In January of 2022, Microsoft had announced that it would be acquiring Activision Blizzard. The deal was so massive and huge that it was worth around 69 billion dollars. As the months and time have passed since then, the proposed acquisition has run into a number or problems and hurdles.
In this article, we shall be discussing the current situation and what has become from that time on. Let’s get started.
What Happened With The Microsoft Activision Blizzard Acquisition?
As you would expect, an acquisition of this magnitude has to jump over all the necessary things and procedures to get to the very conclusion of it. In the last few days, there have been a lot of things happening and these hurdles and hoops have been proving to be much harder than any of the groups taking part had participated.
Just recently it has been known that the United States Federal Trade Commission has filed an anti–trust lawsuit against Microsoft. This is a try to block the companies impending acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
According to the FTC, if the deal does go through, Microsoft will have the power to withhold major properties and games, like for instance the biggest that one can think of is Call of Duty, from rival platforms. This in term will leave Microsoft to lead a sort of monopoly with Activision’s biggest titles. On top of all that, it must be said that manipulating the prices can be part of this deal too.
Not only has this been looked at in the US and frankly not approved of, it has been done also in Brazil. Overall and globally there has been concern about how this deal could impact the competition in the video game industry, in particular, how it can impact PlayStation.
Playstation has been the primary wall and blockade that Microsoft has run into since the beginning of this project. Call of Duty has been a massive money maker on Playstation and really, all types of platforms. Microsoft has promised that in the next 10 years there won’t be any interest from their side. But FTC doesn’t simply trust Microsoft to follow that plan.
The biggest problem that all trading companies, let’s say all over the world but primarily the FTC, is that Microsoft might just pull Call of Duty out of the Playstation entirely. The FTC has gone ahead and said that both Starfall and Redfall are evidence that Microsoft might end up holding other future releases from rival platforms.
Microsoft has taken some steps to curb those worries like making public deals with Nintendo. We can say that this was made on purpose to show proof of the company’s intent to now take Call of Duty away from any platform.
Microsoft has even defended themselves saying that pulling COD from other platforms will be damaging for the franchise, and in terms of damage to their profit too. Also, the fact that it has handled Minecraft as a multi-platform game. Phil Spencer, the boss of Xbox has said recently that they will not take Call of Duty from the PS as it wasn’t their intent at all.
Although we are not experts in this competitive world of the gaming industry, though it’s hard to say, this deal might happen or not, will not be happening by June of 2023, that’s for sure. This lawsuit is likely to be running for months
Until there is anything concrete about this current situation, we can just see this competitive gaming war and hope that it won’t actually make a difference on Call of Duty since it is beloved by every type of gaming platform. Stay tuned for more information in the future!
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