In a recent response to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sony expressed its ongoing opposition to Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Sony voiced concerns that Microsoft’s takeover could potentially impact the performance and quality of Call of Duty on PlayStation, resulting in fans switching to Xbox. The fear is that Microsoft could intentionally or unintentionally release a version of the game on PlayStation where bugs and errors emerge only on the game’s final level or after later updates, leading to a loss of confidence in PlayStation as a go-to venue to play Call of Duty.
Sony stated that there would be no viable way for it or the CMA to assess how Microsoft chooses to allocate its resources and the quality/quantity of engineers it devotes to the PlayStation version of Call of Duty to ensure that Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) would be treated fairly and equally. However, degrading the quality of Call of Duty on PlayStation would not be the wisest course of action, as it would likely lead to a bigger backlash against Microsoft and Activision than Sony.
Microsoft, on the other hand, noted in its response to the CMA that it has offered to provide Sony with parity on release date, content, features, upgrades, quality, and playability with the Xbox platform. The catch is that Sony must accept Microsoft’s proposed 10-year agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, and Microsoft would be willing to agree to a third-party assessor to oversee the platform uniformity for the sake of the game.
In addition, Sony’s letter also reiterated its concern that Microsoft would make Call of Duty a Game Pass exclusive, thus away from PlayStation. However, Microsoft refuted this claim, stating that it made zero business sense to take Call of Duty off of PlayStation.
The CMA is set to make a final ruling on the deal by April 26th. Reports suggest that the European Union is set to give the merger the green light following news that Microsoft will bring Call of Duty and other games to Nintendo and GeForce Now platforms.
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(Via)
