Former Adam Ruins Everything host Adam Conover thinks he's figured out the real problem with Microsoft owning Activision Blizzard. While most people have been focused on Xbox owning the Call of Duty developer eventually pulling the franchise off of PlayStation, Conover thinks there's a much bigger problem that could shake the entire video game industry.
The show Adam Ruins Everything might have been canceled, but it appears that Adam Conover is still doing what he used to do on TruTV. Mainly he's taking a deep dive into different industries and telling stories and figuring out mysteries that other people might be overlooking. When it comes to Microsoft and its purchasing of Activision Blizzard, he thinks this isn't just about having the ability to offer even more titles on its own platform. In short, Conover thinks that while some people are comparing the company to the Netflix of gaming, he thinks the firm has its heart set on becoming the Amazon of gaming instead.
On his personal TikTok account, Conover explained that the takeover of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft could hurt competition, but it could hurt competition far more than people have realized so far. He believes that Xbox could use its Game Pass platform to basically cripple the rest of the video game world by offering its service for $9.99 a month while everyone else has to continue asking for $60 or $70 per copy.
He explained that Microsoft can continue to use Game Pass and its ever-growing subscriber base as a way to undercut Sony and Nintendo, mainly because the company never has to make money off the platform. While Sony and Nintendo need their video game divisions to make money, Microsoft can lean on its larger business operations such as the Windows operating system that's used by almost every PC in the world not made by Apple.
This is where Conover's comparison of Microsoft and Amazon comes into play. Amazon has long been willing to take a loss with its various services because it knows it's growing faster than any of its competitors. He believes Microsoft is willing to do the same thing using Game Pass to the point where it could even run Sony out of business, or at least leave its competitors very weak.
He added that should Microsoft's takeover of Activision Blizzard get final approval, the goal isn't simply to weaken competition so that the company can be considered the best of the best. Rather, once it has become the most powerful video game company by offering titles at severely reduced prices, Microsoft will then be free to raise prices well past what they are now. In short, Conover believes that Microsoft wants to use its "massive cash advantage to undercut and dominate the entire game industry." He added that this would be "bad for video game makers and video game players."
