Like video games? Then prepare to pay more for internet service, analysts are warning. It has to do with a combination of two factors...
Microsoft was quick to fire back against the FTC’s latest claim
All the whiners 😭 complaining about Gamepass, where were they when Sony increased their prices and introduced several tiers for PS Plus membership?
When Sony does it, it's perfectly acceptable. When Microsoft does it, all hell breaks loose...
Hypocrites 🤡 much!
BTW, I bet most whiners 😭 complaining don't have or even care about Gamepass. They whine simply because it's Microsoft.
We were very vocal and many people including myself cancelled their subs. Tf are you talking about? 🤣
As isarai..said. even i cancelled it when they raised their prices. Im enjoying single player games now.
It's not the price increase the main problem. It's the removal of day one releases for console users while PC user are safe (for now). It's a weird message being send to console fan ( "You should have bought a PC bro !)
This has nothing to do with PlayStation, this is about Microsoft breaking its promises.
Bringing up PlayStation is just a petty deflection attempt to not take responsibility for their own actions.
People are unhappy because this has caused thousands of people to lose their jobs, four studio closures and xbox owners should be mad about price increases and the fact that Microsoft paywalled day one games breaking their promise to their own consumers. Now even if you don't want Call of Duty you're paying for it.
The xboners like you who keep defending this type of stuff are actually making things worse for yourselves because you keep sending the message that no matter how much Microsoft bends you over by breaking their promises you're still going to defend them.
Xbox gamers make gaming worse for everyone every time they defend this type of crap.
@Einhander1972
When ponies like you accept anything Sony does without complaining, that's the major problem here...
Sony can do anything they want, and people like you will simply take it with a smile.
This has nothing to do with Sony.
It just shows how weak the argument is when the best you and Microsoft can can do is deflect with whataboutism's.
This is about Microsoft buying a huge publisher then going to court and saying things they knew weren't true, then going back on their own word. They went into court and knew telling the truth wouldn't be popular with either the court or the public so they lied in court. That is what is being judged here, not anything that Sony did.
You claim we are defending a price increase, but you are defending outright lies that have caused studio closures job losses and your own price increases and new games are paywalled to a higher tier.
And what did you get? Games that you were already going to get without buying these publishers. And on top of that now regardless of if someone actually wanted the games they are forced to pay extra for them.
The scale difference between our two arguments is huge.
"Sony can do anything they want, and people like you will simply take it with a smile"
Isn't that what you are doing with Microsoft's price increase you hypocrite? I bet you were the first to complain about Sony's increase, but not surprisingly first to defend Microsoft's increase because you are a hypocrite.
They didn't "remove day one" for console users, they created a tier that doesn't get them. They basically brought back Live Gold with GamePass games instead of monthly drops.
Yeah I complained when Sony increased their prices it was dramatic and they didn't even comment on why it was fine and I'll complain here to
In fact there was a huge outcry just because you missed it doesn't mean it didn't happen
It wasn’t the same thing. Sony’s tiers didn’t take anything away from people. Two of the tiers already existed. No promise was broken. Xbox tiers are breaking promises MS has made regarding day one, while also increasing price.
People were complaining and pissed. Only you seem to think Sony gamers graciously accepted it. You sure do whine a lot don't you
^^^^
@Hotpot
"Your turn, criticize MS yourself, right now."
He's a hypocrite so he won't. He's going to simply take it with a smile on his face like the pic in his avi 😭
I’m not trying to be an ass here when asking this, I just genuinely want to understand more. What’s the case that the FTC have?
@crismon
Microsoft said to courts when they purchased Activision they wouldn't raise the price with gamepass but they did after they got Activision.
@slave3: “It a warp lol ftc is need but this case against Ms is over.
😭😭”
Well at least PLAYSTATION GET ALL Xbox FORMER “EXCLUSIVES”.
GEAR is next on the list of lubricants before they ram the big HALO on PlayStation.
