EU Official: CMA Overstated Microsoft's Share in Cloud Gaming Market - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 July 2023 / 7,590 Views
Recently the European Union regulator, the European Commission, announced it had approved Microsoft's $67.8 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard due to the deals signed by Microsoft in recent months related to cloud gaming.
The UK regulator, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), who blocked the deal last month, quickly responded to the approval by the European Union stating it "stands by its decision." It had also previously said Microsoft has a 60 to 70 percent marketshare in the cloud gaming market.
An official from the European Union in a report from the Financial Times says the CMA had overstated Microsoft's marketshare in the cloud gaming market as it included Xbox Game Pass subscribers who don't use cloud gaming.
The official added that the cloud gaming market isn't a separate market in the video game industry, but is instead a small segment of the overall gaming market.
A subscription to the more expensive Xbox Game Pass tier - Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - is required in order to access Xbox Cloud Gaming. The higher tier also includes access to Xbox Game Pass on Xbox consoles, PC, as well as EA Play.
Thanks, Wccftech.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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"The official added that the cloud gaming market isn't a separate market in the video game industry, but is instead a small segment of the overall gaming market." wasn't this obvious.
Waiting for their Tweet anytime now :)
I did a similar joke and I got downvoted
It's all in the delivery.
It was litteraly the same
Subtle differences in delivery can have very different results. I did an experiment at work where for an entire shift I asked "Did you want a bag?" and most people said yes. The very next shift, I asked everyone "Did you want a bag, or are you good?" and almost everyone said no.
You should be downvoted for this comment
And I got upvoted, this is madness I tell ya
Look what you have done. I am getting downvotes nows!
Run you fool
CMA showing its incompetence when it comes to basic math.
I mean they left the EU thinking they'll have more money, at the end it was quite the opposite
Lol that's embarrassing if true . So it wasn't based on actual facts. Tsk tsk , wonder how the deep the pockets were at the time they rejected it
All the talk about the various cloud gaming platforms has me now wondering. Why hasn't Microsoft signed a 10 year deal with Amazon to have call of duty on their Luna service? I might actually use that one if it were the case.
Lies lies and statistics.
Anyone can swing an argument with statistics.
Hell even this statement has so many flaws in it you can draw any conclusions you want.
“ An official from the European Union in a report from the Financial Times says the CMA had overstated Microsoft's marketshare in the cloud gaming market as it included Xbox Game Pass subscribers who don't use cloud gaming.“
- don’t currently use?
- never use?
*haven’t used in the last 90 days? -
are they implying that standard game pass figures were used with game pass ultimate?
My take would be if you’re an ultimate subscriber you’re a cloud gamer even if you don’t use it. Much like if you subscribe to Netflix but don’t use it - you’re a Netflix subscriber. But anyway.
As an observer it’s interesting these squabbles esp as the uk rules on uk and eu rules on the eu. They shouldn’t be meddling in each other regions. It is strange how they both agree then differed.
When your corrupt you need lies for your unfair & rigged justifications. That’s exactly what CMA did, and what I’ve already said right here on this site.
Cloud is not separate to the game market, it is part of the game market, & is a minuscule part of it. To block the merger based on the minuscule part of the market is corrupt. There is no doubt about it.
The CMA did not even “best/worse case scenario” for could gaming projections for the next 10 years, just to show how much of a ”monopoly” it could be, but they never even did the basics to “prove” their case…. which further discredits them. It’s all fraudulent speculation and no evidence.
And for the CMA to claim such an embarrassing lie to say that all 25 million + game pass users are also cloud users, to “prove” a cloud gaming monopoly, is a gigantic lie.
The CMA is totally discredited, and it is a flat out liar.
CMA has not once even acknowledge the existence of Amazons Luna cloud streaming service in the UK, which already has free Fortnite playable on it, and Ubisoft plus available on it. Do you know why they never acknowledge that, because they want to tell lies to be corrupt to rig it against this merger.
