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It seems that Sony is seeing the ears of the wolf and is retracting its own words, in regards to the Activision Blizzard purchase block. As you know, Sony was the main instigator of the blocking of the agreement, presumably along with Google. As she confessed Lulu Cheng, head of communications for Activision Blizzard, Jim Ryan’s goal was, at all times, that the agreement did not take place, whatever the cost. But it seems that Sony did not count on Microsoft and Activision Blizzard to take the matter to its maximum consequences, with an appeal before the Competition Court.
The appeal has put the CMA on the ropes, but it could also affect Sony. The CMA decision is already having consequences for the British economy, with its value depreciating and some of them fleeing to other territories. Leakage that could also occur in the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard headquarters. But also, in the event that the judicial process continues its course, Microsoft could call members of sonyin case you are interested at the defense level, because it is the main opponent in the process before the CMA and because the CMA itself has asserted Sony’s arguments as the main basis for its decision.
With a couple: Sony’s CEO admits that Sony lied in its CMA findings on cloud gaming:
In any case, it seems that fear is beginning to take hold of the PlayStation house in the process before the CAT or that Sony has a disadvantaged position in terms of the cloud, compared to Microsoft, and Yoshida wants to counteract that image. Those seem the only explanations we can give to the recent plot twist that comes from the hands of Kenichiro Yoshida himself, Sony’s CEO, which would fit with Jim Ryan’s statements regarding Sony’s aggressive plans in the cloud.
In any case, in a recent interview, Yoshida has thrown to the ground one of Sony’s main arguments for block the purchase of Activision Blizzardconsisting of an alleged monopolistic position of Microsoft in the cloud, to which the purchase could lead to say, right off the bat, that right now the cloud is not developed enough to compete with consoles.
“I think the cloud is an amazing business model, but when it comes to gaming, the technical difficulties are high. So there are going to be challenges when it comes to the cloud and we want to embrace them,” said cloud, “we can read through the account Twitter’s @PostUp_SOG.
Microsoft is seriously considering leaving the UK for the purchase of Activision Blizzard
we are xbox.com
Yoshida further added that cloud gaming is “misleading”, minimizing the risk that they can cause in the console market and being a technology in which its rival, Microsoft, has bet heavily. And so, out of the blue, Yoshida has thrown to the ground that constant fear of Sony that Microsoft will abuse its dominant position on the cloud. A threat that he did not stop repeating throughout the process in the CMA, which now apparently does not exist and of which we leave you some pearls taken from the Sony’s response, to provisional findings, dated March 16, 2023:
«IV. The deal will reduce competition in the growing cloud gaming market
Taking Microsoft’s internal documents and third-party testing as a reference, the CMA understands that ‘cloud gaming will continue to grow and will most likely be profitable in the next five years’.
31. Other market participants agree. The provisional conclusions refer to rivals who mention, among other things, that ‘the technological barriers to streaming… are rapidly coming down‘, that ‘expect cloud gaming to increase substantially and eventually replace consoles’ and that ‘many users will move to the cloud’. The tentative conclusions also refer to market analysts supporting the idea that cloud gaming will grow, with some estimates calling for ‘an almost three-fold increase in user base… and more than four-fold’ in terms of spending’ in 2024.
32. The interim findings estimate that Microsoft making Activision content exclusive to cloud services will harm competition, blocking out rival cloud services, where ‘there are significant barriers to entry and expansion’. The provisional conclusions explain that the agreement will cause exaggerated damage, given the fact that Microsoft is in a “strong and unique position in the market for cloud services.” Microsoft has structural and cost advantages “that come from owning Windows, Azure and the Xbox game catalog combined” and given the advantages that derive from its vast ecosystem, advantages that “none of its rivals can match.”