The push to secure Activision Blizzard for Microsoft continues. This company had made massive headlines when they unveiled that they wanted to secure this company with a staggering $69 billion. However, with such a massive bid, the purchase seems to have been anything but easy. Instead, there is a series of obstacles in Microsoft’s way, and it could mean that the deal will not go through. Ultimately, the main culprit to this deal not happening is the hit FPS franchise, Call of Duty.
With Call of Duty on the line, Sony has been very vocal against pushing this deal through. With Sony hopeful regulators won’t allow this purchase to go through, it has prompted Microsoft to make a series of adjustments. The first is that Microsoft has continued to state that they had no intentions of making Call of Duty an exclusive title for the Xbox brand. Instead, they have taken the approach that they want Call of Duty to continue thriving across multiple platforms. There have been contracts written up to ensure that for years, Call of Duty will remain available across multiple platforms. But that hasn’t swayed Sony’s opinion, and it might not sway some regulators as well.
Recently, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft met with the UK antitrust watchdog in hopes of clearing up some of the potential doubts about allowing this acquisition to go through. This information only comes from Bloomberg’s sources on the matter, but it seems that the company has met to ensure that this deal wouldn’t harm the fair competition in the video game industry. While we don’t have the finer details of what was said, it does look like there is a new draft proposal going out before the final decision is made on whether Microsoft can proceed with this deal or not.
Furthermore, if the Bloomberg report proves to be true, it seems that some other meetings are already planned. The next company to meet with the watchdog is Sony and their pleas on why this deal shouldn’t be allowed to go through. At any rate, we know that the deadline and decision on this deal have been pushed back to April 26, 2023. That is when we should know whether this deal will fall in favor of Microsoft or Sony.
