Probably not from regulatory committees, not currently. They can always point to their position in market. "We've been trailing in the marketplace for 20 years. We wish to be more competitive" is probably all they have to say for themselves when it comes to any video game publisher not named Nintendo or Sony; which they'd never acquire anyway. These governing bodies are not experts as you can imagine, they'd let Microsoft buy up the entire industry piecemeal, and only realize, penalize, or force them to break up after the fact. The only thing stopping Microsoft from being hyper aggressive in the space, really, is that they face a bit more scrutiny having been hit with the antitrust stick in the past. They're once bitten. And like all companies, they'd really prefer some good old fashioned self-made growth/sustainability over the messier alternative.
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EU to rule on Microsoft's $7.5 billion ZeniMax deal by March 5
- Thread starter Theorry
- Start date
Some people are really having a long hangover. Neither is this deal putting Microsoft anywhere close to a monopoly nor was it a hostile change of ownership. To the contrary, Bethesda looked to sell as we have learned from multiple sources, so they would have been under someone's wing anyway. They just chose, as they stated themselves, their longest and closest partner - at a price they found fine.
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Another thing that is always ignored, especially when people say MS should only buy companies they have a close relationship with.
This reads more like wishful thinking than anything.
MS won't get any more pushback than they are now unless they were to try to buy Sony and Nintendo lol
Yep, nothing happened there and Sony is arguably closer to having a anime monopoly than Microsoft having the gaming monopoly.
Nah, won't happen. There are many competitors still left, even if another publisher joins Microsoft. Bad or not for us personally, there is no legal issue.
Well said and I 100% agree with you.
But, but.... I want Microsoft to be the villian /S.
lol. Nintendo has a monopoly on kid friendly games and platformers and Sony has a monopoly on 3P cinematic games.
Pretty much this. "We control 0.5% of the revenue in a $150 billion dollar industry" is the best defense for anti-trust suits, no matter how many hardcore AAA games they have under their umbrella.
Pretty much. I expect it to be done at some point in February without any additional requirements coming down from the EU.
Agreed. If anyone had any issues, it would have been voiced and looked into way before all this.
A lot of people here don't know the meaning of the word 'monopoly'.
A company with monopoly power or anti-competitive power could double the price of one of their services and male all their consumers pay it because there's no alternative.
Microsoft tried that last week and got rightly destroyed for it.
A company with monopoly power or anti-competitive power could double the price of one of their services and male all their consumers pay it because there's no alternative.
Microsoft tried that last week and got rightly destroyed for it.
Should be able to close this deal soon then, and maybe Microsoft can be a little less vague about what they intend to do with the next big games from Bethesda (which almost certainly has to be "make them exclusive")
Yeah, I expect them to make an online event to show gameplay from their announced games and talk about the Zenimax deal.
Xbox owns 5 RPG studios (BGS, Obsidian, inXile, Playground and Zenimax Online), 6 if you count Undead. The major independent RPG studios out there are BioWare, Larian, CDPR, Ubisoft's 3 RPG teams and not to mention the dozens of smaller teams out there like Techland (Dying Light 2, which is said to go further with the RPG elements of the first game) or the Paradox studios (including Hardsuit who are making Vampire- The Masquerade Bloodlines 2)
And also, the market share that MS has is absolutely something worth looking at when approving the purchase, as especially in Europe they're a distant third
They could do just that after acquiring Zenimax. MS will have to be careful to not drastically increase pricing or may face fines.
I highly doubt Microsoft will be able to 'drastically' increase the price of Gamepass (or Gold) because:
- They tried this already and failed.
- They don't yet control enough revenue (basically games sold) in the market to mean players wouldn't have alternatives.
- They are not the market leader in the console space.
- Zenimax alone doesn't make them monopoly publisher. Not even close at all.
i remember phil spencer said something like they can't reveal their plans for bethesda games before the deal is finalized, as it would be illegal or something. i expect once everything is finalized they'll lay out their plans.
edit: found the quote (thread)
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Bethesda needed someone to reign them in. This is best for bethesda so they don't pull another 76 launch.
I very clearly remember some people saying Disney would have a monopoly on super hero movies and then some people took that a step further and started saying Disney would have a monopoly on Marvel super hero movies when the Disney-Fox deal was going through the regulatory approval process. Impossible to say if it was in jest or not. I hope it was, but I doubt it.
And it wasn't even related to anything xbox or close to related in buying competition. It was because they failed to honor an early consent with IE and wrapping that in Windows.
Even with the Zenimax purchases, MS would own like 5% of all studios. woo! Huge, big monopoly.
