Out of all these studios I suppose I like Microsoft’s games the most, but I still think it’s bad that the regulators didn’t shoot down this merger from the view of competitiveness.
I don’t think the gaming market is healthy when only a handful of corporations like Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA Games and SquareEnix hold what I assume to be 75% of the gaming AAA market. It restricts creativity and stifles competition and the ones paying the price are going to be us consumers.
Even worse if they go and start vendor locking games to Windows, which sucks for us Linux gamers or Xbox which sucks for Playstation gamers.
There’s also the big issue that Microsoft isn’t just a giant games publisher, it also owns one of the only 3 consoles with a viable market, and they absolutely dominate the PC operating system market, including their graphics API, store and dependencies.
Steam Deck has put a small thorn in their OS side. It used to be ridiculous to have a Linux gaming computer, but it’s become much more viable thanks to the Deck’s existence.
Basically to say Microsoft wouldn’t be able to pull a massive move like requiring Windows subscription prices without a lot of gamers going to Linux.
Out of all these studios I suppose I like Microsoft’s games the most, but I still think it’s bad that the regulators didn’t shoot down this merger from the view of competitiveness.
I don’t think the gaming market is healthy when only a handful of corporations like Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA Games and SquareEnix hold what I assume to be 75% of the gaming AAA market. It restricts creativity and stifles competition and the ones paying the price are going to be us consumers.
Even worse if they go and start vendor locking games to Windows, which sucks for us Linux gamers or Xbox which sucks for Playstation gamers.
There’s also the big issue that Microsoft isn’t just a giant games publisher, it also owns one of the only 3 consoles with a viable market, and they absolutely dominate the PC operating system market, including their graphics API, store and dependencies.
Steam Deck has put a small thorn in their OS side. It used to be ridiculous to have a Linux gaming computer, but it’s become much more viable thanks to the Deck’s existence.
Basically to say Microsoft wouldn’t be able to pull a massive move like requiring Windows subscription prices without a lot of gamers going to Linux.