Microsoft claims to the British market competition and market watchdog that Sony has “exclusive games of much better quality”. With this statement, the Xbox maker is trying to justify the disputed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The company disclosed on Wednesday CMA documentsSony and Nintendo exclusively own the first side Games that are among the best-selling titles in Europe and the world. This includes existing exclusive content such as The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, and Spider-Man. In addition to fully exclusive games, Sony also has agreements with third parties not to release games on the Xbox platform. Furthermore, Microsoft claims that between 10 and 20 percent of Sony’s game sales are exclusive titles, while for Microsoft 10 to 20 percent would be 0 and 10 percent.
By compromising Microsoft’s own share of the exclusive game market, the company is trying to justify why it was allowed to acquire Activision Blizzard, which is specifically aiming for an Xbox exclusivity in the Call of Duty franchise. By the way, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer keeps claiming that do not intend To keep shooters off the PlayStation platform.
At the same time, Sony makes the opposite argument in one similar document From CMA to: “[Call of Duty] It has been the best-selling game nearly every year for the past decade, and has been overwhelmingly the best-selling game within the first-person shooter genre. Other publishers do not have the resources or experience to match this success. As a concrete example, let’s take Electronic Arts, one of the largest developers after Activision, which has been trying for years to create a Call of Duty competitor with the Battlefield franchise. Despite the similarities between Call of Duty and Battlefield, the Battlefield series just can’t keep up.
By emphasizing the importance of Call of Duty, Sony is trying to achieve the opposite of Microsoft; The acquisition by Activision Blizzard should not be made exclusively for Microsoft’s console given the size of the shooter franchise.
As the struggle continues between the two companies, particularly over the relevance of Call of Duty and exclusive games, the FTC is said to be gearing up Antitrust complaint Before. The European Commission does, too Investigation of the acquisition. With this, the European government body and two major market watchdogs are delving into the potential deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.
