Microsoft States Game Pass isn't 'Degraded' in Response to the FTC - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 August 2024 / 3,412 Views
Microsoft has now issued a statement in response to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the US the Xbox Game Pass price increase is the "consumer harm" it warned about when Microsoft was trying to acquire Activision Blizzard.
"Earlier this month, Microsoft announced changes to its gaming subscription service, Game Pass, to provide consumers valuable options at different price points," reads the statement from Microsoft.
"Microsoft is offering a new service tier, Game Pass Standard, which offers access to hundreds of back-catalog games ‘and multiplayer functionality for S14.99/month.
"It is wrong to call this a 'degraded' version of the discontinued Game Pass for Console offering. That discontinued product did not offer multiplayer functionality, which had to be purchased separately for an additional $9.99/month (making the total cost $20.98/month).
"While Game Pass Ultimate’s price will increase from $16.99 to $19.99/month, the service will offer more value through many new games available ‘day-and-date.’ Among them is the upcoming release of Call of Duty, which has never before been available on a subscription day-and-date.
"The FTC barely mentioned subscription at trial, instead focusing on the theory that Microsoft would withhold Call of Duty from Sony‘s console. The district court correctly rejected that theory, which is now further eroded by Microsoft and Sony’s ten- year agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation—a contract Sony was 'thrilled' to enter.
"While the FTC has now tried to shift focus to its alleged subscription market, its letter does not map onto its arguments below. Setting aside that it is common for businesses to change service offerings over time, the FTC case in all of its alleged markets has always been premised on Vertical foreclosure, that Microsoft would withhold Call of Duty from rivals and therefore harm competition.
"But even in the alleged subscription market, Call of Duty is not being withheld from anyone who wants it. And there remains no evidence anywhere of harm to competition: Sony’s subscription service continues to thrive, even as they put few new games into their subscription day-and-date, unlike Microsoft.
"The transaction thus continues to benefit competition and consumers—exactly what the district court correctly found."
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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Day one dropped from whatever tier it was and now you have to pay more to get them. MS should just own this rather than the continued bullshit. MS are a company full of compulsive liars.
MS is a disaster in the gaming industry.
At best, they’ve been clueless about video games since the day they tried to buy Nintendo and got laughed out of Japan.
Not degraded? Wasn't the whole point of it to have games available on the service day one? Now, on console two out of the three tiers don't have that. Sounds pretty degraded to me
The basic tier was always like that; they are literally just adding a new tier. The price hike is happening to all subscriptions, and GamePass Ultimate/PC is exactly the same. It offers day-one games, and nothing has changed at all. Can you explain how this is degraded in any way?
It seems you have no clue about GamePass tiers in general and what the changes are if this sounds ´pretty degraded’ to you...
A person subscribing to the "console" tier of Gamepass used to get day one games.. now they will not. Hence downgraded. Yes they can still get that feature by moving to Ultimate, but at much greater cost - facing a cost much higher than those already on Ultimate copping the small price rise.
No, that console tier is not available to new customers, people having an active subscription can keep it by just renewing… they do not need to upgrade to ultimate at all.
Also the ‘much greater’ cost is a bit of a drama? And At the end GamePass Ultimate is by far the best deal in gaming at this point. And again, nobody is forced to switch to it if they want to keep their current ‘GamePass for Console’. A degradation would be something that is not available anymore to existing customer forcing them to upgrade which is not the case at all…
MS are failing further and further behind, and making GamePass even worse is not going to help this.goin
What they should say is "Fuck you FTC! The deal has already closed. You can go ahead and try to hit us with penalties, or try to force us to unwind the acquisition. But, we'll just tie that up in court until there's an administration that is more friendly to our position. So stop wasting our time and the taxpayers money."
What a load of bogus, for Xbox console users day 1 games are now locked onto ultimate
Only for new subscribers. People who already subscribe don’t need GPU for day one games.
For how long? Netflix said the same thing about the cheapest non add plan at $12 in the USA for a while, but is now about to kick everyone off of that plan that was locked in.
ssshh your spilling MS's obvious plan to the people who still believe everything MS says.
Your theory on the future doesn’t change the factual correction I made to the other comment.
The FTC is a CORRUPT organizstion, they wouldnt make this to Sony
Seems like they're adding more eggs into the "COD Day 1 Gamepass will move subs" bucket. I wonder what the plan is if that doesn't happen.
After the showcase and the games shown coming to GP, id say the service has been upgraded.
Stop complaining and just upgrade to ultimate it's the best deal in gaming
Spoken like someone who's truly comfortable owning nothing and eating the bugs
For $100 a year I can play both an extensive catalog of older titles as well as new ones without plunking down $60 or more each time. It's the best deal for me and in my opinion the vest deal in gaming. No need to hate on it and calling us poor
Seems like someone is kinda insecure not ‘owning’ some plastic disk? At the end, most people just want to play the game they want to play when they want to play them… and that is exactly what those services let you do. in this digital age, there is really no point of ‘owning’ a piece of software when you can get it online in so many ways. The great majority of people are not replaying ‘their old’ games over and over too
The future is streaming buddy get used to it guess what u probably buy digital and don't own that either what happens if Sony stops ps well that stuff is gone now for u
Essay Pro