So enjoy winning that FTC battle to badly loose the war 😭😭.
Edited for typos
I mean, yeah.. if any of these tier options aren't right for you, you can always just buy your games the old fashioned way.
You can buy games the old fashioned way now. Microsoft’s end game is releasing Call of Duty exclusivity on Game Pass.
For now.
I can assure you, Microsoft wants subscriptions to access their games.
Just a matter of when not if or optional.
If the price raise was attributed to the acquisition. Nobody can make that claim, and every sub service has been raising their prices. Sony made a massive one not long ago.
The problem is Gamepass price was already raised last year, just for them to raise it again this year. That right there will help the FTC's argument
It's only gets magnified when Spencer's words don't match what the company does. He said publically gamepass wouldn't change as a result of COD. He said the price wouldn't change. Both of those things were clearly untrue. Among other things
They didn't just raise the price though, they also removed day one games from the standard tier and paywalled new games behind a more expensive tier which they also raised the price on.
And the FTC's appeal also brings up the job losses and studio closures as evidence that this deal should have been blocked.
Well, one thing is for sure Microsoft knows more than anyone about misleading people.
The fact is Microsoft said they wouldn't raise prices due to the merger then they did including making a new tier of game pass. They said they wouldn't fire people and they did. And they also closed studios so it's hard to argue that the effect on the consumer and the industry hasn't been negative.
This is a incredibly weak rebuttal.
Go and google the FTC case against Sony for misleading it's customers about the PS Vita. Then come back and discuss who knows more than anyone about misleading people.
What you claim Microsoft said is just lies. They never said they wouldn't raise prices or fire anyone. And even if they did it's their right. You statement is pretty weak and proves nothing but you have a bias just like so many other people here. You guys are just butt hurt that Microsoft won this case and it backfired in Sony's face because they threw stones and thought their own deals would not be a factor but they were. As a matter of fact it was one of the factors that helped MS win the case. Just take the L because it's a done deal. It seems the only effects from this deal is upset playstation only fans who thought the deal was never going to happen. Microsoft won. Get over it. Stop worrying about things we have no control of. Just play games you like and don't focus so much on who made it and all that petty stuff.
You're here again Sony grrrr in a MICROSOFT article
Just chuffed you've given up the obsession with Jim Ryan with just a few more sessions and you'll be able to comment on the actual article you can do it reaper the community is right behind you
Chin up
https://n4g.com/user/home/l...
You don't understand.
Sony is not part of this appeal at all. Sony wasn't even a part of the original FTC case. The FTC brought this case aledging that Micrsofts buyout of ABK would have a negative impact on the industry. They claimed that it would cause job loss and and that the consumer and the industry would be negativly effected from the buy out including from price increases to game pass.
Sony was only there to provide testimony on how they expected the buyour to negativly effect thier buisness.
They did not file the suit.
This appeal is of the ruling that blocked their injunction, and the FTC is presenting evidence that the buyout has in fact had the negative impact that they said it would and which was the basis for their injunction call.
The fact that you and Microsoft need to keep bringing up Sony instead of actually defending the actions themselves shows that you don't actually have a defense at all.
When was the last time a company had agreed on claims?
Was is it before or after the dinosaurs got extinct?
FTC and Sony took an L on this. When Microsoft provided proof that Sony does similar things and agreed with the 10 year deal it was game over.
They are trying to buy the biggest publisher in the world. Who owns/makes shit tons of games.
FTC says you're going to raise prices.
Microsoft says they won't, and also that it would harm them to do so.
Deal goes through.
Microsoft raises prices.
FTC says you said you wouldnt do that.
Microsoft says well they have more games now.
NO FUCKING SHIT YOU IDIOTS. THATS WHAT THE WHOLE DEAL WAS ABOUT. IT WASNT UNEXPECTED.
