Lol.
Honestly, I think that in their attempts to "protect" the nascent "Cloud Gaming" market, regulators will end up actually hurting it, if it becomes a reason to block the deal, which according to the CMA, it is a reason (along with the console market) to demand strict concessions (although they are fine with Game Pass).
Stadia is out and no it wasn't because "Microsoft acquired Bethesda", that is a ridiculous excuse from a company that rarely puts any effort into anything new that they enter, it failed because the business model was firstly awful, secondly because it is an extremely early market and thirdly because they didn't put the effort in and didn't want to wait it out (because lets face it, Cloud Gaming is at minimum 5-10 years away from being a viable market).
Luna (Amazon) who are filthy rich won't even commit to putting their own published titles into the service. Amazon has just as much money as Microsoft and yet they can't even do that, not even Amazon seems to believe in the market that deeply. Not even Amazon seems to want to bother to invest now to grow the business in the long term. Luna is looking like the next Stadia.
It feels like honestly, more that regulators are punishing Microsoft for actually putting the effort into the market and taking a monetary loss to try to create a new market, a market which may never be viable, may never take off and is definitely a loss leader right now for everyone but at least they're putting the commitment in.
It also requires a huge cloud infrastructure that few can do, lets be honest, regulators are waiting for some imaginary competitor to enter the market, they're protecting a competitor which doesn't even exist and may never exist all because Microsoft may put CoD into xCloud which, if not for the acquisition wouldn't have ever hit any Cloud service anyway!
Right now, Microsoft's efforts are benefiting consumers of the small Cloud market, by blocking it for these reasons, all you're doing is in fact punishing consumers by not allowing them CoD and other ABK titles on xCloud, at the end of the day, one cloud service is at least better than none at all.
If xCloud becomes a reason why the deal should be blocked, then does Microsoft bother with it in the future if this tiny market which may never succeed and is losing them money, is going to pose a problem for future business opportunities? It isn't Microsoft's fault that Amazon/Google can't be bothered to put in the long term effort even though they're both just as rich as Microsoft. I'm glad they dropped their Game Pass complaints at least but I think the Cloud complaints should have been dropped too.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 17 February 2023
