Congress is finding time to yell at Sony on behalf of Microsoft

Senator Ron Wyden voices his concerns about US digital policy.

screenshot: US Senate Committee on Finance

There are many issues that Congress can focus on now. The following banking regulations SVB breakdown, For example. Or help the Americans Those with basic living expenses. Perhaps they are working on a long overdue fix Broken healthcare system. Instead, they are deeply concerned about the potential for Japan to be unfair to American companies like Microsoft. Now both Democrats and Republicans are sending letters to top Biden officials asking them to tell Japan to give Xbox a bigger share of their market.

Originally reported by Axios10 members of Congress signed two letters Addressed to US Trade Representative Catherine Tay and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “We are writing today to bring to your attention the imbalanced Japanese video game market, which we are concerned may be the result of a discriminatory trade practice that could violate the spirit of the US-Japan Digital Trade Agreement,” he said. Republican speech. like that Repeat the claim That Sony owns 98% of the console market in Japan, and that it makes exclusive arrangements to keep popular games from Xbox.

98% of this console’s market claim excludes PC, Nintendo, and mobile games. In 2020, Nintendo Switch counts 87% of keyboards Sold in Japan. Every video game distributor pays for exclusivity—something the video game sitcoms probably should know before trying to push foreign trade policies. To back up their somewhat confusing claims, the letter cites an article from Gaming Smart—A publisher of gaming content that provides calculators and other gaming-related content that is only available 32 followers on Twitter.

the letter Representatives of the Democrats said that Japan’s policy of “non-prosecution” towards Sony hurts US exports. “Such policies can distort trade in the United States and third countries by providing monopolistic leases at home that can be leveraged to compete abroad,” the letter states. Again, they’re talking about a business practice that every major game distributor in the world does. Those in glass houses should not throw stones and so on.

Kotaku She reached out to the offices of Tai and Raimondo, but had not received a response by the time of publication.

This strange push to help Microsoft is interesting because it relates to the antitrust laws of an entirely different country. Meanwhile, the United States is in shambles. Can we get a little bit of universal health care? Maybe student loans are forgiven for everyone? Can we put some regulations on the financial people who Manipulated government bonds? no? Well, then move on.

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