Xbox Series X / S

prod said:
Not my point, and who said it's an issue? It's a strategy that works, hence why MS is doing the same thing - as they historically have done as well.

I was merely saying "by paying 3rd parties not to make Xbox variants or by paying to block GamePass deals" was not the main attribute for their success
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Fair enough.

But you know you f'ed up when Microsoft come off looking like the good guys in a deal that shouldn't go through, but people are cheering on just to level the playing field...
 
prod said:
This is some typical USA political BS. What is a 'high-end game' market and how is Sony in control of 98% of it...whatever it is?

Also that senator is basically paid for by MS?
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The CMA and EU excluded Nintendo (Switch) from the case by defining the "high-end gaming" market as PS and Xbox consoles only. Think that 98% market share is just for Japan, which oddly enough sounds a bit high for the Xbox.
 
AlphaJohn said:
Paying someone to actively block competition is just dirty. If you think there is nothing wrong with that you are a hypocrite. Microsoft is waaay bigger than Sony so can you imagine the landscape if they follow the same tactic?
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Dude...I agree, but let's not pretend MS has never done this. They've just been kinda bad at it, hell...Tomb Raider 2015 was an XB exclusive for a year no? Now they've just settled for outright buying publishers instead :)
 
prod said:
Dude...I agree, but let's not pretend MS has never done this. They've just kinda bad at it, hell...Tomb Raider 2015 was an XB exclusive for a year no? Now they've just settled for outright buying publishers instead :)
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You mean like Sony did as well?
 
Interesting read RE the subject:

gameranx.com

Sony's "Anti-Competitive Conduct" Around FF16 Is Questioned By A US Senator - Gameranx

A US senator has raised questions about Sony's anti-competitive conduct in the world of video games, in relation to Final Fantasy 16.
gameranx.com gameranx.com

Suffice to say, Sony's moves to block Microsoft's purchase of Activision may have already backfired in a big way.

Sony may truly be regretting their actions in light of the Microsoft – Activision deal, as the spotlight has now come on to them on the subject of video game exclusives.

Final Fantasy 16
Washington’s junior senator Maria Cantwell has spoken about Sony’s anti-competitive conduct in the video game industry, in a Senate Finance Committee hearing. As reported by PoliticoPro, she had this to say:

“I’m told that Sony controls a monopoly of 98% of the high-end game market, yet Japan’s government has allowed Sony to engage in blatant anti-competitive conduct through exclusive deals and payments to game publishers.”

Senator Cantwell also stated that Japan’s Fair Trade Commission was not doing their job investigating Sony’s actions and pressed U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai what she would do to address these issues.

Does all this sound serious? That’s because it absolutely is. The last time a US senator drew their attention to the video game industry, the industry established the ESRB, so that the government would not form a regulatory body themselves.

Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach mentions that this issue had to do about Final Fantasy 16 being a PlayStation 5 exclusive. But then that raises the question, where did Senator Cantwell even hear about all of this?

The answer is she read Curt Levey, a conservative attorney and president of the Committee for Justice. Curt had written on RealClearMarkets an article titled: Japan Colludes With Antitrust Regulators Against MSFT.

To paraphrase Levey, he accused Sony of regularly violating Japan antitrust laws while the JFTC looks the other way. He points out that Sony incentivizes game publishers not to bring their games to Xbox, and this has allowed PlayStation to control 95 % of the Japanese market for high end consoles (AKA excluding the Switch).

Levey also criticizes the FTC, accusing them of taking Sony’s side by suing Microsoft to prevent the deal. Levey reveals that the FTC’s current policy of blocking all big company mergers is harming US companies, but he goes one step further.

Levey accuses Sony of lobbying the FTC and EU heavily to get their desired outcome from the deal. Levey concludes that the combined actions of the JFTC and FTC are harming US companies, and also ordinary Americans. In his words:

“It may be fashionable in many circles to bash Facebook, Microsoft, and America’s other tech giants, but they employ hundreds of thousands of Americans, and provide much of the technological innovation that benefits American consumers. All of that is threatened by the status quo, in which the Biden administration does little to combat Japanese protectionism, while its FTC appointees and its competition policy generally treat American tech companies as the enemy.”

While Atty. Levey and Senator Cantwell fall under opposite sides of the political spectrum, it’s clear that Levey’s words found resonance in the senator’s ears.

US may be the land of opportunity, and that means allowing non-US companies to enter and do business. However, America also has to protect their own interests, and in this case, they may have been neglecting to regard what’s been going on in the video game industry.

There are certainly many more aspects of the industry that warrants the US government’s scrutiny, such as the way it treats its workers. But this whole thing certainly raises an interesting question. Is what Sony has been doing by signing deals for PlayStation exclusives harmful to America?

Before you dismiss this idea, consider Florian Mueller’s explanation on Twitter on how the way Sony does business really could be considered anti-competitive. Even though PlayStation allowed Fortnite into their store, Epic could have sued Sony instead of Apple.

That’s because Sony put harsher restrictions to Epic’s business than Apple’s outright ban on the App Store. Those restrictions include paying Sony for compensation every time a PlayStation player plays Fortnite on a different platform. Sony, alongside Nintendo, also has a policy that doesn’t allow purchases on Fortnite on their platforms to be available on other platforms.

These are things that gamers may have gotten so used to that we take it for granted. So we may have assumed that Sony was just allowed to do all this, but what if they weren’t supposed to?

Sony had better hope that this isn’t the start of some real legislative activity around the video game industry. If it comes to that, Microsoft buying Activision will be the least of their problems.
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Big win for Microsoft here, not yet exactly finalised but industry experts say the deal is all but done now (even though many have been saying it would go through anyway).

So Microsoft offered Sony the 10 year deal with all companies which Microsoft offered it to accepting (Nintendo, Nvidia a few smaller Cloud streaming platforms), with Sony turning it down....

Well well well, now they will have to come back to Microsoft and ask for a New deal, if they don't accept the 10 year deal originally offered and if it's still on the table as we speak.

But think they'll take the 10 year, and Microsoft will still offer it to them anyway.

Welcome to day 1 Activision Blizzard games on gamespass, well it's almost over the line.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/24/bri...oft-activision-deal-competition-concerns.html
 
I thought midnight sun is free this weekend?
or is it not for south africans?
 
AlphaJohn said:
Just an FYI

Conversion trick still active:

View attachment 1499045

GPU R119 pm For 3 years = R4284
12 Gold R600 x 3 = R1800 + Joining R119 = R1919

Saved R2365

Edit: Now the Microsft deal must go through cause I used my Diablo 4 money for this :D
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Doing mine next month when my current sub ends.

See they stopping the $1 game pass special for new users (think it was R15 here in SA)

Just hope they not planning to stop this workaround as well.
 
AlphaJohn said:
The speculation (Reddit rumor) is that they waiting for the Activision deal.
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So now I have gone from get the deal over line to.....

Please Jim "The Crying" Ryan surely there is still one more cry baby complaint up your sleeve to delay this deal by just a month
 
bokka1 said:
I see Japan has approved the Activision deal.
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I wonder why the sudden change of heart /s

www.axios.com

11 members of Congress argue Sony is unfairly hurting Xbox in Japan

In letters obtained by Axios, reps blast an “imbalanced Japanese video game market.”
www.axios.com www.axios.com

www.reuters.com

Microsoft's Activision deal will not harm competition -Japan watchdog

Japan's antitrust watchdog said on Tuesday it did not expect a merger between Microsoft Corp and Activision Blizzard to stifle competition, helping clear the way for the Xbox maker's $69 billion acquisition of the "Call of Duty" creator.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 
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