Not all competition benefits consumers.
A competitor that works to attract consumers by proposing a quality product is, of course, always desired.
Competitors who are driven by quality encourage quality in the industry as a whole.
But since Microsoft entered the console market, the following happened:
- Online multiplayer paywall became normalized.
- Drive to digital only, harming legacy games conservation.
- Drive to the bottom in terms of aggressive microtransatctions and nickel-and-diming costumers. MS heavily promoted and were the ones who encouraged Todd Howard to introduce the infamous "horse armour" that started everything.
- Drive to the bottom in terms of games quality due to an obsession of copying the Netflix business model. The proliferation of this subscription craze (that in fact circles back to the first item in this list) has led to a contraction of the games industry.
- Pursuing anti-consumer consolidation by acquiring third-party publishers wholesale with an obvious intent of starving the competition of content.
This company not only directly harmed consumers, it also influenced their competitors to follow suit in the worst possible ways.
If it wasn't for nearly a decade of propaganda shoved down people's throats that it's ok to pay a second rent just to be able to use your internet to play games online, Sony and Nintendo would have never dared to start charging for online multiplayer.
No, not all competition is good. Microsoft would not be missed if they were to leave. Anything but that disgusting corporation.
