Last September, the CMA, in charge of regulating competition and the market in the United Kingdom, said that its investigation into the Activision merger with Microsoft for US$68.7 billion it had been officially expanded into a second phase due to a number of antitrust concerns. After issuing this statement, Microsoft accuses UK regulator of making the same Sony complaints regarding the Activision Blizzard agreement.
The Competition and Markets Authority fully detailed the reasoning for its concerns, including the impact of competition on the console, game streaming and subscription slots. The answer of microsoft to this was noted as ‘out of place‘ and claimed that they embrace Sony’s complaints without the appropriate level of critical review. In one of his recent tweets, Tom Henderson details the causes and reasons for this controversy between two large companies in the video game industry.
Microsoft Accuses UK Regulator of Filing Same Complaints as Sony Regarding Activision Blizzard Settlement
Microsoft also pointed to Sony’s recent acquisitions of companies like Bungie and Haven, and claimed that as of 2021 there were over 280 first-party and third-party exclusive titles on PlayStation in 2021, almost five times as many as Xbox. ‘In sum, Sony is not vulnerable to a hypothetical foreclosure strategy, and the Reference Decision is incorrectly based on self-serving statements by Sony that significantly exaggerate the importance of Call of Duty for him and do not take into account Sony’s clear ability to respond competitively.‘ said the Microsoft representative in the case.