Microsoft is about to buy Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion. To reassure the competition authorities, the Redmond firm unveils a series of commitments for its future games and its online store. She says that the new acquisitions will not be exclusive to Xbox consoles.
Microsoft struck a blow in January by announcing the acquisition of Activision Blizzard for almost 70 billion dollars. A monstrous operation that will change the face of the video game industry. It will obviously be scrutinized very closely. by various anti-competitive authorities around the world.
To reassure these various authorities, Brad Smith of Microsoft published a blog post in which it reveals its commitments for the future. Many points are mentioned, but the most important revolve around the management of the online store of the Redmond firm.
Microsoft agrees not to engage in unfair competition
Once Activision Blizzard is owned by Microsoft, the American company will be a behemoth that will leave little room for competition, which can be worrying. It is therefore committed to continuing to release its games, in particular Call of Duty, on consoles other than Xbox :
“To be clear, we will continue to release Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard games on PlayStation for the duration of the agreement between Sony and Activision. We are also committed to Sony to release them beyond the date specified in the existing agreement so that fans can continue to enjoy their favorite game. »
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More than that, Microsoft is also committed compared to its online store. Brad Smith thus reveals many rules that the Redmond firm will apply in the future. Here are the most important:
- The ability for all developers to access the Xbox app store as long as they follow the rules.
- Microsoft is committed to continuing to respect users’ personal data and not to use it to compete with applications from other developers.
- Third-party apps will be treated equally to Microsoft apps
- Microsoft will not force developers to use its payment system for in-app purchases (like Apple does, for example)
- Developers will be able to continue to communicate directly with their customers without necessarily going through Microsoft.
Short, Microsoft makes strong commitments to defuse upstream all the sensitive points that competition regulators could reproach him for. As a reminder, the acquisition of Activision Blizzard was certainly announced last month, but it will not be effective before 2023, if the regulatory commissions do not see any drawbacks, of course.
Source: Microsoft
