FTC Vs Microsoft Thread

Any examples?

I mean, besides buying one of the biggest third parties in the world? They're the same company that unfortunately still plagued their systems with DRM. Something that PC game developers are bashed for.

Having a monopoly in tech period.

And stuff like this... that would normally be for another forum (but despite being more policed than SW, Fandom decided to kill it...)

@nintendoboy16:

From your article. ”whistleblower claims”

So nothing proven got it.

You people have such hard ons for MSoft.

Sony getting exposed in court under oath and this is what you come with.

Delusional

Sony getting Rekt

Dude, I prefer Xbox over PlayStation. That said, MS like Sony are both known for monopolization of their industries. MS with tech which this buyout WILL add too (just as it did with Bethesda), Sony in tech and entertainment (anime especially).

@daredevils2k: No.you won't, because you treasure coming on here as a former lem turned cow to shit on everything MS, it would hurt you too much to get banned from here 🤣

It's important. I suppose to us gamers, it's just petty squabbling about a corporation we worship (or loathe).

But on the bigger scale, it's about the people of the United States vs a giant trillion-dollar megacorporation becoming an even bigger behemoth.

There's a lot at stake here. Not just for us gamers, but for the system as a whole.

All major, publicly-traded corporations are guilty, to one extent or another. We need to start with MS, establish a good precedent that favors the public, then move on to the next corporation. Today, video games...tomorrow, car manufacturers...the next day, big pharma.

Oh sure, Pete... *looks at Redfall*

We should be happy FTC is standing up to Microsoft. 2 trillion dollar company complaining about losing the console wars 😆

Pete "I managed to single handedly break Arkane" Hines

lol :P

Turns out Jim Ryan NEVER thought Xbox would make CoD exclusive:

“It’s not an Xbox exclusivity play at all,” Ryan said in the email from when the deal was announced. “[T]hey’re thinking bigger than that, and they have the cash to make moves like this. I’ve spent a fair bit of time with both Phil [Spencer, boss of Xbox] and Bobby [Kotick, boss of Activision Blizzard] over the past day. I’m pretty sure we will continue to see COD on PS for many years to come.

“We have some good stuff cooking. Keep your eyes peeled. I’m not complacent and I’d rather this hadn’t happened, but we’ll be OK, more than OK.”

https://insider-gaming.com/playstation-boss-jim-ryan-wasnt-concerned-about-call-of-duty-leaving-playstation/

Seriously, Xbox's defense come off more as self-owns than actual owns of Sony and FTC. Like "we already lost the console war". I say this as a fan of Xbox: Why the hell are you in the console race then?

Tom the cat failing with explosives in a nutshell:

Same reason as Nintendo. You still make money outside of the console race.

Even when Nintendo didn't do well they still made more money than anyone else. Pretty sure Nintendo has always made more money than Playstation.

Despite sales, it's unlikely Sony or MS turned a profit during the 7th gen at all.

Market share, sales and profit is not the same thing.

Yes, they are. MS does have a history of buying out competitors, and doing what it takes to maintain power - some of their past actions have been egregious to say the least. However, I will say that post Bill Gates and the anti-trust lawsuit, they have tapered off of that significantly.

Sony, IMO, is just as, if not more anti-competitive over the past 10 years. They were making 3rd party exclusive deals when they were beating XBOX 6:1 last gen, for the sole purpose of trying to crush XBox.

Because the future of XBox is Game Pass. You can subscribe to Game Pass and play Xbox games on an iPad, PC, Smart Phone, TV, whatever. The actual "Xbox console" is just one way to play games once you are part of the ecosystem.

To be honest, the best way to use Game Pass is on PC, there are exclusive Game Pass PC games.

With Sony, while they have started to port their games to PC, the only way to really play their games like a "1st tier consumer" is to buy a PlayStation console.

Some new tidbits from today:

"Sony is the market leader with a considerable capability and an aggressive competitor."

"We try to compete, but as I said, over the last 20 years we’ve failed to do that effectively.”

- Phil Spencer

Nintendo left the console race wars years ago.