You seem to be a bit confused on the case. The FTC case was Microsoft was going to raise prices on games and keep them off of Playstation and other consoles. Neither were true. Microsoft never said their game subscription service would stay the same price. Did they raise GP price because of COD and other Activision games? That's hard to prove. Even if they did it's their right to do so. If you don't like it don't play xbox.Everyone is entitled to their opinion but if you don't play xbox or have gamepass then your argument is a lost cause. Microsoft has taken plenty of Ls and survived and didnt relinquish on their plans.This was a huge win for them. Perhaps the FTC should of done their homework beforehand. Maybe they would of had a stronger case. Sonys own dealings(paying gamepass blocking fees to publishers, not providing their own documentation to counter Microsoft)was a big reason this deal went through. They were trying to sabotage gamepass and it backfired.
There's no confusion. The case was about the whole purchase. Microsoft did state that they wouldn't raise prices as part of that whole case.
"the acquisition would benefit consumers by making [Call of Duty] available on Microsoft's Game Pass on the day it is released on console (with no price increase for the service based on the acquisition), on Nintendo, and on other services that allow cloud streaming".
Drinking game......
When reaper22 brings up Sony or Jim Ryan in each post you have to take a shot of something you'll need it reading the shiite
“The FTC barely mentioned subscription at trial”.
Lol, is Dr. Disrespect doing the defense?
Ah, but you see It was mentioned, (it is even acknowledged in the response. Hilarious). It has grounds. The foundation for the case is absolutely there.
So they didn't actually say anything outside of nuh uh
It's clear these services across the bored are unsustainable excluding NSO as emulators of 20 to 40nyear old games probability are not that expensive
Despite losing its lawsuit seeking an injunction to freeze Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard in July 2023, the FTC appealed the decision with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. While it awaits a final decision from those justices, the FTC’s been filing additional evidence to support its claims that the merger would hurt competition in gaming and hurt customers, including a letter from earlier this year after Microsoft laid off nearly 2,000 employees across the newly acquired teams.
FTC never heard of inflation. Did they expect Gampass to remain the same price forever?
Would be funny if Gampass remained at 10€ fifty years from now...
"Microsoft insists Game Pass prices ‘will not increase as a result of Activision merger"
https://www.videogameschron...
"It says a price rise “would be counter-productive as it would increase subscriber churn rates”
"Game Pass prices will not increase as a result of the Merger"
Gamepass wouldn't increase in result of the merger... but it doesn't mean it wouldn't increase due to other reasons, like inflation, extra expenses, etc. Do you expect Gamepass to remain the same price forever?
All other online services have been increasing prices.
I cancelled my Ultimate sub after the announcement, so they were right. And yet, they still did it. That is so MS.
Inflation is down since they made that statement.
They also call into question the 2000+ people Microsoft has fired from the developers they bought.
And again, this is contradictory to what Microsoft said they would do.
They lied in court.
Lol...they never said gamepass wouldn't increase and they never said it would because of the merger. And even they did it's their right to do so. So what's your point?
Sony and other streaming services (Netflix, HBO, ...) have been increasing prices and altering their services. Do you expect Gamepass to remain the same price forever?
Others can increase prices and alter their services, but Microsoft can't?
Hypocrite much!
Exactly let's not forget this deal was done under the same economic climate this was predictable yet they maintained they would not be increasing prices yet now the merger is done they increased prices and split tiers to avoid further scrutiny.
This is and always has been how Microsoft do business deflect blame and increase profits
You are correct. It's actually lower. It was around 7% in 2021 and now it's around 3%, which is ideal.
inflation aint the same thing as to lock stuff behind a paywall that was previously not. lol
Yeah you're right. It's just a coincidence that this happened after spending billions of dollars buying up the industry. And closing studios. And firing thousands of people. All while barely being able to give away Xboxes. It's all because of inflation. LOL
Fanboyism bro this is pure fanboyism, it's bs we all know it so stop defending Microsoft.
Except $/mb of broadband, $/mb of storage, and $/compute power only gets cheaper over time. As Microsoft’s overhead has gone down, it’s prices have gone up.
