The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has slammed Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass tier changes as a “degraded product”, citing that by “removing the most valuable games from Microsoft’s new service”, Microsoft has delivered “exactly the sort of consumer harm from the merger the FTC has alleged”.
Microsoft confirmed sweeping changes – including price increases – to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service earlier this month.
“Microsoft’s price increases and product degradation – combined with Microsoft’s reduced investments in output and product quality via employee layoffs – are the hallmarks of a firm exercising market power post-merger.
“Microsoft promised that ‘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)’.” Earlier this year, FTC claimed that its planned layoff of 1900 people across Xbox and Activision Blizzard went against what was said in court last year, in regards to how Activision would remain structurally independent.