All crap being thrown MS's way...

None of y'all mentioned how Sony used their market position to get AB to agree to 70/30 split for CoD, but AB went to MS and said "If you want CoD, it's 80/20".

I am not saying MS is benevolent by any stretch; but Sony is a predatory company, probably more so than MS. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

Then how is MS in "third" place? They're either competing or they're not. SWs says they are.

@dabear: AFAIK, 70/30 is the standard cut between publishers and, PlayStation. I'm not sure why Activision wanted to strong arm Xbox but, it clearly worked.

Light that bitch on fire MS😅

I would bet they’re waiting to see the impact of Starfield being exclusive and day and date on Game Pass.

@ghostofgolden: Or they are waiting for the deal to go through. 😅

I really hope they keep releasing most games on the PS.

Nah, they would have said it was coming to the PS to help their case with the FTC if it was coming.

The game is also coming to PC, not sure why they are worry if it won't break through sales? Starfield was meant to be play on PC due to mod support.

If anyone cares to listen in

@HalcyonScarlet: I'm pretty sure Satoru Iwata had WAY different context whe he said "Nintendo can't compete". Way different than Phil, anyway...

So the judge got bored during the FTC questioning and made Phil promise under oath to not remove Cod from PlayStation.

So the judge made Spencer swear under oath that COD will come to PS consoles (PS5 and any future consoles)... the FTC lawyer just tried to get Spencer to make the same commitment to make Xbox ship COD on Sony's cloud services.. the judge cut the FTC lawyer's question off and said that was not necessary

This is huge! Xbox bought Bethesda because they heard PlayStation was gonna keep Starfield off Xbox…

Source

“Microsoft's Xbox chief has revealed one of the key reasons behind the acquisition of Bethesda parent company ZeniMax: potential Starfield PlayStation exclusivity. Speaking at the FTC v. Microsoft hearing today, Phil Spencer revealed that Sony regularly pays competitors to "skip our platform" and Microsoft felt it needed to own Bethesda to compete.

"When we acquired ZeniMax one of the impetus for that is that Sony had done a deal for Deathloop and Ghostwire... to pay Bethesda to not ship those games on Xbox," said Spencer. "So the discussion about Starfield when we heard that Starfield was potentially also going to end up skipping Xbox, we can't be in a position as a third-place console where we fall further behind on our content ownership so we've had to secure content to remain viable in the business."

But I thought they lost the console war? If that was the case, who cares?

@Chutebox: Phil is fine with being 3rd. But a distant 3rd? That’s where Phil draws the line

@ghostofgolden: "I would bet they’re waiting to see the impact of Starfield being exclusive and day and date on Game Pass"

Really lol. ES6 isn't going to PS, MS are only saying that so they can pass the deal, surely you're not that gullible to believe otherwise are you?

I still don’t understand the financials surrounding taking these huge franchises off of the PS platform. AND THEN offering the Xbox and PC userbases a value driven proposition to access these titles on top of that. I have yet to find a way to make the math make sense beyond “Microsoft can afford the hit.” There’s a reason why the Xbox faithful have defaulted to the “who cares about the financials of a trillion dollar corporation?” defense. Because there isn’t a model in the world that makes this strategy make sense. We know Xbox Game Pass games aren’t selling better because of NPD charts. The revenue numbers are cooked because they lumped in services revenue with software revenue. (And are barely up yoy)

Phil is saying he can’t guarantee what will happen with ES6 because of some uncertainty somewhere. And if Xbox owns the IP and developer, what would be the holdup?

@ghostofgolden: None of us know the financials, but if they have 25+ million subscribers paying every month, then they must be making money on it somehow as MS wouldn't bleed money for years over GP.

And Spencer is talking down exclusivity because that looks bad for them in court, it's not rocket science. Your problem is that you're trying to look up every dark alley, down every dead end street, in every corner shop looking for something that is as plain as the nose on your face. Is just PR marketing, play down everything to make yourself look vulnerable to get this deal across the line, then go back to business as usual.

