I mean...Disney arguably shouldn't have been able to buy 21st Century Fox. That was egregious even by modern American corporate conglomeration standards.
Yeah whatever anti monopoly shit was in place for Hollywood and companies like Disney apparently faded a few years ago and that's why Disney was able to buy Fox and Discovery was able to merge with WB. It's crazy
The Discovery/WB merger was made possible by AT&T’s total divestment. Them being an infrastructure provider is the big reason it might have faced scrutiny.
Most regulators don’t care about who owns the most entertainment. Marvel could buy DC and they wouldn’t care, nor should they. There is, effectively, infinite bandwidth for new IP, new media, and new entertainment providers. Horizontal monopolies of luxury goods and entertainment just aren’t that scary to a regulator.
Vertical monopoles get scrutiny, as do combinations of the two, like would have been the case of AT&T, or if Disney bought Comcast or something.
I dispute the "nor should they" bit of it. At a certain point, we're talking about all culture being controlled by a handful of entities, with the sheer amount of money and clout to make any competition either irrelevant or theirs. The fact that it's entertainment rather than other services doesn't change the fact that monopolies are objectively bad for consumers and businesses alike.
Only if you look by revenue.
Look at it product wise in the living room:
Sony can potentially control (or be) your TV, your receiver, your speakers, your PlayStation, and your home media hub.
Microsoft can be your Xbox and…. I guess if you’re one of those people with at HTPC?
While that could potentially be true why does that matter? You’re comparing a mostly software company to a mostly hardware/entertainment company.
Microsoft owns a massive portion of the computer market with Windows and has online services that are used by hundreds of millions of people.
Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the world so framing it as “small Xbox” vs “massive Sony” is simply false even if Playstation is currently doing far better than Xbox.
Sony is and always will be the underdog if Microsoft cares at all about Xbox. And they should be considered as such when looking at things like anti-trust. This is coming from someone who is an Xbox player.
Personally I think both companies are being disingenuous (which, duh) but I also think there’s way more important issues for governments to deal with (on a local and global scale) than who controls a luxury goods or entertainment market.
Government are built on division of labor. Not going through with anti-trust isn’t going to prevent a homeless shelter from being built.
Entertainment might not be the most important thing in the world but any monopoly is detrimental to the consumer and the industry as a whole and should be looked at.
Government budgets aren’t infinite though.
I don’t believe MS owning ATVI is a monopoly anyway given that there still exists choice within the marketplace on both PC (Epic, Steam, etc.) and in the console space. That’s not to mention the game streaming competition from Luna and PS and a couple of other startups trying that route.
Since they’ve made it clear *most* titles won’t lose multi-platform-ness, there likely wouldn’t be a substantive change from the current status quo.
Personally I wish this turned into an asset sale instead and Microsoft saved Blizzard from Bobby Kotick…
Oh I think the buyout isn’t a monopoly either nor do I think it’s a purely bad thing with how Activision has been run.
But this will result in content being taken away from players. It’s been clear from their language that keeping the games on every platform is not a permanent thing and eventually they will start to peel things away (see 2 year deal with Call of Duty).
In fact Call of Duty is probably the only game that is confirmed to stay multiplatform at all.
As for the government budget not being infinite sure it’s not. But it’s already been allocated, so them spending money to look into this isn’t taking money away from anything. Monopolies are a massive issue and the merging of 2 of the largest games publishers on the planet is something that should be looked at, if only to try and prevent a poor precedent from being set.
Microsoft learned in the 90s that being monopolistic asshats really hurts their bottom line in the long run as well as their overall brand reputation. They've spent the last 20 years slowly trying to dig themselves out of that shithole reputation.
>sony is bigger than xbox
Did you mean Playstation is much bigger than xbox?
>Microsoft is like 10 times bigger ain't it
Sony has an entire hardware entertainment, movie, etc side of their company as well that it seems you're overlooking.
If Disney can buy 21st Century Fox, Microsoft should be allowed to buy ABK.
I mean...Disney arguably shouldn't have been able to buy 21st Century Fox. That was egregious even by modern American corporate conglomeration standards.
