And the newly appointed chair as of Sept 7th, 2022 is specifically going to look unkindly to companies who have raised their prices while having a product that literally sells out the moment it comes in, and in which the company that sells it made record profits in their games business very recently, and has a games business that is billions of dollars stronger than the buyer of Activision Blizzard. That's precisely the style of greed that will harm Sony's credibility.
Meanwhile Game Pass is quite literally about making some of the biggest games out there a lot more accessible and affordable to a larger group of people.
1: Stop using "literally" so excessively.
2: Raising the MSRP in markets with weaker currency rates to equalize with regions having stronger currency exchange rates has no direct correlation with rate of which the product can sell. In other words, the implication that the product selling out near-instantly as it's available has a direct relevance on the profits the company selling that product bring in, is misplaced, because you have NO idea what the costs for the manufacture of the product is in the first place. Leads to...
3: Record revenue != record profit, or at the very least, the ratio of revenue to profit is not some linear constant. IIRC last fiscal quarter Sony's PlayStation saw a decline in profit despite an increase in revenue QoQ. Net profit does not linearly scale with revenue, never has and never will.
4: PS might generate more revenue and profit than Xbox but the
way it reached those figures were well within the bounds of what regulatory bodies consider fair competition. Microsoft is looking to increase Xbox revenue not by necessarily relying on directly attracting the business of the end customer, but by buying other companies and absorbing
their revenue figures into those of the Xbox division. I.e
buying their way to bigger revenue; it's not
MS who garnered those COD and ABK customers, that was the work of ABK while they were still independent!
5: Making the "biggest games" more accessible & affordable to a larger group of people didn't require buying the publishers of those games. That was a route Microsoft
optioned to take, and due to such, is what these investigations are centered around. The effects of that option 100% of Microsoft's
choosing, to take in order to do what you prescribe. MS could have just as easily negotiated timed exclusivity with several such games to Xbox & GamePass platforms, or co-funded big 3P AAA games for console exclusivity, and accomplished the same effect at a much cheaper rate and with zero need for regulators to investigate.
Just like that sink in.
it would be good for me .. a gamer .
