Let me guess…
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Hypothetically, if FTC wants to drag this out and go high visibility in court, it’ll be damaging in their own efforts to reign in Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple. They’ll be wasting time and resources fighting MS in court over a deal that has very low if none-existent anti-trust problems legally. It’ll look bad when they misappropriate resources to do this and it’ll look bad when they lose the case.
An appropriate analogy would be Biden, in the midst of trying to tackle Omicron, devote much of his budget and time trying to address the seasonal flu.
Obviously politics are politics and people are people, so you can’t predict fully what the FTC will do. In the end, the court will have this pass through without much if any concessions.
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They blocked Nvidias purchase of Arm because there was a legit fear from competitors that they might not get good or equal chip designs.
Look at it this way… Imagine Microsoft or Sony buying AMD. The owner could always ensure that they always get the better and more cutting-edge chips for their consoles. That would be viewed as a real problem with the owner having a legit and unfair advantage.
Microsoft buying ABK is absolutely nothing like that.
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Sony is first place in gaming subscription services with PS+.
Keep in mind that Google and PlayStation are ahead of Microsoft in cloud gaming subscriptions. That’s because Microsoft doesn’t have a cloud gaming subscription. It’s currently a complementary feature that is part of their Game Pass Ultimate sub.
We can’t even say that xCloud is the most used streaming service.
If Microsoft split off xCloud into its own subscription service I don’t think it would even beat Stadia at this point.
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That’s a reach, I mean, 5k people plays Destiny 2 on Stadia and that game is free included, lmao. I assure you among 25M GP subscribers, more people use xCloud than the whole Stadia operation. And also more people than PSNow, which last figure was at 4 million? Lol
Appreciate someone else understanding my plight, lol. I agree with you on this point but would also argue that while PSNow and GP (and Luna, and Stadia, and GFNow, and Spartacus, and EA Play, and Ubi+) all have differences in their business models, they also have similarities in other areas for sure. It will be interesting to see how the FTC defines the relevant contours of ‘market’. Even just restricting the ‘competition’ to the aforementioned services there are several ways to frame it.
I suspect it might be framed as ‘sub services that grant access to game titles’ since that would be where the ABK deal fits in the simplest.
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A completely reasonable take.
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Well based on the recent news it looks like this deal might even go through earlier than anticipated since MS has committed no exclusive for Cod.
COD being exclusive or not shouldn’t matter to the regulators that look at acquisition from a wide lens. I think if the FTC is moving against MS, they’ll still do so in the light of this news.
This would include things like WOW and FF14, wouldn’t it?
ATVI acquisition will go through 100%. And after their latest open letter a principled approach to app stores I am sure of. The interesting point of that letter was Open App Store policy. As Microsoft has been a government darling for years, I think it is deliberately aimed at AppStore and MS has long been siding with Epic and government against Apple.
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I don’t think so since those are not letting users access a catalogue. I think the FTC understands there is a difference between renting a digital movie and Netflix (for example). The ABK deal was done for GP and in that specific marketplace the games will be exclusive (i.e. they won’t show up on competing subscription services like Spartacus, et al).
I wish people stop bringing this up…ARM makes chips for like 95% of phones and mobile devices…that’s the 100% textbook definition of a monopoly if Nvidia got them
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ARM is like Internet for Internet of Things. Buying Internet is not good.
It is 100% aimed at Apple and is what the title says: This is Microsoft getting out in front because they know where the wind is blowing and that regulations will be coming that affects these App Stores. It is all part of Microsoft’s PR campaign to remain outside of the conversation when Big Tech comes up in conversation.
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I still don’t think it’s 100% after the comments. The regulatory organisations are still going to have a good hard look at it all thanks to both the size and because its Microsoft, the second largest company on the planet. I’m about 80/20 on it being approved
Honestly I’m going to assume that this is primarily COD. COD staying on Playstation, and games that have already been announced like Overwatch and Diablo 4
But the more I think about it I’m still under the impression that new games barring COD will be exclusive. New Crash, Spyro, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, new Blizzard Survival game etc these are new games that would
Nah, at worst is 95% to pass. FTC has trouble with Facebook, what would they gain trying to oppose Microsoft there? After all FTC goes to the court and court later decides what to do.
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The FTC spent half their budget fighting Facebook lawyers, they may still need to fight other battles and I’m pretty sure won’t spend a lot of resources trying to fighticrosoft here. And tbh Microsoft may be helping them with their new policies gear up to score a major win against big tech with Apple.
Microsoft is clearly 100% supporting FTC in fight against big tech. As I said before Microsoft is the darling of the goverment.
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