Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

With the development cycle and Sony and Microsoft’s distribution setup as it is now, physical copies effectively act as a token to play the game only. Using Cyberpunk 2077 as an example a recent patch to the game mandated a nearly full redownload of the whole game on PS5 and Xbox Series - ~60+GB. On PC it was ~5G.

I want to download the media to my hard drive, store it on my NAS, back it up in any way, and be able to install it from those sources whenever I want.

I also want licenses to be maintained outside of walled gardens using digital signatures, which I can also maintain my own copy of. As long as I present my license file along with signed game media, I want my console or PC to be able to run that game.

I should also be able to lend, sell, and trade the digital license to anyone along with a copy of the media.

At the start of last generation, XBOX decided to shot themselves [1] and announce that the XBOX One would be an always online media (not gaming) machine that would require itself to phone home frequently or it wouldn't even work at all offline during vacations. They spent more time trying to sell you a media brick with features no was or is asking for to this day, instead of showing games which is the whole point of a console (Sony capitalized on this by showcasing nothing but games). They asked 100$ more than Sony's console ($499vs$399), and iirc, the console had weaker hardware which lead to many games running worse on it.

Over the years they've also destroyed all their first party studio franchises besides Forza which is still going strong, this includes Halo which has been more misses than hits in the last decade plus. I'm in no way saying they weren't commercial hits, you can sell well and still be a bad or broken product (Cyberpunk 2077) that ends up poisoning the well.

XBOX first party games are also notorious for their predatory monetization, just as much if not more so than EA or ACTIVISION Blizzard, does anyone even remember how bad GoW5 was?

Another thing people seem to be forgetting is that XBOX isn't just trying to acquire ACITIVSION Blizzard. They've been on a shopping spree, including the likes of ZeniMax Media [2] which included subsidiaries such as Bethesda Softworks, Arkane Studios, id Software... as well as other solo studios like Obsidian Entertainment known for amazing RPG classics, Ninja Theory behind Hellblade, as well as plenty of other studios since 2018 [3], please check for yourself and see what they're doing.

They've shown that they don't care about you, the consumer, time and time again, willingly putting out titles such as Redfall at full price (70€£$) without a care. They've shown that they'll immediately pull games out of Playstation [4][5] so that they can compete with Sony by using brute force, hell, I'm sure if allowed, they would've tried to acquire Sony Interactive Entertainment from the Sony Group, if not the whole group itself. (Sony Group 113.89 billion USD vs Microsoft 2.47 trillion USD)

Lets talk about cloud gaming, the "Future" of gaming. Gamepass is a good deal, yes, but like every SAAS model, it means you don't own anything, not digitally, not physically, you can't even modify files, and prices are subject to change, and change they do [6]. Now think about that, you can't modify files... If you play more than 2-3 games a year, I'm sure one of the first things you've done is mess around with the .ini file because the in-game menu is lacking settings. I'm sure you've had to install mods because the game was broken at launch and it was the modding community who fixed it, or you simply wanted mods. What happens in a few years when they do what Netflix or HBO does, and they remove games they don't want to pay licensing for?[7] or when they terminate an online game and you have no way of making your own private servers to keep it alive? Right now, a lot of games that came out before 2010 simply can't be legally purchased[8], this problem gets worse the older the titles are, especially if you go into the retro game list. But they hold their IP rights, which means you can't even legally distribute ROMs or else you run the risk of companies like Nintendo coming after you.

Finally, it's Microsoft. They aren't known for their pro-consumer policies. They're known for being ruthless and exploitative. Windows 11 is filled with ads and forces you to use their products with shady behavior such as making you jump through hops to set a different browser as the default. The XBOX division is no different and this tribalism surrounding consoles (PSvsXBOX) which leads to people publicly defending a trillion dollar company online because the FTC is fighting to preserve the consumer (them) is worrying.

EDIT: Forgot to mention Age of Empire 2 Definitive Edition as another game that is doing quite well, although AoE4 isn't quite as well, and was also initially a Windows Store only game, which further cements the fact that they don't control the PC market the way they want, Steam does.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrvE3B5Rz6A [2] https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-finalizes-acqu... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Game_Studios [4] https://gamerant.com/redfalls-ps5-cancelation-negative-impac... [5] https://www.gamesradar.com/starfield-ps4-ps5/ [6] https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/21/23768400/microsoft-xbox-s... [7] https://www.npr.org/2023/03/17/1164146728/why-are-dozens-of-... [8] https://www.gamedeveloper.com/culture/study-finds-nearly-eve...