@lelo: “FTC never heard of inflation. Did they expect Gampass to remain the same price forever?
Would be funny if Gampass remained at 10€ fifty years from now...”
I see you got the industrial size chapstick truck from Microsoft and put it into use already.
Add one more backpedaling to Microsoft and Phil rhetorics
Gamepass price was going up regardless of inflation or not and you know it. Hey atleast you guys have an excuse to ride for a little bit
Need I remind you of how much MS is worth? There was no need to let anyone go or any studio. MS are just cancer and should leave the industry.
Apparently it's ok that they raised PSN prices, but Xbox can't compete?!
The "Standard" is just a rebranded Xbox Live. Not expected but not crazy since they didn't really have a proper entry level subscription to match PSNs entry level.
Xbox raised their prices last year too though, their entry level was core or gamepass console.
The whole "Bu bu but Sony" thing with the PSN doesn't take into consideration Microsofts whole argument to the FTC during the entire Activision merger court case is that they wouldn't raise prices due to the merger, nothing would change.
Sony never said shit about raising prices and the like so while we can think it's scummy the FTC won't have an issue with it because the argument wasn't towards them, they never swore against anything.
If the Activision merger never happened and Microsoft raised their prices as a standard thing, like Sony with the PSN or even how Netflix has done it with their subscription it would have been business as usual.
I'm so tired of the Sony defense team. Pay off me thinks a lot of these comments come from Sony shills
All the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just got a free windows 11 upgrade!
The price hike just brings it closer in line to PSN, yet it still has greater value. The standard sub matches the lowest PSN sub.
FTC trying to seem relevant. Claiming their multi million dollar case was to stop a $3 dollar price hike is a stupid argument and embarrassing for them.
PS+
$80 per year cheaper
More total games
Retro Games - Added monthly
VR games - Added Monthly
Ubisoft + Classics
4 k Streaming of nearly all games including ones you own digital not on the service. (xbox 1080p series s)
Sony Pictures Catalog
Anime from Crunchyroll
Full Game Trials with Trophy Support
PSN absolutely does not have more total games. I have PSN Ultimate or whatever it's called.
They don't get day one exclusives.
They don't even have Last of Us 2 Remake on there yet! Or Last of Us Part 1!!
You get Ubisoft classics, so does Xbox. But w Xbox also get EA games!
VR games don't matter to me, but Xbox also gets PC games that don't matter to me.
Both have classic games.
Streaming means nothing to me, it's still a failed concept, Digital Foundry tests it often, and it's not there yet for "serious gamers". The lag is intense!
Sony pictures and anime are neat, I'll give ya that.
Full game trials are cool, but Xbox gets the full game day one, so.... 🤷
I haven't had a good game in PSN since HellDivers, this year has been dead.
Honestly, once Xbox starts dumping all these exclusives on to GamePass, it's gonna be a flood of great titles
It's $80 cheaper, you're paying $240 a year in hopes of getting Microsoft games, and things aren't looking great on the development side of things beyond all the stuff they started 5 years ago. There is no guarantee that some of these studios will even exist going forward.
No, game pass does not offer Ubisoft Classics, and you only need Extra unlike EA Play which requires Ultimate.
And it doesn't matter what you don't want, xbox isn't offering it for people who do. Those things add value for a lot of people.
What digital foundry found was that PS+ Streaming was vastly superior to xcloud.
Full Game Trials include 3'rd party games.
PlayStation get's "good games" all the time that aren't on xbox,GranBlue Fantasy Relink, Final Fantasy, Helldivers, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Zenless Zone Zero, Pacific Drive ect. every week something new comes out or is announced for PlayStation that's not on xbox.
And you're bragging about day one but that keep proving to be unsustainable. That's why studios got closed, 5000+ people got fired, games got ported to PlayStation, the reward system got gutted, prices were increased multiple times and those new games got removed from game pass and paywalled to a more expensive tier.
