The UK’s competition watchdog has released a new document summarizing calls made to sixMicrosoftrivals that informed therecently-released reportstating its merger withActivisioncould harm competition in the games industry. The CMA didn’t say exactly who those rival companies were, but at least half of them didn’t think the merger would be good for them or for gamers.
Three out of six companies the CMA spoke to “contended that the Merger would have a negative impact on competition, including by affording Microsoft the ability and incentive to foreclose potential and existing rivals in the console buy-to-play, console multi-game subscription, and cloud gaming spaces.” Only one said it was too early to tell what effect the Microsoft-Activision merger would have on the overall video game landscape.
Related:Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard Acquisition Could “Harm Gamers” Says UK Watchdog
Call of Duty was once again noted as a “unique” game that drove the “purchase decision-making” of consumers. One unnamed party noted Microsoft’s still-recent purchase of Bethesda and subsequently how many of its future games turned into PC or Xbox exclusives. This “demonstrates a strategy aimed at foreclosing rival gaming platforms, which would harm consumers,” the CMA said.
On the Game Pass front, one party said that Microsoft was already dominant in the subscription service space and that a successful merger with Activision would entrench that position. All but one party said that triple-A game content is important to a successful game subscription service along the lines of Game Pass or PlayStation Plus, and Activision has a lot of triple-A games.
“Two third parties identified the availability of attractive first and third-party content as key to a platform’s success,” the CMA wrote, while two more said, “the loss of a major title would be harmful to a platform and its users.”
The CMA published its provisional report earlier this month when it noted the potential for “higher prices, reduced range, lower quality, and worse service in gaming consoles over time” if the Activision merger were to proceed. It also founda quarter of Call of Duty players would switch to Xboxfrom PlayStation if it were ever made an exclusive franchise.
The CMA has given all relevant parties until March 1 to issue updated statements, with a final decision expected sometime this summer.
