Microsoft doesn’t quite agree with the FTC’s recent comments, says no, Xbox Game Pass isn’t “degraded” following price hike
The Federal Trade Commission recently expressed that it has some issues with the recent Xbox Game Pass price hike, but Microsoft unsurprisingly disagrees.
Earlier this month, Microsoft finally pulled the trigger, and announced it was making Xbox Game Pass more expensive. That’ll likely be in part because of a lack of subscriber growth, as well as the fact that it did just spend a whole bunch of money on Activision Blizzard earlier this year (gotta get that Call of Duty money somewhere, after all). But the FTC, which tried to put a stop to the acquisition last year, recently made some comments about the price increase, alleging “product degradation.” These comments came as part of a recent filing from the FTC with the US Court of Appeals, claiming Microsoft is “exercising market power post-merger” and unsurprisingly, in a response to this filing, the tech company has flat out disagreed.
In a letter sent to the court, via The Verge’s Tom Warren, Microsoft claims that the FTC “presents a misleading, extra-record account of the facts and is a continuation of the agency’s attempts to reinvent its case on appeal.” It also notes that it’s unfair to call the new Game Pass Standard tier a “‘degraded’ version of the discontinued Game Pass for Console offering” because it didn’t offer “multiplayer functionality”. For Game Pass Ultimate, it also argued that “the service will offer more value through many new games available ‘day-and-date'” in particular Call of Duty, which it notes “has never before been available on a subscription day-and-date.”
Rounding off Microsoft’s letter is the point that the FTC “barely mentioned subscription at trial, instead focusing on the theory that Microsoft would withhold Call of Duty from Sony’s console,” which obviously isn’t the case (at least for the next 10 years). We’ll obviously have to wait and see what comes of this filing, but in the meantime, we’ve at least got you covered if you’re still finding the new Game Pass tiers confusing.
