this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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Not necessarily.
The FTC did important work here even if it wasn't successful in the suit.
Microsoft got Zenimax and was then rather excessive in how they handled it, and that is a large part of what prompted this degree of pushback by regulatory bodies.
If Xbox wants to leave the door open for future acquisitions they are very much aware they need to tread carefully moving forward.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Zenimax titles end up as timed exclusives down the road rather than permanent exclusives as announced.
Similarly, Sony has set any of their own future acquisitions up for potential scrutiny if they continue down the path of total exclusively, and what's likely going to end up happening is each side plays their bargaining chips to end up with mutual releases after timed windows.
This is arguably better than Activision Blizzard ending up in the hands of Tencent and going even further in the direction of Diablo Immortal, and may even help curb future exclusivity across the industry.
(In general, first party studio ownership leads to better games and less microtransaction BS.)
Less exclusivity in the future may largely rest on the FTC and other regulatory bodies having aggressively pushed back on this here and now.
In trade regulation you don't need to necessarily win the fight to still have a net positive influence.
This reads like a rather optimistic take to me.
What Microsoft learned here is that they can buy a publisher (Bethesda), make that publisher's games exclusive, and still get the biggest gaming acquisition in history approved by regulators.
Microsoft will likely pause acquisitions for a bit, but everyone else that wants to get into/stay in gaming is going to look into them even more than before. I'd be surprised if Sony doesn't end up buying someone decently large (but not as large as Activision: Sony cannot afford anything like that). Everyone seems to think Sony would go for Square Enix but I think they would make a different choice.
Yes, Sony will very likely eye an acquisition (possibly even the one extensively rumoured over the years that isn't Square Enix), but that'd be to shore up their bargaining position over exclusivity.
The exclusivity fight, particularly if mutually assured destruction, isn't a winning bet long term.
There's an ebb and flow to this industry, and we've already seen under Jim Ryan the shift to PC ports after exclusivity windows.
Honestly, the biggest thing holding back Sony ports to Xbox is probably Microsoft's insistence on platform support for the Series S.
Not great to engineer streamlined system that you push to the max with first party titles to then instead get held back planning to support your competitor's worst product.
I don’t agree with that assessment given Sony only published games on the Xbox One when forced to by the license holder. They also seem to do just fine porting their games to PC where there is a host of different hardware configurations. Go look at the minimum PC specs for Ratchet and Clank; that sure seems like it could run on a Series S to me.
Sony won't be allowed to since they're the market leader by a long way.
No, it's that sony don't want to release their games on xbox. Don't be silly. Playstation basically is Sony these days. Everything else they own has either died or faded into irrelevance apart from cameras and tvs. Playstation is their biggest asset, and they would never consider releasing their games on their competitors consoles.
That's not really how it works.
Eh, we'll see.
It is, actually.
You just realized that your post made my point instead of yours hahahahaha
A company that IS the market leader isn't going to be allowed to buy up big chunks of the market. A company that ISN'T, especially one that's new or last placed, like in your example, is going to be allowed to - as they were in your example.
Sony are the market leader by a long way. They would not be allowed to buy EA or Take 2 or Epic (especially not epic because of Unreal Engine). Microsoft wouldn't be allowed to after buying Activision for at least a few years due to the adjustment that the market is going to go through now. Microsoft know this so they won't be trying anything any time soon. If in 5 years time they're still last and sony are still dominant, they will attempt to buy another - and nothing should stop them.
As long as PS sells better than Xbox, they don't really need to acquire companies as it also makes economic sense for third party studios to simple agree on an exclusivity deal with the console leader.
We can already see how most multiplatform games actually perform better on PS5 despite Xbox Series X being a notch better. In fact, some games even lack features on Xbox (Callisto Protocol to date has shitty Ray Tracing on Xbox with poorer performance, Resident Evil 4 Remake having better controls on PS5 compared to Xbox) even without any deals that we know of, while games like Hogwarts Legacy have exclusive content just for PS5, and FF XVI outright being exclusive to PS5. Sony didn't have to acquire these devs to make that happen, the devs get to remain independent and sell their game exclusively on the largest current gen console.
