The EU Commission has approved the deal between Microsoft and Activision. Call of Duty is not as important as Sony claims. This made the fans laugh.
Hamburg – Microsoft wants to buy Activision in the biggest deal in gaming history. Sony criticized the whole thing before the competition watchdogs because they feared that Call of Duty would then only run on the Xbox Series X and the following Microsoft consoles, instead of on the PS5 and PS6. The EU Commission said “Call of Duty isn’t as important as Sony makes it out to be‘ and made gamers laugh.
EU waves through Microsoft Activision deal – “CoD is not as important as Sony makes it out to be”
The EU allows the Microsoft Activision deal: On May 15, the EU Commission made its decision on the planned Microsoft Activision deal. The purchase was approved after Microsoft made concessions on a number of critical points. The biggest point of contention was licenses in cloud gaming. Microsoft agreed to outsource the cloud licenses for all Activision games to competitors. The group had previously made a deal that would bring Call of Duty to the Nintendo Switch.
What is cloud gaming?
With cloud gaming, the games do not run on your own hardware, but on an external server. From there they are streamed to your own device. This should, for example, break down hardware barriers in the long term, because even low-performance devices can play high-resolution games. Microsoft already has a strong cloud gaming offering with Game Pass for Xbox and PC.
Call of Duty doesn’t matter: Sony lamented the potential loss of Call of Duty because of the deal. Microsoft itself described CoD as “not a must-have title”. The EU Commission also agrees. The statement said Microsoft might not be interested in removing Call of Duty from the PlayStation because it sold four times as much as Xbox consoles.
Even if Microsoft Activisions were to remove games from the PlayStation, it wouldn’t hurt competition in the console market.
“Even if Call of Duty is played primarily on consoles, it is less popular in the European Economic Area (EEA) than other regions of the world, and is less popular in the EEA in its genre compared to other markets. […] Sony could easily use its size, large games catalogue, and market position to thwart any attempt to weaken its competitiveness.“
The verdict is a laugh for Call of Duty fans. Warzone 2 is so unpopular that many streamers and professionals prefer to play its predecessor. A user on Twitter took the EU ruling with humor and commented “Heck, even the EU says ‘the game is dead’ lol“.
Microsoft can buy Activision for 69 billion US dollars – Great Britain and USA are still blocking
Microsoft wants to buy Activision: Microsoft plans to pay $69 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard. This would also have some implications for gamers. The deal isn’t done yet, however, because the EU Commission’s approval was just one step.
Britain banned the deal: The CMA (Competition and Markets Authority), the UK market regulator, and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), the US market regulator, have both rejected the deal. However, Microsoft announced in both cases that it would appeal. So it remains to be seen whether the purchase of Activision Blizzard will come about.