Competition. It would be fundamentally impossible to supercede them. Nintendo would cease being competition if they were bought and EA/Take 2 on Gamepass day 1 combined with what already exists is too much to challenge…even if some games (Fifa, GTA) stayed cross platform…its a false economy to buy them anywhere else.
Well both Xbox and ABK should have better years than last so i’m expecting increases all round.
Out of one pocket and into another. I’m sure Microsoft knows that already. A rising gamepass contributes to all other games on it.
And then the next Fortnite or Genshin Impact arrives and other games become irrelevant. Gaming is very different as there is no a limited amount of opportunities. You don’t need to have 10b backing to be successful. Games are being released on a regular basis and games become huge. Not to mention there is “free for all” mobile market which is enormous and growing.
The concern with competition doesn’t come from games itself, that’s why no non-platform holders care about the acquisitions. It is all about platform holders and service providers.
Nintendo doesn’t have ABK games either, and that doesn’t stop regulators from making aberrant speeches to protect Sony. I doubt Microsoft can buy a giant like T2 or EA again. Even with concessions, they would probably find a way to say that the GP is taking too much advantage over Sony and killing the competition.
You cannot base you argument that GP is taking too much advantage because you cannot know that GP will become a monopoly or even surpass 300m home console market. Who knows if some other subscription service will arrive and suddenly surpass GP.
Facebok monopoly did not prevent TikTok from growing for example.
Well CADE demonstrated that not regulators are buying into that nonsense. I don’t think that Phase 2 will produce different results from CADE.
Right. I’m not saying non-Xbox platforms won’t be successful and other big games won’t emerge. I’m just saying if Microsoft were to add Nintendo to its ranks …or Take 2…or EA…I don’t really see any other platform being able to dominate.
Anyways my point was there isn’t really any reason Microsoft can’t buy another big publisher. The only contention that came up with ABK is CoD. So if Microsoft were to buy Take 2 and make the same multi-promise for GTA…whats the problem?
If Microsoft buys Take Two and (especially) EA, no service will objectively be able to compete with GP. This will likely be the point used by the competition to pressure the deal.
CADE is unfortunately not representative of all regulatory authorities. I think the ABK deal will go without concessions, but I seriously doubt that Microsoft can then acquire Take Two and EA. Eventually, Take Two (alone) would be the most likely to succeed with concessions (sports games and GTA on PS), but we don’t know how regulators and competition will react.
That’s debatable. What prevents from another humongonous game like Fortnite to appear and be exclusive to another platform or subscription service? Netflix did not need Lucasfilms to produce House of Cards.
Another case in point, Xbox platform was able to exist even without Genshin Impact and FF14. And nobody complained that Xbox was gonna die despite not having those huge games. Yeah, it was harder to compete but for some reason people are concerned about Sony (who is in much stronger position) than Xbox (who iwas in a much weaker position without way to recover without Microsoft cofffer’s)
Microsoft would not be able to make sports game exclusive for a time being anyway. GTA would follow the same path as COD too anyway. Not to mention GTA is released quite rarely (unlike COD) to make a difference. COD is a big seller every year and the last GTA game was released in 2013
It wouldn’t prevent other services from existing, but none of them could compete with the GP if Microsoft had such content (COD, FIFA, GTA…). But that’s already more or less the case. Microsoft got so far ahead with GP that it would probably be the same with smaller publishers like Ubisoft and Capcom. So honestly, I don’t know.
How can you prove that? Not to mention there is a whole slate of F2P titles that require neither.
Except it is not. EA Play has millions of subscribers despite being a single publisher service, Nvidia has millions of subscribers without having exclusive games or even the big IPs (like COD) there. They don’t even have its own exclusive ecosystem.
Assumption that due to GP somebody else won’t be able to compete is a strange because it would be like assuming 10 years ago that nobody will be able to compete with Netflix. And that’s in the gaming market where you have many more revenue streams that do not even require subscriptions.
With common sense… Do we really have to do a survey for something so obvious?
