According to the document published by the European Commission on the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, with which the regulator gave the go-ahead for the operation, the fact also emerges that PlayStation surpasses Xbox by 4 times in console sales in Europe.
As we have seen, the European Commission has given its share green light to the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, which is currently only blocked by the UK CMA. In a speech made by Margrethe VestagerEuropean commissioner for competition, then transcribed directly on the official website of the European Commission, some data emerge relating to the current situation on the European video game market.
Not only that, the research carried out by the EU also specifically sheds light on Activision, downsizing the role played by the publisher on the overall European market, reporting that the importance of the label and Call of Duty it stands out especially if you take into consideration the specific sphere of shooters.
“An important finding was that the overall market shares of Microsoft and Activision are generally low in Europe,” Vestager explained. %”, has explained.
Furthermore, as far as consoles are concerned, the data reported at the beginning emerges, namely that PlayStation and Xbox travel with a ratio of 4:1 on the market, in terms of sales: “As far as consoles are concerned, Sony with PlayStation sells about 4 times more than Microsoft does with Xbox”.
These elements help to explain the decision taken by the European Commission: “Considering this context, we do not think that the acquisition will raise a problem in vertical terms. It is known that Call of Duty is a very popular shooter franchise, but we consider that Microsoft wants to do itself harm by stopping sales of the series to a much larger player base like that of PlayStation. Our colleagues at the CMA agree on this and ultimately reached the same conclusion.”
In fact, on the specific console front, even the CMA could not object too much, given that the data are incontrovertibly in favor of Sony, but wanted to concentrate on the hypothetical evolution of the cloud gaming market to impose the blockade. Meanwhile, Microsoft did appeal against this decision by the UK, accusing the CMA of having committed serious errors of assessment.