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FTC blasts Microsoft’s new ‘degraded’ Xbox Game Pass Standard tier and price increases

2024-07-18T19:51:45-04:00

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Trade Commission has blasted Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass price increases in a filing to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Microsoft revealed last week that it’s increasing PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate prices and planning to launch a new Game Pass Standard tier soon without day one access to first-party Xbox games.

The FTC calls this new Game Pass Standard tier a “degraded product” because new Game Pass users won’t be able to sign up for the $10.99 Game Pass for Console, which includes day one game access. Instead, Xbox Game Pass Standard will be priced at $14.99 and won’t include day one games, but it will include online multiplayer.

“Microsoft’s price increases and product degradation — combined with...

Microsoft now says the CMA was ‘tough and fair’ over Activision Blizzard deal

2024-01-02T07:55:48-05:00

Image: Getty Images

Microsoft president Brad Smith wasn’t happy with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last year after the regulator blocked Microsoft’s giant Activision Blizzard deal. Now that Microsoft has restructured its deal and won approval in the UK, Smith has kinder words for the CMA, describing the regulator as “tough and fair” in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today program.

Smith originally criticized the CMA and said confidence in the UK had been “severely shaken” after the regulator moved to block Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal in April last year. He called it the “darkest day” for Microsoft in its four decades of working in Britain and went a step further, saying “the European Union is a more attractive place to start a...