In late March, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that in its opinion, Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard would not affect competition in the console gaming industry in that country. Today, the biggest proponent of the acquisition, Sony, published a response to the CMA’s report, and it has been heavily critical of its findings.
Sony’s Answer (by Eurogamer) called the CMA’s findings “shocking, unprecedented and unreasonable” and claimed that the report contained “flaws” when it came to assessing the economic impact if Microsoft Activision Call of Duty Franchise an Xbox exclusive.
While the CMA now says it believes it would not be in Microsoft’s best financial interest to keep it. Call of Duty Away from PlayStation gamers, Sony says that if the game is turned into a first-party Xbox title, it “wouldn’t pay Activision a margin for Microsoft’s sales.” Call of DutySony also claims that “high engagement Call of Duty Consumers (i.e., consumers that CMA says will move to Xbox) generate significantly more spending than average users of the platform.”
Sony also pointed to a recent interview with Arcane’s Harvey Smith, who said that Microsoft would not allow a PlayStation version of its upcoming shooter. Red Fall After Microsoft bought Arkane’s parent company ZeniMax Studios in 2021. Sony said, “Although the studio had already begun work on a PlayStation version of the game, Microsoft decided to end that work and make the game exclusive to Xbox.” The latter has released a statement saying it “did not pull any games from PlayStation”.
Microsoft has promised to offer Call of Duty Games on Sony’s PlayStation consoles for at least 10 years after the merger. Sony has said in the past that it doesn’t believe what Microsoft is saying. It has previously said that Microsoft may release versions. Call of Duty Games on PlayStation consoles “where bugs and errors only appear at the final level of the game or after later updates.” This drew a personal response from Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who said it was “obviously disappointing behavior” from Sony.
The UK’s CMA is due to release its final report on Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard on April 26.
