Microsoft buys Zenimax for $7.5b

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Monopolies are never good for the industry and definitely not consumers so these big companies buying up everything they can get their hands on is never a good sign
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Cannot? It's been happening. Almost every E3 for the past few years there's been an announcement of an acquisition and its not even just gaming. Disney, Amazon...US antitrust laws are either way behind or it's agenda is no longer the same.

So basically it’s a matter of market share. If company A (lets call them Sony,) and Company B (let’s call them Microsoft,) were to each own 50% of the industry, then Nintendo would never see any games. Also, the power to manipulate pricing would be so substantial that no third party (indie studio,) could set their own price point because Sony or MS would price them out of the market on similar quality games.

Publishers may be owned by distributors so long as the market share does not get too high. If it becomes a problem a third party like Nintendo would sue and the courts could either impose restrictions on force divestment.
 
So basically it’s a matter of market share.

Anti-competitive effect is not simply about percentage of the market share, it's about potential to do damage to the market due to having enough influence on it. Too often anti-trust is completely oblivious to it in practice.
 
Moderator: One post deleted. Thoughtful criticism is acceptable. Insulting individuals is not. Keep it civil, please.
 
Anti-competitive effect is not simply about percentage of the market share, it's about potential to do damage to the market due to having enough influence on it. Too often anti-trust is completely oblivious to it in practice.

I am speaking about vertical integration specifically. Your point about damaging the market is valid but limited in this instance. There are only 3 big consoles in a console generation. Things like the 3ds and Vita really don’t count and their pricing is usually separate. Each console has a AAA price that is consistent throughout the life cycle of the system. This monopoly and price fixing is anti competitive and probably an anti trust violation. Yet the market is so niche and has so few companies that want to compete that it seems no one is interested in challenging the status quo.
 
MS damages the market by pushing lock-in (DirectX) and buying studios and not releasing for other platforms in result (damage to Linux market for me is self explanatory here). So it is anti-competitive overall.

The fact that there are very few other consoles doesn't have any bearing here. If anything, console market itself is hugely monopolized. Just two (may be 3?) major console makers? That's very unhealthy and screams oligopoly. Compare it to the number of computer makers in other segments, like desktops, laptops, mobile devices and so on.
 
MS damages the market by pushing lock-in (DirectX) and buying studios and not releasing for other platforms in result (damage to Linux market for me is self explanatory here). So it is anti-competitive in every sense.

Console gaming and PC gaming are not the same market. They may share some percentage overlap. But historically and practically they are not the same. For example, what percentage of independent PS4 games are available on PC? Same question for Switch. Even AAA titles don’t always make their way to steam or other PC platforms.

As for console exclusives, they are as old as consoles themselves. Mario was never on Sega or Sony consoles.
 
Console gaming and PC gaming are not the same market

It is the same market - gaming. The fact that console form factor is artificially turned into some kind of separate walled garden is not a natural market separation, it's an anti-competitive artificial one (through exclusivity and etc), so if anything that in itself demonstrates how unhealthy things already are competition wise. So MS shouldn't have been allowed to swallow any studios the way things stand, if anti-trust would have actually worked as intended.
 
It is the same market - gaming. The fact that console form factor is artificially turned into some kind of separate walled garden is not a natural market separation, it's an anti-competitive artificial one (through exclusivity and etc), so if anything that in itself demonstrates how unhealthy things already are competition wise. So MS shouldn't have been allowed to swallow any studios the way things stand, if anti-trust would have actually worked as intended.

Your not factoring in the history and interface differences. Controllers vs keyboard and mouse. TV vs computer. Multiplayer was easier with controllers than pc games before LAN and internet existed/were viable to allow gaming. You can argue the market is coming together now that Steam allows most controllers on PC games, but the keyboard and mouse dynamic is hard to apply the other way.
 
The history is that all of them are computers Just because you use a controller or sit on the couch instead of at the desk doesn't mean it has to be some kind of magical device from a different universe. You just need a different input interface, that's all.

From computer making perspective it makes zero difference. Console makers turned it into some kind "we need to be special" artificial thing. Sure, controller hardware might be original, but the box it all runs on? Not really.

It's very different from handheld computers (tablets, handsets and etc) where form factor of the computer itself is critical.

And from games' perspective, it's irrelevant too, since developers make games for console and desktop input interfaces just fine which shows it's simply something that should be an option preference of the user.

The whole "console is not PC" is completely artificial and made so by oligopolists who control consoles de-facto.
 
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The history is that all of them are computers Just because you use a controller or sit on the couch instead of at the desk doesn't meant it has to be some kind of magical device from a different universe. You just need a different input interface, that's all.

From computer making perspective it makes zero difference. Console makers turned it into some kind "we need to be special" artificial thing. Sure, controller hardware might be original, but the box it all runs on? Not really.

It's very different from handheld computers (tablets, handsets and etc) where form factor of the computer itself is critical.

And from games' perspective, it's irrelevant too, since developers make games for console and desktop input interfaces just fine which shows it's simply something that should be an option preference of the user.

The whole "console is not PC" is completely artificial and made so by oligopolists who control consoles de-facto.

Agree to disagree. I grant you the guts of a console involved computing, but I disagree about much of the rest.
 
Agree to disagree. I grant you the guts of a console involved computing, but I disagree about much of the rest.

On Windows, xbox controllers are plug and play. The drivers are even already included in the OS. On consoles, they could easily extend support for either wireless or wired peripherals like keyboard and mouse, but they choose not to because they don't want k+m users competing with gamepad users. It's not because of any technical limitations.
 
