Microsoft today announced the signing of a cloud gaming collaboration with Boosteroid. An act that’s not altruistic for the Seattle giant, which is under the radar of regulators. Microsoft President Brad Smith also spoke to the Wall Street Journal teams about these partnerships and the CMA’s concerns.
Very early on, the authorities expressed fears that a possible takeover of Activision-Blizzard would reduce competition. One of which would be that Microsoft would have the ability to limit the platforms the franchise runs on call of Duty would be offered. And therein lies the whole point of the distribution agreements offered by Microsoft. Should the case ever go to court, Microsoft is working to reduce interpretative bias that might indicate this conclusion.
If the only argument is that Microsoft will refuse to use Call of Duty on other platforms unless we have contracts in place that allow it to be used on many more devices and many more platforms, that’s a pretty tough one make an argument in court.
A deadlock with Sony
If the CMA expressed the way of a solution with splitting up the activities of the publisher, this idea was quickly swept away by Microsoft. The company’s interests lie elsewhere in the wireless market.
The reason we want to buy Activision Blizzard is to add to our titles to have a more complete library, specifically to have more mobile titles where we don’t have a strong presence and to build a stronger gaming business.
Smith also said industry conduct commitments would be similar to those Microsoft accepted from the European Commission in 2009 on antitrust issues of Internet Explorer and the Office suite. If Sony was entitled to the same proposal as the other corporations, the company presented itself as an ardent opponent of this union. In addition, Brad Smith has made it very clear that currently Talks with the Japanese falter. Despite everything, Microsoft doesn’t want to stop there and is planning further partnerships for the coming weeks.