Just like how the Indy game got outed as not being on PS, the same will happen to ES6 in due time.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if the judge has asked Spencer to swear that CoD will come to PS, doesn't that mean the deal would get approved? I mean if they were going to block it then the judge wouldn't ask the question right?

Forgive my ignorance if wrong as I don't follow America's judicial system as I like to remain sane 😛

I think what's the important focus of proceedings, other than any just interesting disclosures, is whether the FTC can provide sufficient evidence to compel their preliminary injunction request. So far legal experts think the FTC's efforts to compel one are failing.

I think FTC worries that without one the merger will happen with a CMA workaround, before their FTC administrative court hearings conclude. Given the accelerated schedule with the FTC administrative court, curious if Microsoft will wait the few more weeks for both US/UK regulatory proceedings to end, or will they ink the deal the moment the FTC fails to get its preliminary injunction.

I don't think MS will do that if it results in worsening its position wirh FTC administrative court proceedings and/or their UK appeal. But if it won't, well, we may see movement on the merger in very near future.

Really weird to hear Phil Spencer talk about how “exclusives are counter to what gaming is all about” but then proceeds to try and dump 80billion to ensure PlayStation no longer has access to these games.

The man is a fucking clown show

I find it weird the Judge needed to hear Phil's mouth saying this as Phil himself said it would be financial crisis if he stop releasing CoD on PlayStation as MS needs every bit of their money. I get it, the Judge needed to say such a thing under oath as oaths should never be broken.

Even though most people already knew Phil said it in the past he wasn't gonna take away CoD from Sony (even from Nintendo) as it would hurt MS financial business. The Judge needed to hear it from Phil saying under oath as its on records and furthering the deal to go through so Sony won't have a saying and MS wouldn't brake their promise in the distance future.

That's just the way it is here in U.S, under oath is always part of our courthouse rules.

Edit: I'm no political creature here. I only know this as I have 2 relatives who works in law enforcements.

@davillain: So by making Spencer promise it will be on PS means the judge is going to side with MS right? I mean why ask him to do that if the judge was going to say no.

Am I reading it differently to everyone else?

Either way this needs to be done one way or the other.

@nintendoboy16: keep on clowning 🤡, fake sheep / cow. You have been constantly bashing this deal non stop, and MS in general, so nobody believes you when you say you're a fan of MS lol.

@randy_lahey: yeah, if Sony wasn't the market leader in scamming exclusive games, then maybe you'd have a point. Not just it's own studios exclusives, but also 3rd party exclusives from major 3rd party studios. It it wasn't for MS deep pockets buying these studios, the scumbag tactics of Sony would have made a real monopoly. Be thankful, MS is your daddy.

After day 2, it's clear that the FTC is absolutely clueless as to why they want to block the deal and are only in court to stall the deal until August. Even the judge stopped the FTC Lawyer mid sentence numerous times because of the absurdity.

@theam0g: Yeah, the FTC looks pretty unprepared. Their suit was a reach at best. And this case over the past 2 days has made them look even worse. Phil and Co. are winning this battle against government overreach and I couldn’t be happier.

I've made clear as crystal I hate these buyouts. I don't give a damn who does it. Not even if Nintendo does it (Next Level). Fans suggested even Sony does it with popular Japanese third parties (ex: Square Enix, Capcom, Bandai Namco) in retaliation, and the hypocrisy will be astounding if/when that happens, and MS buying Activision will open those doors.

The FTC may not be presenting themselves the best, as was the CMA (seriously, their excuse was filled with out of touch BS for such a preferable result), but with that in mind, I don't care if the FTC wins, I want big corporations, in this case, MS and their tech monopolies, to lose...

Lots of tears will be shed by Sony Fan after this goes through.

Can’t wait to see the melt downs and see Phony get what they deserve.

Total Scumbags

Sony are a bunch of bitches as well🤦‍♂️Who knew.

@hardwenzen: You're only just realising this lol. Hopefully MS subpoena for Sony to release all its exclusivity deals over the past 5yrs comes out, then the real fun begins.