Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard remains in limbo. The British antitrust authorities are now going into the second round and are intensifying the investigations.
The scramble over Microsoft’s $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard continues. The British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has now confirmed that it will initiate phase 2 and conduct further investigations into the deal. The CMA had offered Microsoft an opportunity to submit proposals to address their concerns. However, the company has decided not to do so at this stage.
The focus is on the impact of the acquisition of the Call of Duty franchise and its impact on the competitiveness of Sony Playstation. After all, Call of Duty is a gaming brand with massive player base and the concern is that Microsoft could use possible platform exclusivities to edge Sony out of the competition.
Sony, of course, rubs its hands at the decision and continues to claim that Microsoft’s control of games like Call of Duty would have “a huge negative impact on players and the future of the gaming industry.”
Microsoft has also reacted to the CMA’s decision. A company spokesman told colleagues at VGC: “It makes no business sense for Microsoft to remove Call of Duty from the PlayStation given the market leadership of the Sony console.”
Microsoft had already made Sony an offer to keep Call of Duty on the Playstation for at least three years, which Sony said was not unreasonable. Now it remains to be seen how the process will continue, which will probably drag on for a few more months.
Felix and Pirmin were at the Microsoft booth at gamescom and looked at three games at the same time. Lies of P, Pentiment and A Plague Tale: Requiem.
