Microsoft’s attempt to buy Activision Blizzard has given rise to a real soap opera which is certainly far from over. As our regular readers will remember, Sony is trying to stop that operation in every possible way, and their desperation is such that they don’t mind resorting to absurd arguments or belittling the competition.
Despite everything, Microsoft is quite calm, and according to the latest information that we have been able to see, it expects to complete the purchase in the next six months. It remains to be seen if this forecast will come true, but taking into account the economic means, the potential that the Redmond giant has as a company and the concessions that it is willing to make, I think that there is no reason to doubt it.
Among these concessions, one of the most important has been to guarantee Sony that they will take the Call of Duty franchise, which is the main concern of the Japanese company, for the next ten years to PlayStation consoles, but that is not enough for Sony , and it is that their only goal is to prevent Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard.
Brad Smith, vice president of Microsoft, has recently said in an article published in the Wall Street Journal that his company lags behind PlayStation and Nintendo, and that it barely has a presence in the gaming sector on mobile devices, and that despite this Sony is generating enormous fear between regulatory bodies that lacks foundation.
The executive is clear that this operation is very important for Microsoft on various fronts, and that gaming on mobile devices is one of them. The purchase of Activision Blizzard will help them take off in that market, and he believes that we are at such an important moment for the world of video games and consoles as the one that was experienced, a few years ago, with the rise of Netflix and the collapse Blockbuster gradual. Obviously, Microsoft compares itself to Netflix and leaves Sony in the Blockbuster position.
Microsoft aspires to innovate in the world of video games, and wants to transfer to that world the approach that Netflix introduced in the multimedia content market. Thanks to Game Pass, it has achieved an important step forward in this regard, although it is clear that the Redmond company wants to go further, and I I am totally convinced that this is what scares Sony, that innovation, that idea of offering many games for a small monthly fee instead of forcing the user to buy a single game for 80 euros. Nobody likes to be touched “the pocket”, and Sony’s reaction is a clear example of this.