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Regulatory bodies are, by and large, completely toothless.
Yep, if Microsoft would have a monopoly or would be close to it, they could've increased the price like this.
Yes, they can't legally lay out plans for a company they don't own yet. I wouldn't expect a full rundown thought, even though I'd like them being as clear as possible. However I think MS will talk about the plans of announced games like Starfield. But don't expect something like "Bethesda games will never be ported to XY" imo.
Hahahaha
Doesn't matter in this or the case you quoted. Even good regulator wouldn't say anything when Microsoft buys another publisher. As someone else said, they control like 5% of the overall gaming revenue with hundreds of competitor's. That's not even close to monopoly and it's not an anti trust issue. You may not like it, but that's the situation.
Yeah I'd appreciate more honesty in this discussion if people just said:
"I've not been a fan of Microsoft in the past and I'm worried their financial power might put games that I like on a platform I don't like"
All this talk of monopoly is so wildly inaccurate its kind of obvious where it comes from.
Governments most certainly do step in to stop deals from happening, and even if a deal is not stopped outright, it's not uncommon for them to attach additional terms to a deal.
However, the circumstances around which intervention happens is centered on aspects such as national security (Broadcom/Qualcomm), running up against existing regulations (Disney/Fox), privacy, competition (both of which popped up in the Google/Fitbit deal), or similar concerns.
It does not arise due to consumer or investor sentiment.
However, the circumstances around which intervention happens is centered on aspects such as national security (Broadcom/Qualcomm), running up against existing regulations (Disney/Fox), privacy, competition (both of which popped up in the Google/Fitbit deal), or similar concerns.
It does not arise due to consumer or investor sentiment.
Yes they can; that would be an integration plan, which begins far before ownership. Proper execution of such a plan is actually a common lynchpin on which deals hinge. Follow through happens with ownership; a company can choose to reveal a good bit of what they want to do on deal announcement; and they (or might not) might reveal more once the deal is assured - there is no law preventing planning.
I doubt that. Netflix are the dominant global streaming service and have increased prices significantly in recent years. Spotify also. Neither have been blocked.
There are more players in the gaming platform/subscription space than in either the movie/music streaming.
Sony
Xbox
Nvidia GeForce Now
Shadow
Nintendo
Apple
Amazon
Steam
GOG
Epic
Hatch
and in terms of publishers, according to this list, List of video game publishers - Wikipedia
There's over 200 independent publishers still out there, let alone development studios. So MS acquiring a few more would be nowhere near a monopoly.
Heh, especially when every single BGS game that has been on console has had SOME form of Xbox exclusivity.
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Hahaha..
Sorry but Covid makes the feeling of time just... blaaarg..
So I will go back to bed :D
Sorry but Covid makes the feeling of time just... blaaarg..
So I will go back to bed :D
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EU says Microsoft’s Zenimax deal ‘could fall within rules’ but no approval yet | VGC
Competition regulator calls for third parties to submit their observations…
www.videogameschronicle.com
So lets try again.. :)
So today is the day for EU to approve this acquisition..
Anyone heard anything yet besides the SEC topic? :)
So today is the day for EU to approve this acquisition..
Anyone heard anything yet besides the SEC topic? :)
It is not a monopoly problem, it is an anti-trust problem due to the vertical integration. I am not really too concerned about this deal specifically but if anti-trust hadn't been neutered in the 80's, this exact type of deal would have been impossible.
This take over isn't going to make a tangible difference to market share if that was their goal.
It will make them a lot of money if they keep the games on all the platforms though as they'll earn all that revenue from sales.
The worst thing they could do is make the games exclusive, they'll earn less money that way in my opinion.
It will make them a lot of money if they keep the games on all the platforms though as they'll earn all that revenue from sales.
The worst thing they could do is make the games exclusive, they'll earn less money that way in my opinion.
Wow, like how Sony is making less money by not releasing God of War on PC and Xbox?
Exactly.
Isn't it obvious that the more games you sell the more money you make?
If Nintendo suddenly started putting it's franchises on PlayStation and Xbox it's sales would go through the roof. But obviously would result in less console sales as it gives people less reason to buy a Nintendo console.
I know you're being sarcastic, but why else do you think Sony is exploring releasing more games on PC? It's to increase the number of sales.
Having s really good exclusive game certainly gives people a reason to buy a console, but I don't even feel there's a current Bethesda game that would sell consoles on it's own.
What I'm saying is I feel certain exclusives on PlayStation and Nintendo sell more consoles than any game from the catalogue of Bethesda/zenimax would.
does this only apply to MS?
but microsoft is already putting games on PC