Call me old-fashioned, but taking one of the three largest remaining independent publishers – the other two being Ubisoft and EA – off the table most certainly will end up lessening competition. The decision ultimately came down to – as Judge Corely’s statement puts it – the FTC’s failure to prove that the “vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition”. Getting to this point has been a messy process and not without struggle, sure, but it’s the outcome both Microsoft and industry analysts had always predicted. In short, a US Federal Court judge elected to halt the FTC’s attempted blocking of the Microsoft Activision deal, meaning that Xbox has essentially been given the all-clear to welcome Activision Blizzard into the first party family of Xbox studios. However, with it recently coming to light that Microsoft had won its case against the FTC’s preliminary junction, that’s exactly what has happened. It’s not every week that one person’s opinion forever changes the future of an industry. Games industry consolidation ultimately leaves players with less choice in future, no matter how much the Microsoft Activision deal benefits Xbox Game Pass subscribers right now.
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