| EpicRandy said: PC gaming to Windows revenue is an extremely weak link, it's not because PC gaming is almost exclusive to Windows that MS still dominates PC OS, it's because Windows still dominate PC OS that user and developers often disregard other OS as gaming choice. If you were to block such transactions on this you would not protect the gaming market, you would only try to punish MS for their High OS share without actually making a case related to the OS market which is DoA in any court case. If regulators think MS OS share is an issue by all means they should go and challenge MS on that exactly. Steam is only big on PC Steam never tried to push anywhere else either even Apple and Google doesn't have anything close to what Microsoft has Lol, yes they do, and they also generate way more profits out of similar revenue from 2021
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. King has been mentioned to be worth up to $50b in this transaction alone. So what? Microsoft has virtually 0 presence in mobile so that market is not at risk of anything. You seem to mix efforts to increase market share/revenue and threats to competitiveness together. It does not matter if MS moves up the ranks in terms of share/revenue, authorities are not there to protect a specific ranking. All that matters is the market is still able to compete afterward. And on that, All 3rd parties that voiced their opinion on this said a resounding yes. Sony even said the same in internal emails but then proceeded to say no to regulators. yet the facts are this transaction changes nothing for any other ability to compete, it does not:
This discussion shouldn't be about consoles, it should've been the whole video game market. All markets that constitute the greater video game market Console have been looked at, all those were deemed not at risk by all market authorities including the CMA. the only exception was (the cloud market (CMA, EU, FTC) and console Market (FTC)). The EU fixed the issue it found in the cloud market with remedies from MS, the FTC console and cloud arguments were Judged insufficient, the console argument even triggered comments from the judge stating that the FTC is not supposed to protect market leaders but consumers, and the CMA finally got to negotiating with MS for resolutions once they found themselves the last man standing. With this leak, it was revealed they are(were) also interested in Valve and Nintendo What do you mean by revealed? It's not like it's supposed to be surprising or anything or expected to be any different from any other player. Both Valve and Nintendo are valuable companies is it supposed to be bad or ill-intended to value them? Quite the contrary IMO, it would be very arrogant/delusional not to value them. 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. Yep, you clearly are confusing market ranking and market competitiveness. So Sony is the current Console market leader, is that supposed to be bad? Tencent is the current global market leader by revenue, is that supposed to be bad? Now because MS tries to best their competitor for the top spot it's supposed to spell doom? It's a market, competitors are supposed to try and best each other. It's like you expect a good guy chess player to let competitors beat him and if he tries to actively seek to win is not a good guy anymore. Being pro-competitiveness isn't supposed to be defined by your will or not to seek the top spot but by your respect for other players and the playing field that enables anyone to try and thrive. Remember, Microsoft is a gigantic company, gaming isn't even 20% of their whole revenue. So? MS's size certainly increased the amount of scrutiny they got from regulators but in the end, size does not matter only the impact in relevant markets. They already have plenty of gaming market share, why should they become leaders in that market too? Why not? should they not always try to compete better? Sony has even more share is it too much? should they give those away because they should be happy with less, the likes MS has now? Why should this market have special rules or be viewed through some weird lens that protects the status quo as the right thing and normal free market behavior as bad or evil? At the very least, Activision Blizzard should be their last acquisition in the gaming space, but you know they won't stop here. I don't expect them to stop, but if you look at how ABK played out it's not like we can expect this transaction scale to be frequent either. It was ABK who went to MS to be bought, after all, not MS seeking them out or trying to do a hostile takeover. There's also the fact that MS wants to bolster GamePass first and foremost and it's not like they can expect an ever linear growth with acquisitions. There's a point where adding more content would not really raise the appeal anymore. With that in mind, I don't expect MS to fund such acquisitions forever without getting/analyzing the ROI of both Zenimax and ABK transactions over many years. That said what if EA comes knocking looking to be bought just like ABK did? Do you expect MS to simply say no I'm satisfied? Of course not. So all things considered I do not expect MS to actively seek any such large acquisitions from now on but of course, when a rare opportunity presents itself I don't expect them to turn it down on the spot. At the same time, I do expect them to remain actively seeking more targeted acquisitions able to fulfill some lacking output for Xbox like studio making games in genres they don't already cover. |
You really think what you wrote? Is it okay for big companies to continue acquiring medium to smaller sized one? I don't really like the idea of one company being leaders in multiple huge markets. You missed a lot of my point, but I'm not gonna go in detail anymore. The problem isn't market ranking or whatever, it's the fact that Microsoft isn't doing much that helps the industry with their money. Instead they are using it to buy others to reach that status and earn more money. How can people defend this? They aren't even trying to create something on their own, these acquisitions should be to help small studios financially at the very least. Use them for more innovation. The Xbox is always the least innovative and uninspiring. That's all I gotta say