Case closed. Corrupt as it gets.
Man your really trying to push the corrupt narrative. It obviously not the issue here and your claim are lies on there own that are easily debunked by looking at the actual document.
The CMA did not use all gamepass subscriber as Xcloud User.
The CMA also did acknowledge Amazon Luna as competition.
What was the count for GP Ultimate Subscription. I believe Geforce Now is at 25 million subscribers so was wondering how they got to a decision that MS has like 60% of the market.
For that figure they used reported MAU (don' know if it's all gpu users or unique xcloud user in a month it's not that clear). The problem with this, as mentionned by MS and discarded by the CMA, is that as Xcloud is a feature of GPU and not a standalone service its main usage is reportedly "try before download". This is creating a situation where MAU tell a story but monthly time spent tell a completly different one.
The 2 services are vastly different, it might not be as easy as saying "There are 25 million GeForce Now subs, so where did they get that figure." When GeForce Now is:
(a) free for anyone that wants it, only their paid for sub might have been included (maybe not, I don't know but streaming on GP is only available via a paid service) and...
(b) Does not sell the games nor publish them, so it's relying on the publishers and services that sell the games to allow integration. If one of those publishers suddenly says they can't stream it anymore on that service, Geforce Now could lose value/subs. For example, Bethesda games used to be on the service but no longer are, if all publishers decided to take them off the service, said service could die instantly and if MS is the one of those publishers controlling the games GFN gets, and also has a rival streaming service (one that is only paid for) it becomes a problem.
Defining a market is a notoriously difficult part of antitrust law. It is not uncommon for different judges or regulatory agencies to come to different opinions on what constitutes a market. There are lots of very very long papers on it, I can tell you from experience.
A big problem in anti-trust law is when something, for example streaming video or music, starts out as a small niche, and one player comes to dominate it early before people realize how big that segment is going to be. And by the time it becomes apparent, one company has a strangle hold. It often comes down to speculation, because people are incredibly bad at predicting future trends in technology.
I'm not defending the decision, which I think is wrong. But sometimes decisions are just wrong. You would need more to argue corruption.
MS have said 20M of its GP users used the cloud at some point https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/25/23423668/microsoft-xbox-cloud-gaming-20-million-people-streamed
So it seems like EU is the one understating?
The shares of the markets highlighted by the CMA in their final conclusion are all about MAU and not about "tried once" users.
Worth noting that GeForce Now reported 20m lifetime users 2 months before Xbox reported 20m Cloud users. Thing is that lifetime users is a bad metric to use, you can play a Cloud game for 5 minutes, decide the latency sucks, never play Cloud again, and get counted towards that 20m lifetime users. Better to use daily active users and monthly active users to look at the various Cloud companies' marketshares. I suspect Xbox has nowhere near the 60-70% that CMA claimed if you look at daily or monthly active users, not with GeForce Now seeming to be just as big as Xbox Cloud Gaming in terms of lifetime users, Amazon Luna likely getting alot of users in the US from the Amazon Prime Gaming free game catalog that you can stream free with Luna, plus the various other Cloud gaming companies like the 3rd party one Nintendo uses on Switch, Sony's PS+ high tier Cloud gaming service, and the 3 smaller cloud companies that Xbox made 10 year Xbox and ABK game deals with (Boosteroid and the other 2). I just can't see Xbox holding 60-70% when there are so many other Cloud gaming companies.
That is pretty much how I see it. I will find it very interesting to see how the CMA justify their numbers and show that MS has 60% of cloud streaming market. There really is no way for how the service works as an add on, I doubt people actively use it that much because they have the option to just download the game and play it locally.
We have to consider that CMA could be looking specifically in UK (where MS say it can only sustain 5k users at once, which I find a terribly low number) instead of WW. But if the two biggest cloud competitors Xbox and GeforceNow have the same 20M WW and most of the others are almost irrelevant then even if Xbox doesn't have 70% it would have close to 50% and the purchase would be giving it more power.
