the U.S. Congress He wrote a letter against Sony and Japan dated March 23, 2023 describing what appears to be a systematic boycott Xbox and its products on the ground. More precisely, the letter aims to highlight imbalances in the Japanese video game market, which according to Congress could be “one of the consequences of discriminatory business practices Which would violate the spirit of the US-Japan Digital Trade Agreement.”
Even American politics have now taken a stand in the war between Sony and Microsoft for the console market, which came after the Japanese company’s attempt to prevent the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The letter goes on to state the signatories’ point: “Japan allows foreign game companies to sell in its market, but American companies have never been able to gain a foothold. Microsoft launched Xbox in Japan in 2002 and despite 20 years of investment, it still has share market share of 2% of the high-performance gaming hardware market, and we believe that the fault lies in the Japanese government’s tolerance of the exclusionary behavior of its domestic companies, which may violate Japanese antitrust law, and its inaction that ends up harming the competitiveness of American companies in the region, we learned that Sony , which owns 98% of the market, pays game publishers Third parts Not making their content available on Xbox and systematically entering into exclusive deals that keep the most popular games in Japan off Xbox. “
Also you can read very difficult tones. Of course, think of the Japanese market without taking into account Nintendo Switch It’s a bit of a stretch, but the letter specifies that we’re talking about high-performance consoles, which automatically excludes Nintendo hardware from the group.
Whatever the case, the message indicates that Sony represents “serious obstacleto export US products, which severely affects Microsoft and many US developers and publishers, who may see their revenues “low” because of these practices, which are intended to protect Japanese firms’ market shares from foreign firms.
The letter therefore calls on the Japanese government to put an end to discrimination Against corporate America, concrete action.
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