British officials take a U-turn to buy Activision Blizzard

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In a flashback, the CMA supervisor no longer assumes that Microsoft can profitably offer games from Activision Blizzard for its own Xbox console only. However, the possible implications of the $69 billion deal for the cloud gaming market are still under review.

In particular, Sony warns of the disadvantages of its business with the Playstation console. The CMA wrote Friday that it revised its February assessment of business prospects of an Xbox exclusivity for games like “Call of Duty” after evaluating new data. Meanwhile, Microsoft had criticized the agency’s calculations.

“Updated analysis concluded that it would not be commercially beneficial for Microsoft to make Call of Duty Xbox exclusive after the deal,” the CMA said. Said. Instead, Microsoft will have an incentive to continue making the game available on the Playstation.” The software group had already agreed in February that “Call of Duty” would stay on game streaming service Geforce Now and Nintendo’s Switch game console.

CMA plans to make its decision on the case on April 26. In the US, there is already a barrier to takeover by litigation from the supervisory authority, the FTC. In a lawsuit he filed in December, he too argued that the acquisition would give Microsoft too much market power and hurt competition in the game console business.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard announced the biggest deal to date in the gaming industry in January 2022. The EU Commission’s competition watchdogs have launched an in-depth review of the takeover.

(SDA)

Source :Blick