Xbox and the FTC haven’t recently been the best of friends, to say the least. The regulatory body in America took aim at the Activision Blizzard acquisition last year, and while it did rescind its case, it still seems that there are a lot of eyes watching Xbox.
In a new statement shared with Tom Warren of The Verge, the FTC has gone after Xbox’s recent change to Game Pass prices, calling Game Pass Standard a “degraded product.” Following that, the FTC claims that the increases to price, layoffs and product degradation are “hallmarks of a firm exercising market power post-merger.”
The FTC also believes that what Microsoft and Xbox are doing is inconsistent with what was promised before the merger was finalised last year, as it wasn’t explicitly mentioned that the addition of Call of Duty would come with the removal of one service and the addition of a lesser one.
Do you agree with the FTC?