Microsoft Won't Cut Sony Off From Call of Duty? The British Doubt It
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority does not believe Microsoft won't stop releasing the Call of Duty series on PlayStation when it acquires Activision Blizzard. The regulator fears this will hurt consumers and disrupt competition in the console market.
Arguments from Microsoft, designed to dispel doubts of the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over the negative impact that the Redmond giant's acquisition of Activision Blizzard could have on Sony and other companies in the console market, have failed to convince the regulator. In a statement it outlined its enduring doubts about the potential consequences of the deal under review, placing particular emphasis on the future of the Call of Duty series and its presence on PlayStation.
Putting it simply, CMA does not believe Microsoft will be releasing further installments of this popular shooter series on Sony consoles - not by a long shot. Admittedly, the American company has repeatedly assured that such a move "would be pointless from a business point of view" ... but this statement applied only to the next few years. And as CMA's statement reads:
"Microsoft’s past business practices suggest that it may be willing to makelosses in the short term in order to build scale and increase its user base [in the long term - ed. note]. Inparticular, Microsoft has previously acquired publishers and made their upcoming games exclusive to Xbox, even when those publishers had previously made their content available to all consoles, and Microsoft has pursued this strategy when acquiring content that is far less valuable than Activision’s games, and hence far less likely to divert customers to its console."
In other words, CMA is concerned that the arguments raised by Microsoft are a kind of smokescreen, meant to limit the negative perception of Activision Blizzard acquisition around the world - including in the eyes of PlayStation gamers, who fear that future installments of Call of Duty will not be released for their platform. The regulator said it sees no convincing evidence that the Redmond giant is completely devoid of any desire to make games available as exclusives, and that its motivations may be much broader than it appears to claim.
In addition, the CMA suggested that making Call of Duty exclusive to the Xbox could influence gamers' decisions to buy consoles too much, and thus disrupt competitiveness in the console market. Microsoft has two weeks to respond to the statement of the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
