Earlier today, Microsoft announced the signing of a collaboration with Boosteroid around cloud gaming. An act that is not disinterested for the Seattle giant, which is under the radar of regulatory authorities. The president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, has also spoken to the teams of the Wall Street Journal about these partnerships and the fears of the CMA.
The authorities very early expressed the fear of a reduction in competition with the possible takeover of Activision-Blizzard. One of these would be that Microsoft would have the ability to limit the platforms on which the franchise Call of Duty would be offered. And therein lies the whole point of the distribution contracts offered by Microsoft. Should the case ever go to court, Microsoft is working to reduce interpretative bias that could point to this conclusion.
If the only argument is that Microsoft is going to refuse to use “Call of Duty” on other platforms, when we have concluded contracts that will allow it to be used on many more devices and many more platforms, that is a rather difficult argument to make in court.
A stalled situation with Sony
If the CMA expressed the track of a solution with a split in the activities of the publisher, this idea was quickly swept away by Microsoft. The company’s interests lie elsewhere in the mobile market.
The reason we want to buy Activision Blizzard is to complement our titles to have a more comprehensive library, especially to have more mobile titles where we don’t have a strong presence, and to build a stronger games business.
Smith also said behavioral commitments in the industry would be similar to those Microsoft accepted from the European Commission in 2009, on antitrust issues of Internet Explorer and the Office suite. If Sony was entitled to the same proposal as the other groups, the company put itself forward as a fervent opponent of this union. Moreover, Brad Smith was very clear in specifying that at present, discussions with the Japanese are at a standstill. Despite everything, Microsoft does not intend to stop there and plans other partnerships for the coming weeks.