Last week, you might remember a story floating around about a US senator claiming that Sony had a “98% monopoly on the high-end gaming market” in Japan, and that story has evolved significantly. over the past few hours.
Axios reports that 11 members of Congress are concerned that Sony is unfairly hurting Xbox Japan, which is once again targeting this “unbalanced” Japanese gaming market. Here’s what one of the letters, signed by four members of Congress, said about PlayStation’s conduct in the country:
“We understand that the Japanese government tolerates a variety of exclusionary behaviors by its domestic companies that may violate Japan’s antitrust laws, and that this inaction by the Japanese government harms the ability of U.S. companies to compete in the country.”
“We understand that Sony, which has 98% of the (high-end) market: pays third-party game publishers to make their content unavailable on Xbox and routinely negotiates exclusivity deals that keep the most popular games in Japan off Xbox .”
It is also mentioned in one of the letters that this “imbalance” could “violate the spirit” of the US-Japan Digital Trade Agreement, which calls for “non-discriminatory treatment of digital products”.
Axios says that while Microsoft “won’t say how involved it was in orchestrating this push,” the outlet understands that Microsoft’s government affairs team has “discussed these issues with members of the Congress”.
Here’s what Microsoft spokesperson David Cuddy had to say in a statement:
“Sony’s anti-competitive tactics are worth discussing and we welcome further investigation to ensure a level playing field in the video game industry.”
It will be interesting to see what happens next, so we probably didn’t hear about it until the end!
In related news, a good resolution is coming out of Japan for Microsoft today, as the Japan Fair Trade Commission said the acquisition of Activision Blizzard “would not materially restrict competition in certain areas of the business.”
What do you think of all this? Let us know in the comments section below.
(source axios.com)
Fraser has an unhealthy obsession with all things Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead series and has an intimate knowledge of sports games on Xbox. He also supports Walsall FC, that West Midlands team you’ve never heard of.