Console players aren’t alone in their discontent over Microsoft simultaneously raising prices on the Xbox Game Pass service and reducing access to day one titles. The United States Federal Trade Commission is calling shenanigans on the game studio for the move, saying that the “price increases and product degradation are the hallmarks of a firm exercising market power post-merger.”
To address this, the FTC is filing a motion with the US Court of Appeals, citing specific moves on Microsoft’s part to make the Xbox Game Pass service worse for everybody except the company itself. This follows several other post-merger moves by Microsoft such as laying off hundreds of employees and shuttering studios under its umbrella after telling the courts it would not do so (which the FTC noticed as well).
“For consumers unwilling to pay 81 percent more, Microsoft is introducing a degraded product, ‘Game Pass Standard,’ at $14.99/month,” the FTC wrote in its filing. “This product costs 36 percent more than Console Game Pass and withholds day-one releases. Product degradation — removing the most valuable games from Microsoft’s new service — combined with price increases for existing users is exactly the sort of consumer harm from the merger the FTC has alleged.”
the FTC is calling Microsoft's new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier a "degraded product" in a filing with the US Court of Appeals for the 9th circuit. The FTC claims Microsoft is "exercising market power post-merger" of Activision Blizzard pic.twitter.com/Q5tYMAKoN2
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) July 18, 2024
