FTC. Here's their page defining what a monopoly is. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined Seriously though, please read that page.
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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.
What MS is doing is no different then Sony. Half of Sony’s studios are bought. MS just doing it on a grander scale, again, to boost marketshare to prevent another monopoly next gen.
You can’t look at Xboxs marketshare and tell me MS is monopolizing the industry...it’s blatantly contradictory.
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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.
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