On Windows, xbox controllers are plug and play. The drivers are even already included in the OS. On consoles, they could easily extend support for either wireless or wired peripherals like keyboard and mouse, but they choose not to because they don't want k+m users competing with gamepad users. It's not because of any technical limitations.

They've tried numerous times in the past to introduce K+M options. (I owned a K+M for the Xbox 360. Worked pretty easily. And it's still possible to play things like Minecraft and Fortnite with them on the Xbox today.)

End result was, they never sold well. I think the major reason they're not mainstream is that there was simply no demand.
 
Either way, the fact that MS would make something exclusive to their console means they are anti-competitively giving advantage to only their system. And if it happens through buying studios which before were not making anything exclusive, means they are explicitly making things worse for the whole market. I think it's pretty self explanatory, not sure what even there is to debate here.

Anti-trust should shoot down such things as a routine, if only it would have worked of course, as above.
 
On Windows, xbox controllers are plug and play. The drivers are even already included in the OS. On consoles, they could easily extend support for either wireless or wired peripherals like keyboard and mouse, but they choose not to because they don't want k+m users competing with gamepad users. It's not because of any technical limitations.

My point was about the early days of gaming. I even said a few posts ago the modern controllers working on steam (steam can play anything from any store,) closes some of the gap/distinction between the markets. That said, the franchises are often tied to either the console or the PC. Most Indy games are either console oriented or K+M oriented. The console wars don’t mention PC gaming because the completion really is between consoles.
 
I have no idea what the implications of this are but im just going to forget about it until the next fallout game and hope it means we get back a good fallout rpg experiance taken back to its roots with AAA quality.

Probably wishifull thinking...
 
They've tried numerous times in the past to introduce K+M options. (I owned a K+M for the Xbox 360. Worked pretty easily. And it's still possible to play things like Minecraft and Fortnite with them on the Xbox today.)

End result was, they never sold well. I think the major reason they're not mainstream is that there was simply no demand.

I think the reason is that console players usually sit on a couch or floor. This makes it hard to play on k+m.

If I remember correctly, Starcraft was available on consoles at one point. It's funny just thinking about how unfair it would be if you played with a k+m against someone using a controller haha.
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My point was about the early days of gaming. I even said a few posts ago the modern controllers working on steam (steam can play anything from any store,) closes some of the gap/distinction between the markets. That said, the franchises are often tied to either the console or the PC. Most Indy games are either console oriented or K+M oriented. The console wars don’t mention PC gaming because the completion really is between consoles.

Well that's because the console wars are fought by 12 year olds. They generally don't own gaming PCs.

I see consoles as a subset of PCs. The only thing you can't do on a PC is play console exclusive games (but sometimes even this is not necessarily true if emulators are available). With PC, you can play 4K games on your TV (soon to be 8K if you can afford the RTX 3090), you can use controllers, play multiplayer games, etc... Consoles are essentially PCs that optimized for games and are tied to a single storefront.
 
Consoles are essentially PCs that optimized for games and are tied to a single storefront.

I'd add current incumbent consoles. Idea of tying anything to specific hardware or any kind of exclusivity isn't inherently related in any way to specific input interface or computer form factor. Incumbents just made it so, and perception of console is now distorted with users treating it as some kind of axiomatic "it should be so".

I'd say it totally shouldn't be so, but lack of competition among those who address console style gameplay, prevents it.
 
I'd add current incumbent consoles. Idea of tying anything to specific hardware or any kind of exclusivity isn't inherently related in any way to specific input interface or computer form factor. Incumbents just made it so, and perception of console is now distorted with users treating it as some kind of axiomatic "it should be so". I'd say it totally shouldn't be so, but lack of competition prevents it.

The 3ds, Wii, Wii U, and Switch all utilized new technology with specific ties to the hardware. The 3ds might not be the first game that could run two screens, but was ahead of its time considering it was portable. The Wii expanded motion controls. The Wii U improved dual screen gaming while also adding tablet style hybrid portable gaming. Finally the switch did what a desktop can never do, create a vehicle for both HD and portable. That isn’t even factoring in the joy cons.
 
I wouldn't trust Nintendo doing it in good faith in a sense, that they couldn't use an approach where specific hardware is abstracted from the common hardware part using standard hardware interfaces, making it possible to run such games on other computers attaching said specific pieces like controllers, screens, sensors or what not.

Nintendo were as much if not more lock-in oriented than other console incumbents, so any kind of hardware approach will always follow "only works with us" approach. It's not a technical reason in my view. I.e. interoprability was never their goal. Lock-in was.
 
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I wouldn't trust Nintendo doing it in good faith in a sense, that they couldn't use an approach where specific hardware is abstracted from the common hardware part using standard hardware interfaces, making it possible to run such games on other computers attaching said specific pieces like controllers, screens, sensors or what not.

Nintendo were as much if not more lock-in oriented than other console incumbents, so any kind of hardware approach will always follow "only works with us" approach. It's not a technical reason in my view. I.e. interoprability was never their goal. Lock-in was.

I disagree. In each instance innovation was its own reward. The ds and later 3ds dominated the portable market. The Wii got the exercise games which expanded the consumer base. Wii U sought to tap into the tablet craze and really take a step toward portability. It was the first time your family member could change the channel and you could keep playing. They accomplished this mission with the mission (absolute ability to play on any HD screen or on the go.) You could argue they did it to lock people into exclusives, but you could also argue it was different enough at every stage to increase consumer interest/customer base.
 
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