@GamerRN
I guess you don't subscribe to both services.
PS+ Premium has close to 1000 games.
GPU has less than 500.
GPU doesn't come with Ubisoft Classic.
However, the do have EA Play instead.
I pay 120$ a year by using cdkeys.com for GamePass Ultimate
And I definitely have both... My main gripe is PSN extreme or whatever it's called is u don't have all the 1st party stuff I want. That being said I just started up Death Standing Directors cut (terrible game, cool story)... I really want Last of Us Part 1 and Part 2.... Other than that, I don't think I have access to Ubisoft games? Where do I access those? Are there any good ones? The menu system is very confusing trying to go to classic games, PSN collection, etc etc etc
The FTC should give up. Microsoft owns the US Government and then someday the world and all its useless masses.
They're not wrong.
But with MS main competitor Sony raising PS Plus prices roughly 30% across all tiers last September and in general sub services hiking prices or experimenting with different tiers like ones with ads (probably coming to GP soon) I think they won't have trouble arguing they're not doing anything others aren't who haven't just shelled out massively for mergers.
But when it's done on the unprecedented size and scale MS are doing it it's a concern.
But Sony was not the one lying in court saying they will not increase the price of their subs if they are allowed to buy AVK for $70B
I think the FTC have a good argument. But with Sony increasing prices and other sub services in general before MS it's not hard for them to spin the price hikes and new tiers as just part of an industry trend and not due to the merger.
If nobody else was raising prices or experimenting with tiers then they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but they are.
Like Governments burying bad news on big news days, MS can use the current industry wide troubles and economic climate to legitimise their actions.
Sony increased their yearly prices by 30% last year. Which Microsoft doesn't have.
Going by yearly Extra is 11.25 a month compared to 15 a month for Gamepass standard.
Going by yearly Premium is 13.33 a month compared to 20 a month for Ultimate. And let's not forget yearly PS+ is on sale (25 to 30%) several times a year like it just was for days of play recently.
Also both Sony and Microsoft had a price increase last year. This is another price increase from Microsoft.
So since Sony raised the prices last year Microsoft can raise to whatever they want how many times they want?
Microsoft has been operating as a branch of the US Government for quite some time. This is why they have been able to get away with so much anti consumer stuff on Windows 11. Yet Google, Amazon etc have all been getting scalded by the Government.
They aren't incompetent.
But you can only do so much when so many are in corporate pockets, including politicians and judges.
Companies pay bribes... I mean lobby to make sure consumer protection rules don't apply to them, the FTC has been made powerless. MS is well versed in avoiding rules that apply to others.
I understand what you mean, I am not asking FTC to have won, I just expect them to provide one worthwhile argument and defend it well, gamers where providing more detailed arguments than FTC even tried to make
@H9
FTC provided worthwhile arguments, they basically prophesied the Game Pass price increases from Xbox post-merger. Somehow that isn't enough for you.
It a real shame that politicians have been so successful in turning the public against civil servants who keep the country running. Rather than blame political for the shit state of things, they blame everyone else!
I see what they mean and thanks, but it does seem like an inevitable price hike.
The value is starting to be especially debatable now though and the odd tier system makes it feel like a mess.
Ok, and were you trying to prevent this when PS+ doubled their price? How much of a price hike is the Gamepass price from what it was previously? Is it comparable to PS+'s price hike? Nintendo also added an additional tier to their service that you have to pay more for. Is the FTC trying to prevent those or only going against Xbox? What is the "consumer harm" exactly that only Xbox is doing, but the others aren't?
Hell, while we're at it, what about Netflix and Amazon Prime raising prices? You preventing those? Like, what's the difference with Xbox that you were trying to prevent? Y'all seemed extremely clueless about the game industry in court.
