There are tons of examples of real world concessions to reference:
When Charter Communications bought Time Warner’s Road Runner broadband business they agree to a multitude of concessions, primarily that they could not institute data caps for 10 years.
When Disney bought fox they agreed to sell off regional Fox Sports networks. Which were sold and became Bally sports
After a Verizon purchase (I can’t remember whether it was purchasing wireless spectrum or another company) they agreed to sell off a regional carrier and some of their unused spectrum
The government doesn’t just go WINK WE BELIEVE YOU! If you tell them you are willing to do X,Y, and Z, they are going to make you accountable for it.
No, it is not PR. They don’t come to CWA and tell them “we won’t do anything” and CWA “yeah, we believe you and we will tell everybody what you saidd”. It does not work that way. Same with European cloud regulations - it is literally the rules by which Microsoft is gonna operate in EU…
And all of these cases were literally the cases of them becoming a monopoly in these areas. Unless you believe in COD monopoly, none of this applicable to ABK deal. Granted some people compare this deal with Nvidia + ARM but whatever…
Because in all other cases none of these even remotely applicable to whatever is happening with ABK.
Cloud wise they have competitors, console wise they have competitors and mobile wise they were not even relevant before that deal.
The whole crux of the matter is whether having Game Pass prevents the competitors from entering the market, but this argument is literally a hypothetical simply because you cannot predict how the market changes as Microsoft is entering the uncharted territory with this deal. We literally have Nvidia as an example of a cloud service being successful without even not only having cloud monopoly but also exclusive content. (I am not even sure if Nvidia provides cloud infrastructure)
In subscription services? Nothing because, Sony can put their games on PS+ they just choose not to for to get the sales and then they put the games and remove them to create fake narrative about how their games are quality and can’t be put on their main service.
Cloud services? Again, nothing. Sony was the company that started the whole service of cloud gaming with PSNow, but they didn’t invest in it. If Sony every decided to go with Azure as their way to provide Cloud gaming, Microsoft isn’t going to favor Xbox over Sony, they will give them the best service they can provide. How good Sony’s cloud gaming is will depend on what they want to do with the servers, from either putting PS5 blades in or going with PC components to stream the services they have on PC. But Microsoft is running a business, they shouldn’t be forced to provide Sony with anything for free or at a discount that they didn’t decide to provide.
They bought OnLive and Gaikai - both being the first cloud services and then killed them both. Guess we can build a case where they destroyed the competitors?
I wonder if we can compile the list of the most popular concessions people have come up with and then compare them with the final result (I exclude nonsense like spinning off Azure or Windows). So far I see
5 years fixed price for Game Pass
COD is forever on Playstation
make ABK operate independently allowing to put their content in other services
Put your money where you mouth is. I will bet you two full retail priced games or a year of game pass ultimate that this deal ends up with a consent decree.
At the absolute minimum they are going to be asked to put it in writing that they will make good on their offer to Sony about COD. Like has been repeated ad nauseam. They wouldn’t have publicly offered anything they weren’t already willing to agree to.
Since Sony has combined PSNow and PS+ into one singular service, can it not be argued Sony has 47 million subscriptions with access to streaming that Microsoft already has competition there.
Microsoft doesn’t have a problem offering Sony CoD for 3 more years then they are entitled to up front, so they probably don’t mind putting it in a consent decree. Sony could have signed it back in January, helped Microsoft out by making this process quicker and arguably would have come out better if there had been no need for a consent decree.
Sonys issue is that…3 years in this business means nothing…whether its 3 full CoD games every year or just 1. Xbox fans have waited 6 years for Persona 5.
I personally think by 2027 CoD won’t even be a retail force anymore. It’s mainly going to be gamepass.
it was sarcasm. honestly. as a gamer that loves xbox and pc. I just don’t see how this deal would benefit me. Keyword is me since i do not play any of act/bliz games. I did like diablo.
That perspective I completely understand. And I agree with a bit, while I do like COD and Diablo, most of my excitement around the deal hinges on long dormant IP that may or may not ever actually come back. And looking forward, any major purchases they try to make could be affected by the completion of this one. I have been a long time Sega stan, that is my dream acquisition.
Apparently it is. I mean, someone spends hours a day quoting every single post on the board that even hints at the possibility of a consent decree to tell them with complete confidence that they are wrong clearly finds it serious.
A consent decree is definitely very likely to happen. And Microsoft will want to go for something that is applicable internationally to then go to CMA/EU and say “look, we’re agreeing to concede on these fronts, that is enough do you agree?” as their potential remedies. They are a global company and want global policies. They’re not gonna want to spin off Xbox in the UK only or sell off all their assets there, etc.
on the one hand, the games industry being subsumed into a serpentine mono-company will probably make it even harder for interesting titles to get made outside of the indie space
on the other hand, if this goes through, maybe I can play HERO for the Atari 2600 on gamepass
On the flip side, we could see more experimental game releases once more studios have financial backing.
As it is now, a AAA game is a massive and very expensive endeavour. Whoever is making it has to make sure that it hits whatever boxes it needs to increase its chance of success.
I hope so! I worry that down the road a change in leadership at MS could turn these recently acquired studios into bland AAA content mills. that obviously is not their philosophy right now, but the mattrick era ended less than 10 years ago
i still have my launch dreamcast. 9-9-99. that was such a great console. nfl nba nhl 2k. virtua tennis, bass fishing, semen. Thing was a head of it’s time. sad that sony killed it.
(I exclude nonsense like spinning off Azure or Windows). So far I see