Continuing the discussion from Xbox Acquisition |OT4| It's Acquisition Season for Xbox with $69 Billion deal, NICE! - #10107 by Jeans.
Previous discussions:
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New thread smell
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A fresh new OT for Xbox/EA this time, NICE ! 
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By the end of this thread we will have our JRPG studio.
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This meme need to be posted again because it’s too hilarious…
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EA should stay independent. They don’t have a ultra toxic work environment and give their developers a decent amount of creative freedom.
Oh I know, it was just a joke 
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It’s accurate as it happened in a blink really.
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I doubt anything will happen until ABK is cleared by anti-trust.
Maybe a single studio buyout like Crystal Dynamics, IOI, Asobo or whatever at best.
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Truth.
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Nah, I’m thinking OT6 or 7 for that one.
In other words…
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The Xbox paradox: Xbox has no games and is a monopoly at the same time.
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Xbox is monopolizing not releasing games!
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Schrödinger’s xbox
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The salt (more like confusion) is real!
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I’m seeing a lot of talk about how Sony has to / will respond with an acquisition. I’m also seeing a lot of talk that Microsoft “can’t” make anymore acquisitions or it will trigger anti-trust action.
Here are a few facts to keep in mind:
- The global video game market had about $176 billion in revenue in 2021.
- Playstation had about $25 billion in revenue for a market share of about 14.2%.
- Xbox had about $15.4 billion in revenue for a market share of about 8.75%.
- The Activision acquisition will close the gap substantially on market share, but still leave Xbox in third place behind Playstation and Tencent.
- The videogame industry is quite fragmented by any reasonable definition. It is not approaching a monopoly by any definition, and if it was then it would not be Microsoft’s monopoly.
- Xbox is currently a distant third in the console market, trailing Playstation by a 2:1 margin in the last generation.
- The barriers to entry in the video game industry are quite low, with new firms being founded all the time, and small firms growing rapidly due to hit games.
- There is a ton of investment money flowing into the sector, allowing more new firms to be founded than ever before.
Generally speaking, regulators will not try to forecast trends in the competitive landscape, they will focus on current data in the market. Microsoft’s attorney’s will be able to produce boatloads of documentation showing how fragmented the industry is. They will be able to produce long lists of games that do not appear on Xbox at all. They will be able to produce long lists of games that appear on Playstation or Switch or PC exclusively.
Is it possible that CoD ends up on Playstation going forward? Of course. There are a variety of reasons Microsoft might want that to happen. Are regulators going to force CoD on Playstation? Given the info above, I highly doubt it. in fact, it would be a stunning outcome.
Is it possible that Microsoft could run into anti-trust issues in the future? Of course. I doubt regulators would be very happy if Microsoft tried to buy Sony or Nintendo, for example.
However, holding to an apples-to-apples comparison, there is no anti-trust system anywhere that would continue to allow Tencent and Sony to make acquisitions while denying Microsoft that ability. For example, if a bidding war broke out over Take-Two, regulators would not allow Playstation to buy it, while simultaneously telling Microsoft, “No, you just got Activision.”
Why would regulators allow the #1 or #2 companies in a fragmented market to continue to acquire, while denying that ability to the #3 firm? Short answer - they wouldn’t.
If Microsoft stops acquiring it will more likely be due to concerns about PR and partner relationships, not regulators.
That’s what I think anyway.
BTW, the dollar amounts and market shares I provided above are not precise because they come from slightly different points in time due to differences in fiscal years, etc.
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More like Frankenstein monster: Playstation fans created a monster they cannot contain lol.
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