Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

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I can't shake the feeling that this is protecting Sony a bit too much.

This isn't the primary console buying to remain in power. This is the current third place platform buying to be a competitive force.

Considering Nintendo just does Nintendo things and I doubt either company really sees them as a competitor (which isn't a bad thing to be clear, but they clearly have different ideas of gaming).

We basically only have Sony here who has a long history of anti consumer tactics that in my opinion do a lot of harm on the gaming space. We are starting to see the Cocky "we can't do anything wrong" attitude from Sony again this generation that we saw when they first announced the PS3. That is bad for gamers and the industry. Just look at the complete opposite approach that Sony took with the PS4. Sure they still made some of their questionable decisions, especially later in the generation.

The fact is we need a strong competitor to Sony and Microsoft has made a lot of strides to get there, but this acquisition will put them right up next to Sony.

Now yes, Microsoft has a history as well. Particularly during the 360 generation, we can't ignore that. But we also can't ignore that Phil Spensor was not in charge at that time.

We also can't ignore that as gamers. Activision Blizzard has been in a bad state for a while now. Sure they may still be raking in money, but their games have continued to stumble over the last few years.

That is before you get into all the harassment issues that a drastic change is necessary and honestly I don't know what other company I would actually want to buy them. Sure not Sony, EA, and outside of those... who could realistically afford too.

For the record: I am saying this as someone with all 3 consoles and a gaming PC. But my playstation is my least used console because I despise many of the business practices that Sony gets into. I don't want to reward those behaviors.

This isn't about Microsoft vs Sony. This isn't even about anti-consumer tactics. This is about preventing consolidation and monopolization of an industry. Monopolization stifles competition, which always hurts consumers in the long run. There is no reason a consumer should want this deal to go through, even if you're the biggest Xbox fan.

there's absolutely nothing monopolistic about this deal. How can you say that with a straight face?

oligopolistic?

Consolidation is not inherently anti-consumer. Example: in this context, consolidation could lead to a merger of Blizzard games and subscriptions into Xbox game pass without any price increase. This would be a pretty clear win for consumers.

Short-term. Long-term, any kind of consolidation upsets the power balance between the customers and the monopolist in favor of the latter, and it's only a matter of time before it will be taken advantage of. In your example, it would be likely that the price of the Xbox game pass will increase eventually, once there's less competition.

It is anti-consumer if such merger and circumstance causes those games to be exclusively accessible to those with Gamepass. While exclusivity is competition, too much of it is monopoly - and there are people who study anti-trust within industries for a living, and they're making a pretty good case that this is too much.

everything being on a fucking subscription is NOT a good thing. Microsoft can raise the price whenever they feel like it. They can also launch games subscription-exclusive if they feel like it. Stop trying to push people not owning things as a pro-consumer business model when it is conceptually predatory.

What you're saying is that Microsoft will not have to compete on creating a good game subscription service for other publishers and developers because they can just buy up everyone. That is, by definition, anticompetitive. Removing competition from the market.

The person you are responding to said anti-consumer, not anti-competitive.

But with there being no competition, things will be worse for consumers. That's why 'we' have anti-competition laws.

There is a fringe economic theory, popular mainly in right "libertarian" circles, that claims otherwise, e.g.:

https://truthonthemarket.com/2014/09/13/peter-thiel-on-the-v...

It's not particularly surprisingly that a venture capitalist thinks monopolies are cool

This is all based on feelings. In reality most of the market has disappeared into mobile gaming, PC, and Nintendo. Microsoft has plenty of potential marketshare to tap into without getting into a war with Sony, a war that they are likely to continue losing regardless of who they acquire (they own MINECRAFT of all things), they just need to figure out how to carve a niche.

I just can’t understand he notion that we have to allow this consolidation, and the consequences that will come with it (like the Starfield and TES VI exclusives), because third place isn’t good enough for Microsoft to push their weight around.

It's not just Microsoft vs Sony. It's also that game publishers are already highly concentrated. Activision-Blizzard is one of the bigger independent companies out there and losing them to Microsoft would be bad for industry wide competition, similar to Sysco/US foods.

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