Meh, fine with the $3 increase. My Playstation Premium renews in 2025, I may reduce that as I rarely play the old games and only need the minimum to play online. Everything in life has gone up, blame whom you wish, this is where we are at, as I wish they could have stopped my car insurance, house insurance, taxes, everything you buy at the store, every app, gas from going up, too while they were trying to stop MS. Did people think the gaming industry was immune? Reality..
Let me get this straight
Thousands of jobs lost
Price increase for new subscribers
Still no 9/10 or 10/10 games
And people are happy with this
How?
There's one small problem with that... Peacock is part of a totally different industry, one that doesn't make video games.
I hope MS will get fucked over in the long run. They are worth 3 trillion so I don't see any fine hurting them. They should be forced to bring back all the employees they let go and the studios as well on top of back pay lost plus extra benefits.
If the FTC can pressure Microsoft into back pedaling then I will happily watch from the sidelines.
Who didn't see this coming you don't buy the number one IP in terms of raw sales and profit per year for the last 20 years to simply give it away for 10 bucks a month.
So many people looked at Microsoft as their best mate during the process like they were going to make cod a free game for them.
Sorry no Microsoft is a cutthroat business they've done this same thing in other areas come in take over buy out competition and increase the prices as the consumers are locked in and would not be able to move away look at Azure every other month there's a new licensing SKU to do something or a price increase to the point of organisations moving away from cloud and spending millions to move back to on prem or multi cloud approaches
The low number of new games coming to Xbox Game Pass as part of July 2024's Wave 2 lineup couldn't have come at a worse time for Microsoft. Just recently, Microsoft raised the price of Xbox Game Pass, and not only that, but it's announced that major day one releases will be locked behind Game Pass Ultimate. These decisions have understandably upset longtime Xbox Game Pass subscribers, with analysts predicting that another price hike and perhaps an ad-based tier could potentially be introduced down the line.
You'd think they would have packed the lineup after announcing an impending price increase in Sept.
That would just be throwing good money after bad at this point. Microsoft needs to just drop this failed experiment altogether, leave Xbox in the wind and become the biggest 3rd party publisher on the planet. It's the only way they will ever be successful in gaming.
They already were successful in gaming before joining the console space. And they already are the biggest 3rd party publisher on the planet. They are in this to make $$ from all fronts. So suggesting they bow out and only focus on one area is a stupid idea. They make $$ from all of them, some more than others... but they all make $$.
The console, and gamepass is just costing them money and splitting their focus. They would make more money simply being a publisher, not a platform holder, and SELLING their games, like publishers are supposed to.
They wouldn't be acting like they are if that wasn't true. Xbox is the red headed step child of Microsoft's gaming portfolio now. Just sell games. You've bought enough Dev's and IP now to do that.
Rumors are circulating that Microsoft may add Modern Warfare 3 to Game Pass this month, as suggested by the current game release schedule, which lists only five games instead of the usual seven.
They released 8 games during Wave 1 for July… and the 3 coming now are all actually quite interesting.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (Cloud/PC/Xbox Series X) - July 18
Dungeons of Hinterberg (Cloud/PC/Xbox Series X) - July 18
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (Cloud/Consoles/PC) - July 19
I’d say releasing 11 games in 1 month for gamepass should be enough…
The reason for the price increase is the same as the reason for procuring fewer games from their parties; more profit.
To be fair, the July releases on Game Pass are great. I'd rather have today on my ps5 then the junk we are given.
Which would make no sense since PC users utilize a lot more bandwidth than console gamers do in general (MMOs alone).
Exactly why the internet needs to be classified as a public utility same as water/gas/electric. Telcos had a chance to make good on the promises to the FCC and failed. Time to move on.
A bit of a non-issue here in the UK. The cost between paying for a limited bandwidth usage package and unlimited is marginal and has been this way for years.
Yeah right,once gamers stop playing their onoine games and cancelling their bs internet, then they willrevert back and want us back . This is why i want Google fiber to come out to other states, so people can see how they get ripped off by their isp
When I can't get decent internet for around $40 a month I'll drop it. I'm not going back to an AOL like system.