Foss Patents put out a poll and he thought it would prove no one used cloud, but it turned out majority of respondents did say they used the Xbox cloud. Even if it wasn't regular use. Most said they used it for the rewards program Microsoft has. That's how i've used it as well as trying something out before deciding whether or not to buy it. Microsoft is on record saying they think cloud is going to play a big role in the future and CMA agreed.
That's the thing though, which blows my mind here. A business strategy is not a crime to have, it's what companies are supposed to do.
These are the business strategies that Microsoft laid out or illustrated during the course of this ordeal.
Multiple agreements with cloud competitors for games
Agreements with Sony/Nintendo to ensure Call of Duty on their respective platforms.
Deals with unions
Mobile storefront to compete with Apple/Google.
The above are tangible, achievable and realistically within Microsoft's reach and power to comply with and the CMA ignored them all.
Microsoft simply being on record saying that cloud is going to play a big role in the future means what? They can't force the market to respond in a while that the market might reject. Microsoft hoping for the cloud to become big is a desire but curiously, this is the thing the CMA took stock in.
Here is the transcript of Bill Gates' keynote speech at the Game…
www.ign.com
This is what Bill Gates called the original Xbox when he spoke on it during the 2000 GDC keynote speech.
Bill Gates: The modest tag line here is "the future of console gaming."
23 years later, Microsoft hasn't hit those lofty goals. Why? The market dictates what happens, with the actions of the participants being able to move freely.
We can go even further. Think about New Coke.
Coca-Cola was already the world's best selling drink.
Coca-Cola’s disastrous introduction of "New Coke" in 1985 delivered a painful lesson: Don't mess with a classic.
www.history.com
On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola Company chairman and CEO Roberto Goizueta stepped before the press gathered at New York City's Lincoln Center to introduce the new formula...
"Some may choose to call this the boldest single marketing move in the history of the packaged-goods business," Goizueta said. "We simply call it the surest move ever made." Coca-Cola president Donald Keough echoed the certainty: "I've never been as confident about a decision as I am about the one we're announcing today."
While Goizueta and Keough toasted each other with cans of New Coke, the news was already beginning to fall flat. On the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Coca-Cola dropped, while those of its rival rose. Pepsi gave its employees the day off and declared victory in full-page newspaper advertisements that boasted, ''After 87 years of going at it eyeball to eyeball, the other guy just blinked.''
Seventy-nine days after their initial announcement, Coca-Cola executives once again held a press conference on July 11, 1985—this time to announce a mea culpa and the return of the original formula, which hardly had time to gather dust in its Atlanta bank vault, under the label "Coca-Cola Classic." "Our boss is the consumer," Keough said. "We want them to know we're really sorry." The news was so momentous that television networks broke into normal programming with special reports.
The point of the history lesson is that all companies have plans. If they aren't congruent with the buying public, then than is all for naught.
But then there is the other point. If cloud gaming is going to be the rage, why did Google cut and run? They have just as much money as Microsoft. Why isn't Sony or Nintendo investing far more in this space?
Gaming is an industry that is structured as an oligopoly. It's why only Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo make consoles and have been the only companies for the past two decades. Not to mention the data caps in the United States. I pay Comcast and extra $50 a month for unlimited data. That's too rich for most people to do and that is already for the highest tier in my area.
I've long said that the CMA just didn't want the deal, but this is just such an intellectually lazy and flimsy way to go about blocking it.
