141–150 of 207 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What kind of mental model breakage made you put "a citizen" into a position of an unaccountable megacorporation in your analogy?
Unaccountable mega corporations are part of the commonwealth. Per citizens United they have rights too
I don't mind the complaint about CMA being undemocratic because it's a council of unelected bureaucrats, it's just trash-talk from someone that didn't get what they wanted; to be expected. IMO the reason why this decision is really dumb is because the reason given was cloud gaming. I think that people are missing this. This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently clos…
Did you actually read the report that the CMA released? They are not basing the block on some "maybe" future, but on current reality. > Microsoft already accounts for an estimated 60-70% of global cloud gaming services and has other important strengths in cloud gaming from owning Xbox, the leading PC operating system (Windows) and a global cloud computing infrastructure (Azure and Xbox Cloud Gaming). Microsoft alread…
The experience is terrible.
MS only has that position because it is thrown in as part of Xbox Game Pass. No one is buying it on their own.
I have it as part of Game Pass. It's terrible. I never use it, outside of once or twice a year to verify it still sucks.
I am not convinced that cloud gaming is anywhere near being a thing. We could be talking several decades away before they figure out a way to get lag under control.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you actually read the report that the CMA released? They are not basing the block on some "maybe" future, but on current reality. > Microsoft already accounts for an estimated 60-70% of global cloud gaming services and has other important strengths in cloud gaming from owning Xbox, the leading PC operating system (Windows) and a global cloud computing infrastructure (Azure and Xbox Cloud Gaming). Microsoft alread…
Microsoft have in 2021 the 60-70% of global cloud gaming services representing 1-3% of the gaming industry. Is true that this number have been growing, but anyway the reasons that are using is backed by the idea that ultimately the Cloud Gaming Services will take over all the industry. But this is just especulation, and probably even if this is true this would happen even without Microsoft buying Activision.
I have access to xCloud. The lag is unreal. I don't see how they will get the lag down to an acceptable level for the kinds of games that Activision makes.
Cloud gaming makes sense for party games, turn-based games, anything that doesn't require reflexes. This leaves out everything Activision makes.
There is no evidence that the lag issues with cloud gaming are solvable.
Using cloud gaming as an argument to block this merger, sets a dangerous precedent. Effectively, CMA is dreaming a future where cloud gaming has taken over. It is passing a judgement based on where the industry could go, rather than where it is now. This allows a bureaucratic organizations to impede companies based on arbitrary & unsubstantiated fears.
All the cloud gaming predictions haven't happened. Mobile gaming hasn't killed traditional gaming either.
In fact, it turns out that all those precautions were largely wrong. There is a huge market for high-quality games you play on local hardware for maximum visual and input fidelity.
I too find it very dangerous for government regulators to be predicting a future that industry can't themselves predict. They are not experts on this industry and don't conduct user and market research. They are literally just guessing.
It is equally likely that cloud gaming never becomes a thing because phones keep getting more powerful and eventually they take the place of the future that cloud gaming was supposed to represent. Apple could eventually allow you to hook/locally stream an iPhone to a TV to use it as a console.
There will always be a market for hardcore hardware like consoles and PCs, but who is to say that the more casual option will be cloud gaming and not some world in which mobile devices can be used as less-powerful home gaming machines?
This is what it says in the report about cloud gaming: > In relation to cloud gaming services, Microsoft has a combination of assets that we consider is difficult for other cloud gaming service providers to match. By owning Windows, the OS for which the vast majority of PC games are designed, Microsoft could stream games from Windows servers without having to pay a Windows licensing fee or adapt games designed for Wi…
Since this whole argument is untestable wild guessing: maybe there was a future in which Microsoft buying Activision pushed more companies to hedge against a possible MS monopoly by properly supporting Linux, like Valve has been doing for the past years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you actually read the report that the CMA released? They are not basing the block on some "maybe" future, but on current reality. > Microsoft already accounts for an estimated 60-70% of global cloud gaming services and has other important strengths in cloud gaming from owning Xbox, the leading PC operating system (Windows) and a global cloud computing infrastructure (Azure and Xbox Cloud Gaming). Microsoft alread…
You are missing the point. Cloud gaming is not a thing. Almost no one plays it. The experience is terrible. MS only has that position because it is thrown in as part of Xbox Game Pass. No one is buying it on their own. I have it as part of Game Pass. It's terrible. I never use it, outside of once or twice a year to verify it still sucks. I am not convinced that cloud gaming is anywhere near being a thing. We could be…
That is an implementation issue. I was on Stadia (r.i.p.) and the experience was superior to consoles: pure plug and play with no slow software updates getting in the way of gaming.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is is Microsoft's fault that they don't have any competent competition? It's not like they somehow squeezed Stadia out of the market...
No, but that's not the regulator's problem either. It's not as if there is some sacrosanct right for companies to merge that is being abrogated. The entire existence of a company is at the pleasure of government.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unaccountable mega corporations are part of the commonwealth. Per citizens United they have rights too
I can't really tell if this is sarcasm, but whatever rights corporations have in the UK certainly isn't established by a United States Supreme Court decision.
I don't mind the complaint about CMA being undemocratic because it's a council of unelected bureaucrats, it's just trash-talk from someone that didn't get what they wanted; to be expected. IMO the reason why this decision is really dumb is because the reason given was cloud gaming. I think that people are missing this. This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently clos…