The war of words between the two biggest video game companies in the world continues, as Sony tries to convince the UK CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) that Call of Duty is enough to sway gamers to buy Xbox over PlayStation.
Sony’s argument is a measured counter to Microsoft’s argument that their purchase of Activision is beneficial to competition. It may get difficult, reading between each companies’ arguments, what is even fact from opinion anymore, but we’ll try to bring clarity on this end.
Sony argues that even if the PlayStation continues to get Call of Duty games in the future, gamers may still move over to Xbox. This is because Sony anticipates that Microsoft will start offering better incentives for Call of Duty players to play on Xbox over Sony.
The following is a statement from the CMA itself about Sony’s statements that it provided to the regulatory body:
“SIE told the CMA that, even if CoD games remained available on PlayStation following the Merger, the Merged Entity would still be able to engage in partial foreclosure by increasing the differentiation between the versions of CoD available on Xbox and on PlayStation,.
According to SIE, gamers may expect that CoD on Xbox will include extra content and enhanced interoperability with the console hardware, in addition to any benefits from membership in XGP. SIE submitted that these factors are likely to influence gamers’ choice of console.”
Now, it should be noted that Sony has benefited from a close relationship with Activision over Call of Duty, one that has carried over to recent releases including Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. PlayStation 5 players were first in for the game’s open beta from a month ago, followed by an open beta period where PlayStation 5 players could get to jump in again, alongside Xbox and PC players.
Sony is essentially arguing that Xbox will become too powerful a company unless the PlayStation continues to get preferential treatment for Call of Duty over other platforms. If they aren’t able to stop this deal from going through, Sony would seem to want to legally compel Microsoft to continue this arrangement for Call of Duty for their consoles in the future.
Of course, we can expect Sony, Microsoft, and Activision Blizzard to make statements that benefit them. Sony itself has been on a game studio acquisition spree themselves, including another giant in Destiny developer Bungie, and they intend to keep making such acquisitions in the future.
And so, as you may see from the statement, Sony is not making a general argument that big companies like themselves or Microsoft should stop making these billion dollar game studio acquisitions. No, Sony is more specific that it’s Call of Duty in particular that is the reason why this deal should not go through.
But what’s most notable is that the UK CMA has accepted this argument as probable cause for their investigation to go forward. It will be interesting to see what the regulator ultimately ends up deciding on the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and the reasons they provide for why.
Source: VideoGamesChronicle