How many EA Play Pro subscribers? Because it is the only interesting variable for a comparison with the GP. Basic EA Play is dirt cheap, doesn’t have the benefits of GP, and is present in GP, so the numbers are off. One can also use Ubisoft+ for comparison. Who is subscribed? Nobody ? And Nvidia has absolutely nothing to do with the GP. Millions of subscribers, counting the free formula? Yeah, I doubt that the comparison is interesting.
It just took until 2022 and a behemoth like Disney for Netflix to have competition. And in this specific case, Microsoft is more the Disney of gaming than the Netflix of gaming.
This is just my opinion, I’m not predicting the future, I’m just saying I don’t see T2 and EA being bought by Microsoft. If that happens, it will be a surprise. In any case, Microsoft can clearly take a considerable lead over the competition (and I’m not talking about the GP) with small publishers like Ubisoft or Capcom, without necessarily having to buying all the giants on the market. So I think there is enough option and Microsoft will be able to choose the right one.
You cannot disregard other services and then claim that no service can compete with Game Pass It is like disregarding Switch because it is weaker than Xbox and PS and thus they do not compete in the same market (granted CMA did exactly that lol)
What common sense assume that with COD, FIFA and GTA in the service all other subscription services will die and cannot compete? We have a whole much bigger mobile market where people Candy Crush and don’t care about other games. Throw them some subscription perks and people will bite.
So? HBO was also growing (and probably will grow too despite WB ruining it), Paramount is also steadily increases. Amazon Prime is also growing. All the services compete with each other even if Netflix has a bigger market share. But so what?
Microsoft will buy what they want. But having a lead is not a problem in any shape or form - PS4 gen, PS2 gen were not considered a problem by anybody. Just because Playstation (and let’s be real, when talking about competition it is all about Sony) has to try hard it does not mean that Microsoft will have an unreachable lead.
What service did I ignore? I asked you to make some viable comparison. Give me the numbers for EA Play Pro and Ubisoft+ which are the only services that can be compared to GP. GeForce Now is a streaming service that has absolutely nothing to do with the GP, I invite you to find out about it.
It’s your opinion, if you think that having the exclusivity of the most sold and played games each year on your service is not a considerable advantage, what do you want me to tell you? You thought not so long ago that CDPR wasn’t worth it, that it didn’t have an interesting license, and that Cyberpunk was a fiasco. Maybe the future will prove you wrong again.
Warner was the biggest player in cinema behind Disney and yet HBO max figures were significantly lower than Netflix.
Perhaps you misread me, but at the risk of repeating myself, I was talking about real competition, not about one player taking 80% of the market and the others sharing the remaining 20%.
I personally think that a single service containing an overwhelming majority of the largest games/IP would make it difficult for others services to compete.
Geforce Now offers streaming and subscriptions. I think they have around 20m right now or smething. It is a subscription service? It is. With a different model, but it is a competitor nevertheless. PS+ with tiers is also a competitor (no matter what people want to claim there). Also I think EA posted the numbers and it was 13m last year or something. No idea about Ubisoft.
Advantage to whom? Nintendo has none of those games and reaching 90m at this point (or is it 100m already? Not sure).
What it has to do with it? My stance did not change (granted I did not think that CP IP itself is a fiasco, but launch of the game certainly was).
The fundamental difference between gaming and movie streaming is that any IP can become huge. In movie industry it is much more difficult (though of course possible in streaming services independently). So having a slate of IPs that are popular right now means nothing for the futre. It is like saying 10-15 years ago that MySpace won’t have competitors.
Tech landscape, gaming landscape changes and changes fast. 10-15 years ago, mobile was not important and F2P was something new. Now MTX generate more revenue than retail. Drawing arbitrary lines regarding what is big and what is not, what will grow and what won’t grow does not working in an industry that changes rapidly. We went from retail to digital, from local to online.
Because it assumes that the currently big IPs will stay big forever? Or that some other IP in the competing subscription service won’t surpass those IPs? How many subscribers would PS+ had if it offered free premium new Fortnite skins if you stay subscribed?
It is like disregarding Switch because it is weaker than Xbox and PS and thus they do not compete in the same market (granted CMA did exactly that lol)