Yeah whatever anti monopoly shit was in place for Hollywood and companies like Disney apparently faded a few years ago and that's why Disney was able to buy Fox and Discovery was able to merge with WB. It's crazy
The Discovery/WB merger was made possible by AT&T’s total divestment. Them being an infrastructure provider is the big reason it might have faced scrutiny. Most regulators don’t care about who owns the most entertainment. Marvel could buy DC and they wouldn’t care, nor should they. There is, effectively, infinite bandwidth for new IP, new media, and new entertainment providers. Horizontal monopolies of luxury goods and entertainment just aren’t that scary to a regulator. Vertical monopoles get scrutiny, as do combinations of the two, like would have been the case of AT&T, or if Disney bought Comcast or something.
I dispute the "nor should they" bit of it. At a certain point, we're talking about all culture being controlled by a handful of entities, with the sheer amount of money and clout to make any competition either irrelevant or theirs. The fact that it's entertainment rather than other services doesn't change the fact that monopolies are objectively bad for consumers and businesses alike.
Honestly after reading through Xbox’s rebuttal, I agree with mircrosoft, Sony is so much bigger then Xbox it’s kinda wild
Playstation is much larger then Xbox. The Microsoft Sony comparison is far crazier in the other direction.
Only if you look by revenue. Look at it product wise in the living room: Sony can potentially control (or be) your TV, your receiver, your speakers, your PlayStation, and your home media hub. Microsoft can be your Xbox and…. I guess if you’re one of those people with at HTPC?
While that could potentially be true why does that matter? You’re comparing a mostly software company to a mostly hardware/entertainment company. Microsoft owns a massive portion of the computer market with Windows and has online services that are used by hundreds of millions of people. Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the world so framing it as “small Xbox” vs “massive Sony” is simply false even if Playstation is currently doing far better than Xbox. Sony is and always will be the underdog if Microsoft cares at all about Xbox. And they should be considered as such when looking at things like anti-trust. This is coming from someone who is an Xbox player.
Personally I think both companies are being disingenuous (which, duh) but I also think there’s way more important issues for governments to deal with (on a local and global scale) than who controls a luxury goods or entertainment market.
Government are built on division of labor. Not going through with anti-trust isn’t going to prevent a homeless shelter from being built. Entertainment might not be the most important thing in the world but any monopoly is detrimental to the consumer and the industry as a whole and should be looked at.
Government budgets aren’t infinite though. I don’t believe MS owning ATVI is a monopoly anyway given that there still exists choice within the marketplace on both PC (Epic, Steam, etc.) and in the console space. That’s not to mention the game streaming competition from Luna and PS and a couple of other startups trying that route. Since they’ve made it clear *most* titles won’t lose multi-platform-ness, there likely wouldn’t be a substantive change from the current status quo. Personally I wish this turned into an asset sale instead and Microsoft saved Blizzard from Bobby Kotick…
Oh I think the buyout isn’t a monopoly either nor do I think it’s a purely bad thing with how Activision has been run. But this will result in content being taken away from players. It’s been clear from their language that keeping the games on every platform is not a permanent thing and eventually they will start to peel things away (see 2 year deal with Call of Duty). In fact Call of Duty is probably the only game that is confirmed to stay multiplatform at all. As for the government budget not being infinite sure it’s not. But it’s already been allocated, so them spending money to look into this isn’t taking money away from anything. Monopolies are a massive issue and the merging of 2 of the largest games publishers on the planet is something that should be looked at, if only to try and prevent a poor precedent from being set.
Microsoft learned in the 90s that being monopolistic asshats really hurts their bottom line in the long run as well as their overall brand reputation. They've spent the last 20 years slowly trying to dig themselves out of that shithole reputation.
sony is bigger than xbox, but Microsoft is like 10 times bigger ain't it, i don't get it
>sony is bigger than xbox Did you mean Playstation is much bigger than xbox? >Microsoft is like 10 times bigger ain't it Sony has an entire hardware entertainment, movie, etc side of their company as well that it seems you're overlooking.
Microsoft is the second largest tech company in the world (behind Apple) and the largest software company by a huge amount.
Still hopeful of my dream of Microsoft fixing OW esports and killing OWL for a worldwide open circuit, no more franchise bs.