To confirm: you believe Sony > Imaging isn't encroaching into monopolistic territory far more than Xbox > Gaming, including sustained long term outlooks?
I think Sony Imaging is a market leader but doesn't have a monopoly and isn't in a position to perform shady stuff to create a monopoly or to stop others to compete. If that would be the case, FTC and other regulators would have stopped them. They have a big market share because their customers prefer the quality of their products, but competitors have almost half of the market and Sony can't stop them from competing: brands like Samsung, Apple, etc. are the ones who decide if they use Sony image sensors or other ones, Sony can't affect this blocking others to join the market.
I think MS (even after adding ABK) gaming is even more far from having a monopoly or in a position to create a monopoly in the gaming market, console market, PC gaming market, mobile gaming market, game subs market, cloud gaming market, VR gaming market. Both in hardware and software. Because they are not even market leaders in these gaming markets, and unlike in other markets, the gaming market is very fragmented: its few market leaders only own a 10-15% market share. So a market leader can't do monopolistic stuff.
With the acquisition, the only markets where MS would be best positioned would be game subs and cloud gaming. But I think it's debatable if they are really a market themselves and not only a different business model/way to deliver games for the console/PC/mobile markets, and they are also tiny markets: game subs only generate 7-9% of the gaming revenue, and it's expected that in the next 5 years or so would grow to up to 15% or so. Cloud gaming is a very small subset of that 7-9%, which for several reasons will have even a slower growth worldwide.
And well, MS would be better positioned than before the acquisition in game subs and cloud gaming for the future specially if they don't put their games on rival game subs and cloud gaming services (something they already do, recently included Skyrim in PS Plus as an example), but aren't market leaders of game subs and cloud gaming. There are others with a bigger userbase, way higher revenue and a way more profitable model.
Regarding the long term outlooks, MS, Sony, Tencent and others will continue making acquisitions. So ABK is only part of this consolidation period. If regulators want competition, they should MS acquire ABK to be closer to their main competitors, who are above them. In general gaming Tencent and Sony. In consoles Sony and Nintendo. In PC Tencent and Valve. In mobile pretty much everyone. Game subs there are major players above them like Sony, Nintendo, Amazon Prime Gaming, Apple Arcade and pretty likely Google Play Pass.
We both agree MS/Xbox aren't driving a monopoly here, not even a duopoly nor market leader. We disagree about Sony imaging. Cool, have a great day mate but I'll let sleeping dogs lie here.
Yes, and it's ok to disagree. Have a nice day.
Thanks for the correction on NOV 21 vs NOV 22 as well. What a shit library of games from Netflix for 12 months then, no wonder they only have 2.5Mil playing, they'll get better content and have already purchased studios quietly dev-ing behind the scenes. I still stand by "where do you think Netflix Gaming will be in 5 years"? Given even 2.5Mil in 12months over 5 more years that 15M subs, you have 2-5 players of that size in the subs market and you have enough healthy competition against the market leader, whomever that may be at the time.
I think the gaming market is very huge and has room to many people to compete. Netflix joined a small portion of gaming, the game subs which I mentioned is a 7-9% of the total revenue. And even inside that, they joined a subset: mobile gaming game subs, which is a portion of it. They are competing there with giants like Google and Apple, who must have a way bigger subscriber base than them.
So as of now, Netflix is a tiny player in the gaming market and their gaming section is also a tiny player of the market. They made some acquisitions, but are small devs who had tiny market share. So won't affect the market. They may grow, but in mobile the Apple and Google subs very likely will be bigger than them, plus also there's MS cloud gaming and Sony is working on it (Sony owns the patents of cloud gaming and specifically streaming to mobile gaming including 5G specific stuff, and mentioned that soonish they'd release it). Plus not sure but I'd bet there are more subs in mobile, maybe Amazon Prime Gaming has stuff.
So I think Netflix will grow like everyone else but will continue being a tiny player in gaming and even in the game subs area. And pretty likely even in mobile game subs.
As for Sony imaging sensor business and open market for competitors that retort is for a different time and thread my friend. TL;DR they bought out competitors long ago, own natural resources/lease, supply chain bullying etc. There is hardly a case for an easy competitor to bang out a semiconductor manufacturing supply chain, manufacturing plant, politics and countries in back pockets etc. It's quite a stark difference to a games studio or publisher entering a corporate market. Supply, processing and manufacturing/integrating etc are far more complex than making some games or selling some prefab hardware.
Regarding First Mover Advantage, cool you're correct about first movers. Perhaps I should have termed it "first zeitgeist successful mover" to qualify it better. There are little facts I have seen saying PS subs are more successful than Xbox/GP subs, if it exists, please give a link reply. Take what you're arguing here again, Sony did subs first and Xbox just did it better and bought larger then Sony has. Literally you are complaing to keep competition alive but you're not wanting an underdog success story from Xbox. Literally the perfect example of the open market having competitive trade over time.
Market regulators allow market leaders to make acquisitions if their market share isn't too big and if keeps enough room to others to freely compete. So if they allowed Sony Imaging to acquire etc. is because they consider there's no monopoly/potential monopoly/shady stuff there to block competitors.
I think that with this ABK acquisition it's normal that they investigate the case: because MS as a whole (not its gaming part) is a tech giant with monopolistic shady stuff done in the past sanctioned by them and because any $70B big ass acquisition must be investigated because it isn't common. But I'm sure that once they look at the market data they'll notice that even if MS(+ABK) as a whole is huge, in gaming they didn't have a market leading role after being there for almost 40 years and don't have enough market power/revenue share/etc. to do shady stuff to create a potential monopoly.