The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has concluded that if the Activision-Blizzard merger goes through, Microsoft will have little incentive to keep Call of Duty away from competing consoles like the PlayStation.
In an addendum published today, the CMA also tentatively concluded that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard would not result in a significant reduction in competition in the market.
Based on today’s preliminary decision, the CMA believes the cost to Microsoft of keeping Call of Duty off the PlayStation will outweigh any gains from such an action. Furthermore, the strategy would only “sort of” detract from PlayStation’s offerings if the company decided to make franchises exclusive to its consoles. However, this will not materially affect the company’s ability to compete.
“Given that the model suggests that Microsoft will suffer significant losses following the merger, we now give greater weight to this evidence in our full assessment, as well as Microsoft’s behavior following prior acquisitions and its long-term strategic goals, wherever possible, in our full assessment,” reads the appendix .
“Our assessment also suggests that Microsoft has acquired a series of game studios and, with very few exceptions, has redirected the efforts of those studios towards making exclusive Xbox games, and does not now feel certainty to suggest that Microsoft will own the cancellation of the PlayStation. motivation.”
The government agency also concluded that Microsoft would not partially foreclose on the PlayStation by releasing an inferior product or raising the price of the PlayStation version, as Sony had previously suggested.
In short, the CMA concluded that the merger would not result in less competition in the UK console games services supply market. However, this does not represent a change in the CMA’s interim findings related to cloud gaming services.
The CMA had previously carried out two separate quantitative analyzes to assess whether the acquisition of Activision Blizzard would result in a loss of competition for UK console gaming services, primarily due to Call of Duty.
During the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft made it clear on several occasions that it had no intention of dividing the Call of Duty community by pulling the game from PlayStation, recognizing the potential financial damage it would incur.
It even offered Sony a 10-year contract in good faith, but the deal was reportedly rejected. However, Nintendo did accept a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty games to the Switch, while Microsoft has offered to put its games, as well as titles acquired through the merger, on various cloud gaming platforms like Nvidia’s GeForce Now.
