Original story (Fri 19th Jul, 2024): Last week, after ongoing reports, Microsoft announced it would increase the price of Xbox Game Pass and also add a new 'Standard' subscription tier for $14.99 USD per month.
Unsurprisingly, this didn't go down very well with subscribers, and it seems the Federal Trade Commission (aka the FTC) in the US isn't happy about the news, either.
As highlighted by The Verge's senior editor Tom Warren, the regulator has "blasted Microsoft's Xbox Game Price increases" in a new filing to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and labelled the new 'Standard' tier a "degraded product".
"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,"
As noted by the source, this latest filing is part of an "ongoing appeal lodged by the FTC" after the district court did not block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard last year. And although Microsoft sealed the $68.7 billion dollar acquisition in October 2023, "the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals still hasn't ruled FTC's appeal".
