Oct. 19 (Portaltic/EP) –
microsoft has accused Sony and Activision Blizzard of having formalized an agreement that would prevent the arrival of deliveries of Call Of Duty to its Game Pass subscription service “for several years”.
the tech company has issued a response to the decision of the Competition and Markets Authority of the United Kingdom (CMA), the body in charge of investigate the purchase of Activision by Microsoft and accept or deny the acquisition.
At the beginning of last January, Microsoft reached an agreement to take over Activision Blizzard for around 60,300 million euros, a transaction that has generated constant discussion between the American technology and the Japanese manufacturer.
This is because Microsoft makes the Xbox console, which is listed as direct competition to Sony’s product, PlayStation. Hence, this technology firm is suspicious of this purchase, for fear of a possible monopoly in the ‘gaming’ field, with the Call of Duty franchise at the center of everything.
Over the last few months there have been several crossings of accusations. For example, in August, Microsoft said that Sony had paid for blocking rights, which prevent developers from including their video games on the Game Pass service.
More recently, Microsoft again pointed to Sony, assuring that the Japanese manufacturer had prevented the arrival of its Xbox Game Pass subscription service on the PlayStation console.
This latest accusation has occurred within the framework of the second investigation of the CMA, which will conclude shortly to present its conclusions on March 1. Also in these circumstances Microsoft has issued a response to the decision of this body to transfer the review of the purchase to a second phase due to possible damages to its main competitor.
First, Microsoft assures that it is “confident that, after an in-depth review, the CMA will conclude that there is no possibility that the transaction will cause a substantial decrease in competition in any market”, as stated in this document.
Next, the company assures that it plans to make Call Of Duty available “for more players in more formats” and charges against Sony remembering that “PlayStation has been the biggest platform for more than 20 years, with a base of 150 million consoles, which makes it bigger” than yours, Xbox.
Another of the arguments that Microsoft exposes in favor of the green light of this purchase focuses on the economic model from which it is nourished, since in this writing it ensures that subscriptions in multiple games “represent just one of many monetization models” which it makes use of.
With this, the American company has revealed that it could not bring the video games of the famous franchise to its subscription due to an agreement between Activision and Sony, which would restrict the possibility of bring this saga to Game Pass “for several years”.
This clause between both companies would be maintained despite the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and thus the CEO of Microsoft Gaming and head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, would have underlined it. via Twitter shortly after the announcement of the purchase was made known.
“I had good discussions with Sony leaders this week. I confirmed our intention to honor all existing agreements following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation“The manager then wrote.
This promise was also made in writing, as Spencer would have sent a letter to his PlayStation counterpart, Jim Ryan, in which he promised that the saga could remain “many more years” on his console.
