Cloud gaming has a lot of competition and they all are companies with deep pockets: Microsoft, Sony, Nvidia, Google, Amazon. They can afford to do what Microsoft is doing if they so choose. This isn’t some new paradigm. This is how this business is run. If it is not console exclusives it is platform exclusives. It is the only real differentiator.
The same way they "controlled" the smartphone market with Windows Mobile in the pre iPhone/Android days?
It's an entirely new market. 60-70% of all current users is an insignificant proportion of all potential users so it doesen't mean much. And well it's not their fault that they other megacorps like Google are so incompetent.
Do you know somebody nobody else outside MS does? Cause that doesen't seem at all likely to me.
I looked at some of the most recent games released or to be released by Microsoft, like:
Grounded
- Age of Empires IV
- Forza Horizon 5
- Halo Infinite
- Psychonauts 2
- Minecraft Legends
- Ara: History Untold
Guess what, every single one of them is available on Steam.
And this time: that's already the case for Activision Blizzard. They are not available on any cloud gaming service, by design. They were cease-and-desist-ed off NVIDIA's GeForce NOW and the EULA directly forbids running on cloud gaming services or devices.
They blocked the acquisition on a premise that cloud gaming will be huge in the future and that Microsoft might make Activision Blizzard games exclusive to their Xbox Cloud. Taking in consideration Microsoft's enormous comparative advantages like owning Xbox, Xbox Cloud, Game Pass, Windows, Microsoft Azure plus lots of gaming franchises, this block somewhat makes sense.
But what worries me the most is Zenimax acquisition that gave Microsoft some of the most iconic gaming franchises of all time (Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, Fallout, Elder Scrolls) and the reality is that most likely these franchises will never see a day of light on any other cloud gaming platform except Xbox Cloud.
I can't believe that Zenimax and Bethesda gave in and sold out to the Microsoft despite thriving on their own.
CMA and FTC should've blocked Zenimax acquisition first which would then discourage Microsoft from attempting to acquire Activision Blizzard. But that unfortunately didn't happen, quite the opposite Microsoft grew even more greedier after acquiring Zenimax.