Microsoft has traveled this week to Brussels to meet with the European Commission’s market regulators and convince them to approve their purchase of Activision Blizzard Kingwhich more than a year ago announced for the huge figure of 68.7 billion dollars.
It would be one of the biggest mergers in history, and the EC has wrinkled its nose at it, wondering if Microsoft wouldn’t take over. an inordinate competitive advantage in the video game sector for consoles, mobile phones, PC and streaming.
(Other regulators, such as the FTC in the US and the CMA in the UK, have been even stricter in opposing the deal through the courts.)
In a presentation to the press after their meeting, Microsoft has publicly defended its case, announcing an agreement to bring all Xbox games to one of its competitors, NVIDIA and its streaming service GeForce Now.
Brad Smithpresident of Microsoft, also defended that it is absurd that Microsoft is going to gain a competitive advantage … by showing that they have a much smaller market share than their rival, Sony.
In Europe, Sony PlayStation have a 80% market share of consoles, in front of the 20% of Xbox. Of course, Microsoft decided to completely omit Nintendo…
Microsoft describes how Sony beats Microsoft Xbox marketshare globally to the tune of 75% vs 25%. In Japan, it’s 96% to 4%, comparing between the two. pic.twitter.com/gJBmdTiVNN
— Jez (@JezCorden) February 21, 2023
Microsoft defends that Sony is the big ones, not them
Smith defended that, in the European console market, Sony PlayStation has 80% market share, and Microsoft Xbox has 20%.
The third competitor Nintendo, has been completely omittedsince Microsoft does not see it as a real threat, by offer 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.
Microsoft adds that, in the World Marketthe difference is 75% Sony and 25% Microsoft.
But if we were to JapanSony’s native country, the difference is abysmal: Sony has 96% of the market, and Xbox 4% (where, on the other hand, Nintendo would probably wipe out both if it appeared).
Microsoft has also left out the home market of those in Redmon, North America, where Xbox has always been very popular, and there’s probably more parity (although PS5 seems to have the upper hand).
The whole point is to show that Sony does not need the protection of regulators (as they have also expressed from the Activision board of directors, interested in completing the agreement as soon as possible), and adds that for the moment Sony has not wanted to sit down and sign its proposal that Call of Duty comes out 10 years on PlayStationas Nintendo and Valve have done.
