[Opinión] The purported acquisition of Activision Blizzard Kind by Microsoft, the largest purchase operation in the history of video games With an estimated value of 69,000 million dollars, it can have enormous repercussions in the main entertainment industry and regulators of half the world have a contrary position for the “harm to competition” what would it mean And opinion note. Between you and me, reader friend: this type of merger that concentrates so much power in the same hands, never, but never benefit consumers. And that is valid in this case, as it was in another of the large operations that -happily- was blocked: the purchase of ARM by NVIDIA.
Microsoft has tried to calm the troubled waters since the announcement of the operation. And overcome the main fear of the competition, that some Activision Blizzard games would become exclusive to the Microsoft gaming platform. Although the list of games is extensive and very important, the biggest debate centers on call of dutyone of the largest franchises in history, selling tens of millions of copies of every title it publishes, generates billions of dollars in revenue, and has colossal influence in the industry.
Microsoft, but not before calling Sony “hypocritical” for its large number of exclusives, has reiterated that will not use the purchase to “drive out” rivals from the big franchises. His argument is logical: the Xbox platform alone could not monetize the grass to pay for Activision Blizard and it will need the rest of the competing platforms to distribute the games and recover the investment.
Of course, there are no guarantees that this strategy will hold in the future as demonstrated in the previous purchase of ZeniMax. Shortly after the European Commission approved the transaction, Microsoft made public its decision to make several of the distributor’s newly acquired titles, including Starfield, Redfall and Elder Scrolls VI, Microsoft exclusives. He who knows how to understand, who understands…
Activision Blizzard: Microsoft wants to ‘fool’ Sony
Microsoft is trying to get regulators to approve the operation and a good part of the strategy is to stop the demands of its biggest competitors. It has embarked on its main executives, the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, and the president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, who to begin with have unilaterally extended the Call of Duty license contract for three years, have promised to maintain the franchise on Steam and have proposed to Nintendo and Sony a long-term contract (10 years) for the franchise.
If Nintendo has responded in the affirmative, Sony has yet to respond to a proposal that it initially considered “inadequate.” Microsoft explained that it could not sign an agreement that would last “forever”, but that it was willing to achieve “a long-term commitment that Sony and regulators are comfortable with”insisting that they need to work on the platforms of the competition to recover the investment.
Bloomberg posted something we didn’t know yesterday that shows just how far Microsoft is willing to go. The proposal to Sony includes the right to sell the Call of Duty franchise on the PlayStation Plus service. Something unthinkable, but it shows the need for the Redmond giant to reach an agreement with the competition that clarifies the negotiations with the market regulators.
We will see how the largest purchase operation in the history of video games ends. You know our opinion. We would never authorize this type of merger because, beyond the competitors, end up hurting consumers. See the case of ZeniMax or other disastrous events such as the purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram by Facebook, turning the current Meta into a monster. And let’s not say that ARM control by NVIDIA would have occurred. There are dozens of examples of this type of concentration and -in our opinion- none positive.
