This is the great battle in the video game world. Microsoft defended Tuesday in Brussels its plan to take over the American video game publisher Activision Blizzard for an amount of 69 billion dollars and rejected during a hearing with the services of the Commission the fears of harm to competition.
Microsoft, owner of Xbox, launched a bid early last year to create the world’s third-largest video game company by revenue by buying the owner of the hit games candy Crush And call of dutybut the project ran into competition concerns.
The final major hurdle came from UK regulators. In their interim findings released earlier this month, they said the deal could significantly harm competition and consumer choice.
Agreements with Nvidia and Nintendo
Microsoft chairman Brad Smith said in Brussels he hopes regulators, including the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, view the deal as an “opportunity to bring this game to an additional 150 million people.” , which will benefit consumers.
He rejected any demands that Microsoft sell hit games like call of duty in return, claiming that it would be “neither feasible nor realistic”. Smith, however, said he was “more optimistic about the chances of closing this deal tonight than 24 hours ago, not because of what happened in the courtroom, but because of two agreements”.
He was referring to deals with Nvidia, which would allow the cloud gaming service access to Xbox PC games for ten years, and one with rival Nintendo, which would see Microsoft commit to bringing the popular game call of duty to the rival console maker. ” We bring call of duty 150 million more people, 150 million devices that don’t have access to call of duty “, did he declare.
Negotiations with Sony
Sony, Microsoft’s biggest rival, strongly opposes the deal, but Brad Smith said on Tuesday that Microsoft was ready to agree a solution to ease Sony’s concerns. “I am ready to sign,” he said, assuring that he was ready to sit down with Sony to “dialogue” in order to find an agreement.
Brad Smith came to Brussels with several Microsoft officials for a closed-door hearing where he sought to convince EU antitrust regulators to approve the deal with Activision.
The European Commission stressed that “the investigation is still ongoing” and said it would not comment on the hearing. The Commission, the guardian of competition in the EU, fears in particular that Microsoft could “lock up” access to Activision’s video games for console and PC and be tempted to put in place “strategies to exclude competing distributors “.
She must make a decision for March 23, the end of a period of 90 days for her in-depth investigation.