And if and when Xbox sales actually start to match that of PS, they can still make PS+ a better service by having day one releases before going for acquisitions.
It doesn't feel like it, but with ABK, Microsoft finally has parity with Sony when it comes to number of IPs, with Sony still being the market leader with most reach and "true" exclusives that require you to buy the console.
They didn't, they just use their market leader position to make it happen - which is what should actually be being stopped and investigated by the regulatory bodies.
Make no mistake - Sony won't be allowed to purchase a big publisher. They are the overwhelming market leader. Just because the last placed Microsoft were allowed to it doesn't mean the first placed Sony can, especially since everyone knows the very first thing sony would do is make every single game Playstation exclusive (and then probably raise the price of all games to USD$90 and raise the price of the console $100).
Microsoft are in last place in the gaming industry, so why wouldn't (and shouldn't) they be able to buy a publisher? If they were the overwhelming market leader like Sony then there's not a chance in hell this would get approved..........but they're not. They're last.
It's absurd how everyone is now like "this opens the floodgates and means that everyone can buy everyone!". It means nothing of the sort. If sony were to try and buy EA or Take 2, as people are now suggesting, it would be blocked almost universally because they're the overwhelming market leader. The companies position in the industry matters. The point is to stop monopolies, and allowing the leader to get bigger goes against that. Allowing the last placed competitor to buy companies doesn't.
Microsoft, producer of 1 of 4 popular gaming devices, owner of the windows operating system, is in last place?
Yes, they are.
They're currently getting outsold over 2:1 by Playstation. They have tens of millions less service subscribers than Playstation has. They are being skipped by many big third party games. Owning windows doesn't get them any money from games sold on Steam/Epic/etc.
How are they not in last place in gaming? They're last in revenue. They're last in software sales. They're last in hardware sales. They're last in subscriber numbers. They're last in peripheral sales. They're last in.....you get the point.
Sony has a market cap of 76 billion dollars.
Microsoft has a market cap of 1.9 trillion.
Cool, why do you think that's relevant?
Who is the market leader in the video game industry?
Tencent
Let me rephrase the question - who do you think is the market leader in the video game console manufacturer industry? What position out of the "big 3" do you think Microsoft is in?
Yeah, I really hope this is how things play out with that acquisition. I'd really love to be able to play Elder Scrolls 6 (some day), but don't want to be forced into a separate ~$500 purchase in order to play it.
Yeah, this is a concern I've had with Sony acquiring Bungie. Although, Bungie's new game, Marathon, is already slated to be cross platform, so the fact that they're not immediately going into exclusivity-mode is a good look, so far. Hopefully we see a similar pattern with their other new IP, Matter, whenever they share more about that.
If I was Sony I'd now immediately partner with Nvidia to offer their cloud gaming service on PS4 and PS5.
I know they are trying to roll their own but I think that's a mistake, and offering their users the ability to access Microsoft games on the equivalent of a 4080 for $19.99/mo for the duration of playing the one exclusive a year they'd actually care about would be the biggest F-U to Xbox.
Yes, in theory it could cannibalize software sales through channels they don't get a cut, but generally I'd prefer playing locally on a PS5 than dealing with compression artifacts on cloud offerings, even if the cloud offering is good enough to not buy a $500 separate box.
Why would Sony let Nvidia’s cloud service onto the PS storefront? If Sony wanted players to have access to an equivalent cloud model that Sony didn’t control, they’d just let Game Pass onto PlayStation.
Yeah, right.
Delivering a subpar workaround for your users is different from giving a subscription service that you don't get a cut of which is better than your current offerings.
Sony is exposed to far less risk to their revenue letting Nvidia in than Microsoft.
Nvidia would be max single digit cannibalized sales but would probably put a significant dent into the potential market of PS5 owners that might otherwise have bought Xbox hardware for exclusives.
Game Pass would likely be well into double digit cannibalized sales for both games and subscription services.
Yeah. When IBM started getting wary of antitrust in the 80s, that paved the way for Microsoft, and when Microsoft started getting wary of antitrust in the 90s, that paved the way for Google. The FTC may be toothless, but the more it sucks up a corporation's time and resources and just makes things difficult, the more it serves it's purpose regardless.