Well over a year after Mi🔯crosoft announced plans to buy Activision Bliz🤪zard for almost $70 billion, the saga rages on. An unexpected twist appeared in its tale last month as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the UK's CMA blocked the deal while 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the European Commission approved it. The latter has now explained why its views don't align with the CMA's, citing why it has no reason to believe Xbox owning the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty studio will give it a leg up on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation.
The European Commission's executive vice president Margrethe Vestager explained the reasoning behind its approval in this week (thanks, ). A wise thing to do as flicking through the hundreds of pages explaining all of the ins and outs surrounding that decision is a daunting task very few people are actually going to undertake.
One of the biggest talking points Vestager honed in on was Call of Duty, a topic on which Europe and the UK's viewpoints actually align. “I am told Call of Duty is a very popular shooter franchise, but we found that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Microsoft would probably not shoot itself in the foot by stopping sales of Call of Duty games to the mu👍ch larger PlayStation player๊ base,” Vestager explained.
The executive VP also pointed to numbers demonstrating the PS5 has been outselling the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Series X at a rate of four-to-one in recent months. While making Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive mi⛎ght well convince some die-hard fans 𒈔to pick up a new console, the EU clearly feels that Microsoft would make far more money by🤪 simply leaving the series as it is and continuing to make its games for PlayStation.
Xbox has demonstrated it wants to do that, trying to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:꧋agree a decade-long deal with P🎃layStation that would keep Call of Duty games on its consoles for at least ten more years. After PlayStation declined, 168澳💙洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox signed a similar deal with Nintendo to prove it was serious and try to appease the CMA, European Commission, and various other committees who haven't yet approved the deal. Exactly how 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Activision will get Call of Duty running on Nintendo hardware is unclear.
Xbox has also signed various deals with pretty much anyone who wants one, committing to bringing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Activision Blizzard games to cloud platforms. That was ultimately what convinced the European Commission to approve the merger, and it appears to be the sticking point in the UK. The CMA believes Xbox will pot✤entially have a str🤪anglehold on cloud gaming in the coming years if its proposed Activision Blizzard deal is allowed to proceed. Microsoft is appealing the decision, but if the CMA sticks to its guns, the merger could potentially be blocked f💮or up to ten years.