Yup, plus there are local ma and pa sandwich shops that are more popular than your typical subway( or any food chain). They don’t only get competition from big food chains, but also local businesses and big groceries stores/warehouse clubs like Costco.
The fact that Arby’s is included in this makes the whole thing completely nonsensical to me. You can get a sandwich pretty much anywhere here in the US. Hell, even KFC sells sandwiches now. The only differentiator for chains like Subway is that it’s an assembly line where you tell them what you want on the sandwich. That’s it. The fact that the FTC is going to waste time and money on this honestly makes me angry.
The only straw I can grasp at is that it might have something to do with food service companies that supply the food materials to all of these chain stores. Even then, I can’t see how Subway could have that much of an impact on the general food market. If their goal is to protect the sanctity of the assembly line sandwich market, they can literally go f*** themselves. 
1 Like
That still leaves the likes of EA and Take Two which would be a hard sell to get past the regulators and just pile more negativity on the Xbox brand I feel 
I don’t think MS has any intention of going after those companies, ABK was simply too good of an opportunity to pass up on
3 Likes
Me neither, I still personally would have preferred they went for either over ABK but it clearly made the most business sense with Mobile and PC.
Do you think they will consider going after Epic when Sweeney eventually retires? With many of their studios now using Unreal Engine they could get royally screwed if Tencent take over.
I don’t see any world where MS would be allowed to buy Epic and Tencent owning them wouldn’t change anything
2 Likes
Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble in advance.
I don’t think Microsoft should go after Warner bros/discovery if they have to take the entire business.
First who does this all report to Phil Spencer, which would be a roll change into something like head of entertainment (?) with his time even more split dealing with the 20+ business inside Warner discovery alone. Or would you rip pieces out and separate them within Microsoft again this is a lot of work when realigned businesses.
Also for example does Microsoft want to get into comics for example and dealing with everything ( I am not the most knowledgeable on this but I hear the entire distribution model is completely f**ked with middle men).
also I know some point to well with all the media stuff they would control a massive power house streaming service… yes but no. To give you an example in Canada hbo shows were licensed out a long time ago to another streaming company.l, so hbo max never launched here because they legally couldn’t use most of the content crave did,
As well as things like adult swim, Cartoon Network in most other country they just gave the streaming rights to other platforms or media companies. So outside of North America (sure the biggest market) you would be limiting yourself and dealing with multiply companies in multiply countries.
On top of this and my guess hundreds of complications you are creating an issue that Disney created where they had multiply different sectors that when bob stepped originally step down part of the problem is the complexities of the business was very hard for a new ceo to come in and keep all the plates spinning. ( yes Disney had a bunch of other things but this didn’t help lead to many misfires).
If they could get just Warner brothers games with licensing rights to the properties like dc and control of the ip such as mortal combat. 100% on board if not, there is many better smaller developers or publishers you could look at.
1 Like
I agree. I think the general feeling is that they almost went to Sega when ABK started to decline and the opportunity was too big to pass.
Jezz Corden also said that some studios were let go by MS in order to let the ABK investigation go through, I think he thought of CD/Eidos.
1 Like
Also add that regulators would point out that the Epic Store would then be owned by MS as well. We can laugh at the % of the market owned by Epic but this is not how regulators think.
Also the control of Unreal Ungine would be a severe alarm. Anyway, Tencent owns 40% of Epic, this is an non-case.
1 Like
That’s sad. I really would have liked Crystal Dynamics as part of the XBox group since they’re such a wonderful developer.
We don’t know what studios Jez was referring to when he said that, best not to speculate on what he “had in mind”.
6 Likes
How about bringing in Tomonobu Itagaki the guy behind Ninja Gaiden Black. I have yet to see a hack and slash on that level. It’d be nice to also see someone like Yu Suzuki get a good budget and studio to complete his Shenmue series.
Forget hack and slash, get him to make a new Beach Volleyball game.
4 Likes
1 Like
I doubt it either, atleast not anytime in the near future. Maybe another 5-10 years depending what else happens in the industry.
I don’t know about Tencent, I just don’t trust them in the slightest. There’s been rumours for a while that they are building their own console/streaming service. If they had full ownership they could change the licensing costs for Unreal just like Unity tried to do.
Sure, why not both. I really would like to see the guy come out with an action game that destroys all these modern ones which pretty much take the soul’s approach.
1 Like
Damn thats sad about Embracer. Im surprised that Embracer doesnt try the COD, Assasins Creed formula. Pick a couple of your top IP and refocus all these studios on those couple IP. Put out those top IP frequently and profit from those.
At the same time, work on offering your existing titles to subscription services for more consistent cash.
1 Like
I believe many underestimate the video game market we are talking about the largest entertainment market
These graphs date from 2021 and take into account ABK with Microsoft at this period
XBOX + Bethesda + ABK represented only 13% of the overall market.
You have to hold 60% or more of a market to be in a monopoly situation, so that would mean that XBOX would have to buy Tencent, Sony, Nintendo and Netease to own 61.7% of the industry.
Microsoft will not buy Tencent they are worth 538 billion dollars even for Microsoft it is an insane amount. My theory is that Microsoft will try to buy Take Two as I already explained earlier in the thread. Take Two represents approximately 3.4% of the industry they have a valuation of 26.51 Billion. if we take this chart from 2021 if Microsoft would buy Take Two they would own 17.3% and they would still be behind Tencent.
Obviously there will always be regulators for buyouts worth several billion but they will never succeed in proving a market monopoly in the video game industry.
If we take Hardware sales Microsoft sells 2x less Hardware than Sony and Nintendo
If we take the Cloud it is a hypothetical market which does not yet exist and Netflix is in theory already present on the market with games like Oxenfree. Netflix has +220 Million subscribers while Gamepass has 30 Million - 40 Million, PS+ has +40 Million how do you want to prove Microsoft’s monopoly on services and the Cloud?
Microsoft could buy anyone on this chart even Nintendo is possible and Phil Spencer said that for him to buy Nintendo would be a career moment so they have thought about it or continue to think about it even after ABK (There is only Tencent which is not accessible because their valuation is too high (we have never seen a buyout of +500 billion in history) it will be very easy to prove that they are not in a monopoly situation.
I find that the acquisition of ABK was quick
all countries approved except the CMA which refused to talk (probably because Jim Rayan is English and he did everything to block the deal) The negotiations really began after Brad Smith threatened the United Kingdom to block the ABK games in the territory for a certain time and no longer invest in technology, AI and Cloud in the country.
The FTC lost in court and the Judge even suggested that Microsoft make all ABK games (except Call of Duty) exclusive to their ecosystem because that’s what Sony does.
So I think that any other takeover will take place in this way as long as a monopoly situation is not proven.
3 Likes
That is not the only way to define a market though, Microsoft buying Sony and Nintendo would absolutely result in a monopoly of the console market.
If you pull far away enough then nothing will look like a monopoly.
7 Likes