EpicRandy said:
FTC -
CMA -
The CMA found no issue with digital stores, likewise, they found no issue with multi-game subscription providers. But by their definition, they have an issue if an actor does or adds a cloud streaming feature. There's a paradox here. The CMA has taken issue because the remedies MS proposed only catered to BYOG business as they would have wanted to also support cloud providers with multi-game subscription models and others but again they found no issue with said business models if they don't propose a cloud feature. This paradox makes it impossible for MS to propose actual remedies without having them address other markets outside the scope of the actual cloud market. In other words, by wanting MS to propose remedies to cloud providers with multi-game subscription services they are not actually benefiting the cloud aspect of those providers but the multi-game subscription one. Let's say as a thought experiment, that the CMA did succeed and made MS commit to remedies for every business model of cloud providers there can be. What would prevent Epic Store, an actor judged not at risk by the CMA, to add a cloud streaming feature and claim the benefits of MS remedies? Likewise, if the CMA succeeded in forcing MS to license ABK titles to an actual cloud provider with a multi-game subscription service like Luna, what prevent Amazon from dropping Cloud streaming feature afterward or adding a download and install feature? Windows -
-As a practical matter, a market share of greater than fifty percent has been necessary for courts to find the existence of monopoly power *Can be* that's all depends on how a company is acting, Nvidia has a greater share of the GPU market than MS on the OS market and it's not a monopoly. -If big companies like Microsoft can acquire huge third parties like Activision Blizzard and make them exclusive, then how are smaller companies supposed to compete directly? This doesn't create competition. By continuing to do what they are, it's not without reason EA and many others went public stating how this transaction changed nothing for them. Having CoD under MS does nothing to lessen Ubisoft's Assassin Creeds fanbase or appeals nor it does for any other franchises. This is content creation with each product being unique not some factory producing a commodity X so cheap others cannot match their output and pricing. - Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usually smaller, businesses or consumers. Yes, and this transaction has been judged not to create any of this by dozens of market authorities and has been ruled not at risk to do so when court challenged. -Obviously market authorities from other countries don't care cuz Activision Blizzard and consoles are only big in certain countries. They don't see the impact. Convenient when market authorities don't challenge, it's because they don't care, when they do and fail, it's because they're incompetent. Sony also did not saw the impacts or did not care when Jim Ryan wrote the infamous email apparently. Of course, the vast majority of market authorities are the ones being blinded and very few that just so happen to have shown great desire to challenge big-tech whenever they can are supposed to be the ones seeing straight through things here, even though they make a joke of their case when they try to challenge it. I guess any argument will fit if it means it can be an alternative to the more logical conclusion that this transaction simply does not rise to anything anti-competitive or monopolistic. |
Well my point was that Microsoft isn't just about Xbox consoles. They have multiple segments such as their PC operating system and cloud service that benefits from gaming content. No other company has a big share in 3 platforms in the gaming space. Steam is only big on PC, Nintendo Handheld, Sony consoles, even Apple and Google doesn't have anything close to what Microsoft has. People talk about how Microsoft's gaming revenue is lower than its competitor, but that doesn't mean it's significantly lower. Sometimes it's even above Nintendo's. Most importantly, it doesn't include the revenue that benefits from PC users using Windows.
I was baffled with how incompetent FTC was, not only they failed to mention the fact that Microsoft has other platforms and services that benefits with this acquisition, they limited the discussion to "high-end consoles" for whatever reason. Both CMA and FTC are way too obsessed with CoD, when Activision Blizzard is more than just CoD. It makes sense why, because Call of Duty is constantly one of the biggest games on Playstation. Since they limited the discussion to "high-end consoles" CoD is the main topic. I understand, Sony is the big competitor, they would suffer a lot from this acquisition. However, if you think just a tiny bit, Activision Blizzard is a third party that has huge presence in every platform for gaming. King for mobile, Blizzard for PC, Activision for consoles/pc/mobile. Combined with Microsoft's market presence, you don't need to be Einstein to understand the potential threat to the market share. Microsoft already has lots of capable studios and assets including Bethesda and fcking Minecraft man.
This discussion shouldn't be about consoles, it should've been the whole video game market. Phil Spencer said multiple times their focus is on mobile too. There's a new law that will allow mobile users to use third party stores. Perhaps Microsoft would aim there as well. With this leak, it was revealed they are(were) also interested in Valve and Nintendo. They clearly don't give af about competition, they just want to be market leaders through the power of money. This is seen with the Xbox plan to be market leaders by 2030. Remember, Microsoft is a gigantic company, gaming isn't even 20% of their whole revenue. They already have plenty of gaming market share, why should they become leaders in that market too? At the very least, Activision Blizzard should be their last acquisition in the gaming space, but you know they won't stop here.
Last edited by Shatts - on 20 September 2023
