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Keep raving at the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) lo clash between Sony and Microsoft with object the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by the Xbox division. The Japanese house fears that the passage of Call of Duty into the hands of the rival could somehow damage it, despite Microsoft having proposed a ten-year publishing agreement (which has not yet been signed) and made several concessions.
The last thesis in order of time backed by Sony For bring the CMA to block the operation is that, even if Microsoft doesn’t make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive, allowing it to arrive on PlayStation and Sony’s cloud with the same content, there are several things it could do to make gaming on Xbox more palatable, hurting PlayStation.
In a document of 22 February, Sony mentions the following: increase the price of Call of Duty on PlayStation; degrade game quality and performance on PlayStation compared to Xbox; downgrade the game to ignore specific PlayStation features; limit, degrade or de-prioritize investment in CoD multiplayer on PlayStation; make the game available on a subscription service only on Game Pass.
According to the Japanese house, Microsoft could then intentionally sabotage the PlayStation version of the game. “For example, Microsoft could release a PlayStation version of Call of Duty where bugs and errors emerge only at the final level of the game or after subsequent updates. Even if such degradations could be detected quickly, any remedy would likely come too late and by that point the gaming community would have lost faith in PlayStation as the go-to place to play Call of Duty,” the document reads.
“Indeed, as Modern Warfare II attests, Call of Duty is often purchased only in the first few weeks of its debut. If it were known that game performance on PlayStation is worse than on Xbox, Call of Duty players may decide to switch to Xbox, out of fear to play their favorite title in a second-rate or less competitive venue”.
Not only, Sony believes that Microsoft will always prioritize Xbox versions of games. “After the transaction, Microsoft will have to make choices about the support it will provide to develop any PlayStation version of Call of Duty. Even if Microsoft were acting in good faith, it would have an incentive to support and prioritize the development of the Xbox version of the titlesuch as using its best engineers and more resources,” the document reads.
Sony rejects the thesis according to which it would have balked against the operation for market reasons. According to what is written in the document, Microsoft “has shown no real commitment to a negotiated outcome“, so much so that it would have been the rival who “accused herself, committing herself only when she perceived that the regulatory prospects were clouding, preferring to negotiate with the media rather than engaging with SIE”.
Microsoft’s proposal “fails to provide adequate protection for PlayStation’s access to Call of Duty or its competition. On the contrary, it reveals Microsoft’s lack of commitment to ensuring full and fair access to Call of Duty, confirms the behavioral risks and reinforces SIE’s belief that Microsoft intends to use Call of Duty strategically to dominate the video game industry”.
The answer from the house of Redmond she didn’t wait. “Since the CMA issued its interim opinion, we have offered solutions that address its concerns and increase the benefits of the settlement for UK game developers and gamers. This includes the guarantee between Xbox and PlayStation on access equal to Call of Duty and legally binding commitments to ensure Call of Duty is available to at least 150 million more players on other consoles and cloud streaming platforms once the deal closes.”
“The decision now up to the CMA is whether to block this deal and protect Sony, the dominant market leader, or consider solutions that make more games available to more players.”
Microsoft recently signed a 10-year licensing deal with Nintendo to bring CoD to its consoles. In this regard, in another document Microsoft reassures the CMA on the ability to optimize the title to run it even on the limited hardware of the Nintendo Switch.
An agreement to bring Xbox titles to GeForce NOW has been reached with NVIDIA, a way to prevent the GPU maker from raising reservations about the acquisition. According to the latest rumors, the European Commission would be inclined to approve the operation. The CMA’s verdict is expected on April 26, one day after the final date set for the EU Commission’s decision.
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