Why Do People View the MS Acquisition of ABK as a "Good Thing?"

[EpicRandy]

SvennoJ said:

EpicRandy said:

It has very little to benefit us as console /pc players, but mobile players stand to gain from an increase in competition in that much more consolidated market.

That's another area where I take issue with the previous CMA decision, they balanced the cons seen in the cloud market to the goods it may bring to consumers of GamePass while they did make any mention of the potential benefits from any, not even a slight, increase in the console market competitiveness and more importantly also did not contrast it with the benefits of challenging the established duopoly in mobile space where MS is one of the only very few entities that could even think of tackling that task.

As for Xbox shifting some focus to Mobile, it very well might happen and by all mean it is happening with this transaction, after that, I think furthering that venture will happen the same way it happened with ABK, through further acquisition, expansion, and contractual development agreement with 3rd party. The thing is, you don't necessarily want to retool and reskill established talented individuals at your studio while they are still making good output in a still lucrative market so other options will be preferred.

The CMA seems fine now with splitting off cloud streaming for the UK. So for the console and mobile space it's all fine.

Anyway I see no benefit for me in this deal. If XBox diverts attention to mobile, means even less chance for MS to get interested in VR. Sony is off chasing the live service dream, a dozen of those in the works vs nothing for PSVR2 afaik. Plus with MS' zero interest in VR, VR ports of ABK games are definitely off the table, just like Skyrim will most likely not come to PSVR2 now, definitely not Starfield. Nintendo lost interest as well, BotW had an experimental VR mode but TotK dropped it. Of course Nintendo could still do something with Switch 2.

But such is life with big corporations. Mobile and GAAS is where the (new) money is.

"Anyway I see no benefit for me in this deal"

Yes, and that's perfectly fine, the deal never was going to please everyone and his not perfect for me either I see many cons to it. On a personal note, there might be bad and there might be pros, we might be for or against it, and to that extent we can use every generality/singled out property we see fit.

But it's completely another thing to say it should be blocked or allowed, that should 100% be based on the ins and outs of the transaction itself and its impact on the relevant market under the current laws, and not idealistic ones, with fairness in regards to how similar case has been adjudicated in the past.

The separation between the 2 concepts is hard to make sometimes and tends to be mixed together. I tend to focus much on the latter while public forum will, of course, tend to focus on the former, but focusing on the latter is the only way to remove oneself from the equation (not that I pretend to do that perfectly, but I try and I'm open to challenge if someone thinks my personal opinion was at play in my argument then we could debate if that's amounts to anything and readjust).

Last edited by EpicRandy - on 14 July 2023