Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win
From the article, quoting Judge Corley:
… the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.
Can I ask why? Microsoft has a monetary incentive to push the games to other platforms wherever possible. Yeah they may hold a few back (see Starfield) to try and sell consoles but I don’t expect them to withhold all. There were some interesting articles that this deal is more about the mobile gaming (King) rather than COD or other AB games.
As an Xbox and Nintendo owner I feel Sony/Nintendo have done more harm to the industry by reinforcing exclusives (both times and complete) than Microsoft. Wouldn’t it be in Microsoft’s right to do what the market leaders are doing and take advantage of exclusives to try and gain market share back? We also saw with testimony/discovery during the trial that Sony would often say one thing publicly and another internally. I think Sony only opposed this cause they wanted to stoke the fire of fandoms.
Microsoft are no longer interested in selling consoles necessarily, otherwise they’d be holding stuff back from PC as well. They’re interested in getting people into their ecosystem through Game Pass.
And while I agree with you that Sony and Nintendo have used plenty of anti-consumer practices, Microsoft has also done so in the past and I think the only reason they’ve been more pro-consumer of late is because they’ve been the underdog for a long time now. I would be anticipating a change in their behaviour the more people they get to subscribe to Game Pass, and this Activision-Blizzard deal is a huge step towards that.
Exactly. Sony have spent years leveraging their market leading position to further put them in the lead via paying to keep content and games off Xbox. Their market position is their strength and they leverage it. Microsoft’s strength is their financial power, and they’re now finally leveraging it. Sony need to be pulled back to the pack and pulled in line with their anti-consumer practices. The more market share and dominance they get the worse they get for consumers, as they’ve shown many times.
Sony has the superior hardware, and superior first party titles. Sony has often financed some third party development which keeps things playstation exclusives, but to my knowledge this has always been new IP not existing sequels like Microsoft has done in previous generations.
The only time Sony’s ever had stronger hardware was PS3, which was a dumpsterfire that never even ended in a profit. PS1 < NS4. PS2 < GCN. PS4 < Xbox One (by a small margin). PS5 < Xbox Series X.
The only thing they have to their name is a bit of code made for their platform and not others, and the opportunity to buy a $700 headset that’s outclassed by a standalone $400 headset.
The best thing that ever happened to Sony was a) Nintendo using cartridges to solidify FF as a PS franchise, and b) Sega marketing Nintendo as “for kids” back in the 90s, a stereotype they’ve never been able to get away from.
That is however, with the caveat that all Xbox games have to run on Series S as well.
And nearly all PS5 games have to run on PS4. I fail to see your point.
No console has had superior hardware since 1992. The release of the IBM VGA and Gravis UltraSound sealed the superiority of the PC, a title it has held ever since.
Phil Spencer said every single future Zenimax game is going to be exclusive, so it’s not just a few being held back.
Microsoft’s monetary incentive is to kill PlayStation and make everyone buy GamePass. Then they don’t have to put effort into making individual games, they’ll have your money anyway. They’ve shown for years that they don’t care about Xbox making money. They are propping up Xbox with profits from other parts of their business, something that’s usually considered anti-competitive, but that’s out the window these days.
Sony doesn’t buy games to keep them from their competition. Sony buys developers and talented people to make games. Throughout their history Destiny is the only game of note that they’ve purchased and neither it or Bungies next game are playstation exclusives. Every other developer had been largely making Sony exclusives games from the get-go, or didn’t being any existing titles of note with them.
Microsoft can’t run a studio or create IP. Forza is the only title of note that has been created in house. Everything else was done by outside creative and later bought and run into the ground. Could that change? Maybe, but it’s been 23 years and they have jack to show for it. Sony only has a few more years of development experience than Microsoft, but has destroyed them in the quality and quantity department.
The only way this could go well for consumers is if they could manage to negotiate fewer exclusives from both Microsoft and Sony, and I don’t see that happening because they’d likely rather gamble on the chance that their exclusive would be the big new IP that makes them billions. So we’re really just gonna see more games become exclusives.
It sucks. Exclusives are just bad for consumers, period. Doesn’t matter if it’s Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft. They all just reduce how many options consumers have unless they’re willing to shell out hundreds for a new console. Personally, none of my consoles are chosen because of some trait of the console; they’re all just to play exclusives. Not even the Switch – I didn’t buy that to play games on the go or have motion controls. I bought it to play Animal Crossing and Zelda. If I could have played my Switch games (legally) elsewhere, I would have.