Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win
From the article, quoting Judge Corley:
… the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.
Microsoft’s monetary incentive is to kill PlayStation and make everyone buy GamePass. Then they don’t have to put effort into making individual games, they’ll have your money anyway. They’ve shown for years that they don’t care about Xbox making money. They are propping up Xbox with profits from other parts of their business, something that’s usually considered anti-competitive, but that’s out the window these days.
Sony doesn’t buy games to keep them from their competition. Sony buys developers and talented people to make games. Throughout their history Destiny is the only game of note that they’ve purchased and neither it or Bungies next game are playstation exclusives. Every other developer had been largely making Sony exclusives games from the get-go, or didn’t being any existing titles of note with them.
Microsoft can’t run a studio or create IP. Forza is the only title of note that has been created in house. Everything else was done by outside creative and later bought and run into the ground. Could that change? Maybe, but it’s been 23 years and they have jack to show for it. Sony only has a few more years of development experience than Microsoft, but has destroyed them in the quality and quantity department.