Hard disagree. Sony’s in a dominant position specifically because of anti consumer tactics like exclusives. These games can take 5+ years to make, so the only way Microsoft catches up at all during this console generation is via acquisitions (of companies looking to sell, mind you). The only way their trillions of dollars (of market cap, not cash on hand) helps them anytime soon is acquisitions. And also remember that these acquisitions came up in response to Sony seeking further exclusivity of things like Starfield and Call of Duty.
And once again, there’s just so much to the video game market that neither of those companies own. Video games are an international industry made up of many, many, many participants, and even Microsoft is nowhere close to having a majority of it.
Sony being in a “dominant” position doesn’t mean the answer is to just let Microsoft buy out a nice chunk of the larger industry as a whole.
Microsoft has money, they can use that to create and invest and build up studios themselves. Corporate consolidation never helps anyone but the company buying out the other company.
Microsoft buying out Betheda and ActiBlizz will not benefit consumers in any way
Sony being in that dominant position puts them in something much closer to a monopoly of their segment of the market than Microsoft is post-acquisition. Building up studios takes a lot of time, which would translate to Sony further running away with their market position. I’m not exactly pro-acquisition; I’m just not anti-this-acquisition, especially when there are a lot of games and IPs from the past that Activision has no incentive to revive but Microsoft does. That is something about this acquisition that benefits customers and not just Microsoft.
That is something about this acquisition that benefits customers and not just Microsoft.
Yeah, but only the customers that Microsoft allows to play that product. What about Bethesda games being longstanding multi platform IPs that are now locked to Xbox consoles and Playstation users who might have been playing them on their consoles since Oblivion now get fucked.
Acquisitions like this are fine UNLESS it’s a multi trillion dollar conglomerate gobbling up the industry’s largest players. That is not beneficial to anyone. And there is no way to justify it is
