The Microsoft-Activision Blizzard acquisition has received a major boost in its attempts to gain approval from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
The boost comes in the form of written responses sent in by six gaming studios across the UK to the provisional findings made by the CMA earlier this year. Every response except for the one by Scottish devs 4J Studios were sent in anonymously.
the CMA has published responses from 6 different games companies to the Microsoft Blizzard deal in the UK. All 6 believe the deal should go ahead. One company even says it’s likely to create a “sorely needed” level playing ground between Xbox and PlayStation pic.twitter.com/5hAVrsE87v
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) March 16, 2023
In the responses, all the developers favoured the deal gaining acceptance from the UK regulators. This is in stark contrast to the opinion held by Sony PlayStation, who believe the deal has anticompetitive tendencies. The Japanese giants have claimed that with Microsoft’s ownership of IPs like Call of Duty, the acquisition can be quite dangerous for the competitors.
Along with the six developers and Sony, Microsoft also weighed on the provisional findings by UK’s CMA. Upon investigation, the regulators believed the acquisition could harm UK gamers, as it might lead to “higher prices, fewer choices, and less innovation.” The Seattle-based tech giants responded by stating that it plans on making its IPs like Call of Duty available on various platforms. This has led to Xbox offering 10-year deals to PlayStation and Nintendo to keep Call of Duty on their platforms.
