Gamers will face higher prices, fewer choices, and less innovation if Microsoft’s $69bn acquisition of Activision is allowed to go through, says the CMA.
According to Telecoms.com, this is the provisional conclusion of the in-depth investigation carried out by the Competition and Markets Authority. The deal has been on the UK M&A watchdog’s radar since last July, and in September it decided a closer look was needed.
What it boils down to is that Microsoft already enjoys a strong position in the cloud gaming and console markets thanks to various assets including its Windows OS, Xbox console range, and Xbox Cloud Gaming Service.
By letting it acquire the publisher of some of the most popular titles in gaming – including the likes of Call of Duty, Overwatch, Warcraft, and Candy Crush, among others – Microsoft will have the means and incentive to make those titles available exclusively on its own gaming platforms, making it much harder for rivals like PlayStation maker Sony and to some extent Nintendo to attract customers to their products and services.
Even if Microsoft didn’t make Activision’s games outright exclusives, it could still hurt its rivals by delaying their release on PlayStation, for example.
“Our job is to make sure that UK gamers are not caught in the crossfire of global deals that, over time, could damage competition and result in higher prices, fewer choices, or less innovation. We have provisionally found that this may be the case here,” said, chair of the independent panel of experts that conducted the CMA investigation, Martin Coleman.
Coleman said there are an estimated 45 million gamers in the UK, and that people in the UK spend more on gaming than they do on music, film, TV, and books. This group has benefited from strong competition between Xbox and PlayStation, he said, which have spent the last 20 years trying to outdo each other with new and innovative services.
