Microsoft has traveled to Brussels this week to meet with the European Commission's market regulators and persuade them to purchase Activision Blizzard King, which was previously announced for a staggering 68.7 billion dollars.
The European Central Bank has examined the matter, wondering if Microsoft would not take over. a substantial competitive advantage in the video game industry for consoles, mobile phones, PC, and streaming services.
(Other regulators, such as the FTC in the United States and the CMA in the United Kingdom, have been even more stringent in opposing the transaction through the courts.)
Microsoft has publicly defended its case in a press conference following their meeting, declaring that it will bring all Xbox games to one of its competitors, NVIDIA and its streaming service GeForce Now.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, defended it as absurd that Microsoft might gain a competitive advantage... by demonstrating that they have a much smaller market share than Sony's competition.
Sony PlayStation has a 80% market share of consoles in Europe, ahead of Xbox's 20%... But Microsoft has decided to completely ignore Nintendo...
Microsoft defends Sony, not them, as the major players.
Smith defended Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox in their European console markets.
Nintendo, the third competitor, has been completely omitted since Microsoft does not consider it to be a real threat, by offering a very different type of productwhich works very well (Switch sweeps as much or more than Wii and DS in its day) without a perceived detriment to the other two.
The difference between Sony and Microsoft is 75 percent, according to Microsoft.
If we were to travel to Japan, the difference between Sony and Xbox would be catastrophic: both companies have 96% of the market (where, on the other hand, Nintendo would probably wipe out both, if it appeared).
Microsoft has also left out the Redmon, North America, where Xbox has always been popular, and where there is likely to be more parity (although PS5 appears to have the advantage).
The whole point is to demonstrate that Sony does not need regulators' protection (as have also indicated from the Activision board of directors, who are keen to complete the deal as soon as possible), and that for the time being Sony has not wanted to sit down and sign its proposal that Call of Duty should be released ten years after Nintendo and Valve have done.
