Microsoft says that without Call of Duty it is not interested in buying Activision because it is the only way to compete with Sony and its PlayStation 5. Read the statements and more details, in this note!
Microsoft says it is not interested in a version of its acquisition of Activision Blizzard where you can’t stay with call of dutysaid company president Brad Smit. The giant, which is willing to pay $68.7 billion for the war franchise, Devil, warcraft, Tony Hawk, crash bandicoot and countless other sagas, explained that “He doesn’t see a viable path.”. The statements come from a press conference in Brussels reported by the web Eurogamer.
UK market regulators said they would not oppose a version of the deal that would make call of duty into a separate company, leaving the rest of the acquisition as is and ensuring there is no anti-competitiveness. Smith, however, said it serves no one that way and that regulators will have to decide.
“Do you want to kill a deal and cement Sony’s position with its 80% reach in the European Union or 70% worldwide in a market where it was the super dominant company for the last 20 years?he asked rhetorically. “Or do you want to let the future pass with behavior guards and remedies and bring this title to 150 million more people? I think that’s the choice that regulators are going to have to make around the world.” Basically, Microsoft says that without Call of Duty you can’t compete against PlayStation, which itself is a monopoly..
In Smith’s words, Microsoft owns a minority in the console market compared to PlayStation, and showed a graphic that completely ignored the existence of Nintendo – with whom hours before it reached an agreement to carry its games. “In a market where Sony dominates with 80%, Xbox has 20%,” said Smith speaking of Microsoft as if it were a national B football team. “Globally, it’s around 70/30. In Japan it’s 96 to 4. And while the numbers fluctuate, they’ve been remarkably even for more than two decades..”
“Even last year, when Sony struggled with its supply chain and its numbers dipped, they came back strong in the fourth quarter as soon as they recovered. By our calculations, on a global basis, Sony outsold Microsoft by a margin of 69 to 31, pretty consistent with the global trend we’ve seen over the past 20 years.,” he concluded.