Since it was revealed that Microsoft intended to acquire Activision, the business has been required to defend this choice before authorities worldwide as it is examined to see if the acquisition would offer Microsoft an unfair competitive advantage. That makes logical, no?
The Supremacy
However, Microsoft’s statements that have been made in an effort to downplay the significance of the acquisition continue to surprise.
For instance, earlier this year the business asserted that “nothing special about the video games developed and released by Activision Blizzard that is a must have’ for competing PC and console video game distributors that could give rise to a foreclosure problem.” Ouch. Then let’s just disregard the existence of Call of Duty.
According to Eurogamer, Microsoft has apparently continued this practice by telling the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that Sony frequently produces games of a higher caliber than those for Xbox, which is a highly surprising admission.
Sony is not only the leading console manufacturer; they are also a significant game publisher, according to Microsoft. “Sony is nearly twice as big as Microsoft’s game publishing division and roughly the size of Activision.”
“There were almost 280 exclusive first- and third-party titles on PlayStation in 2021, roughly five times as many as on Xbox,” the business continued, highlighting the disparity between the number of exclusive games launched for PlayStation and Xbox.
Later, it provided additional evidence to support this claim: “Sony has more exclusive games than Microsoft, many of which are of higher quality. […] Exclusive first-party games from Sony and Nintendo are among the top-selling titles in Europe and around the world. Popular first-party games including The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, and Spider-Man are currently available as Sony exclusives.
This argument may or may not succeed; at the moment, there are worries that the acquisition may wind up being stopped.