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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
This is a follow up to the previous thread:
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The same reset era user has done exhaustive translations of MS's response to Sony to the Brazilian authorities.
I would highly recommend a full read here.
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Some key points:
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The same reset era user has done exhaustive translations of MS's response to Sony to the Brazilian authorities.
I would highly recommend a full read here.
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Some key points:
They say that MS and ABK will face competition from a number of game developers and publishers. In addition, all of their games have close competitors. In fact, the third parties named several rival third-party publishers who own popular game franchises, demonstrating the intense rivalry in the market. In fact, MS highlights arguments from Ubisoft, Riot, Amazon or Google that confirm some of their arguments: post transaction there will be multiples developers and publishers and players use multiple devices to play.
MS literally says that: "Not surprisingly, Sony was the only third party to convey public opinion materially different from MS/ABK and the third parties regarding the competitive analysis of the transaction".
MS believes that Sony's isolated position can likely be explained by the fact that Microsoft's subscription game offering, Game Pass, was launched as Microsoft's competitive response to Xbox's failure in the "console wars" and the need to offer players additional value compared to the "buy-to-play" traditional model. In this way, Game Pass threatens to compete more effectively with the buy-to-play model, which Sony has successfully adopted.
In fact, MS says that Microsoft's ability to continue expanding Game Pass has been hampered by Sony's desire to inhibit such growth. Sony pays for "blocking rights" to prevent developers from adding content to Game Pass and other competing subscription services (then there is a bunch of redacted content).
"Almost literal, MS says that: "In short, Sony is not resigned to having to compete with Microsoft's subscription service. Sony's public outcry on subscription games and the company's response are clear: Sony doesn't want attractive subscription services to threaten its dominance in the market for digital distribution of console games. In other words, Sony rails against the introduction of new monetization models capable of challenging its business model".
Finally, MS says that regardless of how unusual Sony's criticisms of content are, the reality is that the strategy of retaining Activision Blizzard games, not distributing them in rival console stores, would simply not be profitable for Microsoft because such a strategy would only be profitable if Activision Blizzard's games were able to attract a sufficiently large number of gamers to the Xbox console ecosystem, and if Microsoft could earn enough revenue from the sale of games to offset the losses arising from non-distribution of such games on rival consoles.
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