The real issue is Sony has many exclusives which gives Microsoft a better case (despite the judge saying it's NOT about Sony). It certainly harms consumers, so I don't see how the court still approved this especially with the judge's comment against the comparison to Sony. Almost all mergers of this size harm consumers, the fact that it's allowed by default is the crucial issue. If the FTC still had a spine they woul…
I disagree with the opinion that it harms consumers. The economist has an article it recently published that argues that this deal actually helps consumers by speeding up the transition to "streaming" games and cloud gaming as an option. I tend to agree. Just because one large company is buying another large company doesn't mean the deal should be blocked.
Honestly... IMO that analysis is completely misguided and nearly contradictory.
Even if I accept the premise that the merger will (1) increase cloud and game streaming and (2) cloud/streaming games is good for consumers, I would argue it "harms consumers" under the legal anti-competitive and anti-trust arguments.
My argument is that achieving premise (1) via a merger is by-definition anti-consumer because it would strengthen cloud/game streaming outside of actual consumer demand. It's not possible or the place for the courts to decide what consumers "want" beyond high level details like cost, and availability, etc.
There's no rule preventing Activison from licensing it's games to Microsoft's, Sony's, etc. cloud gaming services. If there was genuine consumer demand for cloud gaming, then Activison is in the perfect position to get the best deal from all/any of the existing cloud gaming providers.
> (Article) Subscriptions and streaming have turned the music and television industries upside down in the past couple of decades.
Music, TV, and Film streaming all grew out of independent providers. Really it started with rentals which used the "first-sale" doctrine to even exist - it doesn't get much more independent than buying the standalone product and renting it. The fact that TV/Movie streaming is now fragmenting is causing large amounts of pain and cost for consumers not less. Over the past decade only Music streaming has remained simple and cheap - and all of the major providers here are independent of the record companies.