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Call of Duty is starting to sink the Activision ship

For Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition, the fate of Phone call of Duty is starting to expect less like a bargaining bit and more similar a bargain billow. On Wednesday, the U.K.’due south Contest and Markets Authority, one of three pivotal regulatory bodies arguably in a position to sink the conquering, published a 76-page written report detailing its review findings and justifying its decision last calendar month to move its investigation into a more in-depth second phase.

Microsoft hitting back — hard — and accused the CMA of parroting the talking points of its prime competitor, Sony. Just the Xbox maker has wearied the number of different means it has already promised to play nice with PlayStation, especially with regards to the exclusivity of time to come Telephone call of Duty titles. Unless Microsoft is able to satisfy Sony’south ambitious demands and appease the CMA, it now looks like the U.K. has the ability to doom this bargain like it did Meta’s acquisition of Giphy.

The CMA is focusing on three key areas:
the panel market, the game subscription market, and the deject gaming marketplace. The regulator’s report, which it delivered to Microsoft last month merely only only made public, goes into detail about each one, and how games every bit large and influential as Call of Duty may give Microsoft an unfair advantage.

• “The CMA is concerned that having total control over this powerful catalogue, peculiarly in light of Microsoft’s already strong position in gaming consoles, operating systems, and cloud infrastructure, could result in Microsoft harming consumers past impairing Sony’s — Microsoft'due south closest gaming rival — ability to compete,” the written report said.
• The CMA said information technology’s also concerned near “other existing rivals and potential new entrants who could otherwise bring healthy competition through innovative multi-game subscriptions and cloud gaming services.”
• “The CMA recognises that ABK’s newest games are not currently available on any subscription service on the day of release but considers that this may alter equally subscription services continue to grow,” co-ordinate to the report. “Later the Merger, Microsoft would gain command of this important input and could use information technology to harm the competitiveness of its rivals.”
• In other words, if Microsoft owned Call of Duty and other Activision franchises, the CMA argues the company could utilize those products to siphon away PlayStation owners to the Xbox ecosystem by making them available on Game Pass, which at $10 to $15 a month can be more attractive than paying $60 to $70 to own a game outright.
• The CMA argued that Microsoft could likewise encourage players to play Activision games on Xbox devices, fifty-fifty if they were bachelor on both platforms, through perks and other giveaways, like early on access to multiplayer betas or unique bundles of in-game items.

Microsoft responded with a stunning accusation.
In a formal response, Microsoft accused the CMA of adopting “Sony’s complaints without considering the potential harm to consumers.”

• The CMA “incorrectly relies on cocky-serving statements by Sony, which significantly exaggerate the importance of Call of Duty,” Microsoft said. The company also accused the CMA of adopting positions laid out by Sony without the “appropriate level of critical review.”
• Microsoft reiterated many of the points it’s made since the deal was appear in January, including its commitment to release Call of Duty games on PlayStation for “several more years” beyond Activision’due south existing agreements, a concession PlayStation chief Jim Ryan said last month was “inadequate.”
• In its statement, Microsoft said taking Call of Duty away from PlayStation players would “tarnish both the Call of Duty and Xbox brands,” and implied that Sony, as market place leader, does not need the franchise to continue dominating the console space.
• “The proposition that the incumbent marketplace leader, with clear and enduring market ability, could be foreclosed by the third largest provider every bit a result of losing admission to one championship is not credible,” Microsoft said. “While Sony may not welcome increased competition, it has the power to adapt and compete.”
• Microsoft too went to peachy lengths to play downwards its position in the gaming market, a tactic that while strategically necessary does also feel dishonest.
• Microsoft said it was in “last identify” in the console race, “seventh place” in the PC market place, and “nowhere” in mobile game distribution.
• In August, Microsoft said pulling Call of Duty from PlayStation would be unprofitable, and in this contempo filing it claimed that Sony would even so have a larger install base than Xbox if every single Call of Duty actor on PlayStation switched to Microsoft’south ecosystem.
• In a secondary problems statement released Fri, the CMA responded to some of Microsoft’s complaints and said the company was non adequately representing the incentives it might accept to utilise the deal to “preclude” Sony’due south ability to compete.

Sony is playing a savvy, but disingenuous, game.
The PlayStation maker has come out confronting the deal to the CMA and other regulators effectually the world, simply in many means the tactics it says it fears Microsoft may employ if it owns Activision Blizzard are the very same tactics Sony has relied on for many years.

• Sony’s leading market position is due in function to the company’s first-political party studios, many of which it acquired, and the exclusive games they produce.
• Sony also has for years paid Activision Blizzard for exclusivity rights to sure elements of yearly Call of Duty games (like early on access to betas); that’due south the very same contractual agreement Microsoft said it volition honour if the bargain goes through.
• Yet at the same time, Sony is telling the CMA information technology fears Microsoft might entice players away from PlayStation using like tactics. “Co-ordinate to SIE, gamers may expect that CoD on Xbox volition include actress content and enhanced interoperability with the console hardware, in add-on to any benefits from membership in [Xbox Game Laissez passer],” the CMA report said. “SIE submitted that these factors are likely to influence gamers’ option of console.”
• Sony, of class, has reason to be worried. Call of Duty is a major revenue-driver on PlayStation because of the console’s large install base of operations of more than 150 million units.
• But beyond that, Microsoft’s strategy of acquiring studios, putting more games on its subscription platform, and supporting game streaming is undermining Sony’s business model. Information technology may also be true that Microsoft is simply so big and its pockets so deep that it’s the simply visitor that can beget this strategy.
• Sony has begun to respond to the changing market, but slowly and ofttimes one-half-heartedly. Many of the Xbox ecosystem’s almost attractive features — similar being able to buy a game on Xbox and play it on PC, or streaming Game Pass games to multiple screens — are nonexistent in the PlayStation ecosystem, and Sony has made clear information technology has no desire to change that.
• Sony’s position on some of these policies, and its feet-dragging response to subscription and cloud gaming and cross-platform play, suggests to me it would rather regulators stop Microsoft’southward advances than accept to defend its own platform through competition.

Picking sides in this increasingly bitter feud
is no easy job. Microsoft does indeed offer platform perks Sony does not, and we can imagine those perks extending to players of Activision Blizzard games if the deal goes through.

Merely Microsoft is besides ane of the earth’s largest corporations, and praising such colossal industry consolidation doesn’t feel quite like the long-term consumer benefit Microsoft is making it out to be. Information technology’s also worth because how much better off the industry might be if Microsoft is forced to make serious concessions to get the bargain passed. On the other hand, Sony’s fixation on Call of Duty is starting to look more and more like a greedy, drastic death grip on a decaying business model, a condition quo Sony feels entitled to clinging to.

“Should any consumers decide to switch from a gaming platform that does not give them a selection as to how to pay for new games (PlayStation) to one that does (Xbox),” Microsoft wrote. “Then that is the sort of consumer switching behavior that the CMA should consider welfare enhancing and indeed encourage.” The Activision Blizzard deal now depends on how convincing that argument is.

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