On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission pointed to Microsoft’s recent pricing overhaul of Xbox Game Pass as evidence of the harm its merger with Activision Blizzard has had on consumers. The agency filed a new letter in its ongoing appeal of last year’s deal, calling the changes “exactly the sort of consumer harm…
It’s really shitty how this all played out.
But who could have predicted this?
Except, of course, literally everybody, yet the merger was still approved.
Until actions like this have consequences that outweigh the gain, nothing will change.
And foreseeable. I mean did anyone expect it to stay affordable after Microsoft‘s intense shopping spree? Next up is closing down some more of those studios and increase prices further while buying more. Rinse and repeat until they give up or there‘s nothing left to buy and butcher.
So, practically speaking, can MS lose the appeal?
And assuming it does, what happens to Activision?
I hope the FTC can punish Microsoft hard enough to make other companies think twice about breaking promises in regard to price hikes post mergers.
Okay, but is the FTC just going to ignore Microsoft directly linking to GeForce Now in the Xbox Store on PC, where they literally directly link to a competing streaming service on games that GeForce Now supports? Wasn’t anti-competitive practice like the main argument the FTC had against the ActiBlizz merger? Raising prices isnt exactly anti-competitive, and directly linking to a competing service on your own platform is the polar opposite of anti-competition.
Prices go up all the time. Yes it sucks, but the American economy turbo sucks right now. Everything is overly expensive. Price increases are expected, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised to see them go up again soon if the economy keeps dying. Microsoft can’t be expected to freeze their pricing on everything to 2010 pricing in a dying economy forever like the FTC seems to make it out to be. Realistically the FTC just wants to get the fine money from a legal win, they don’t actually care about consumers.
