Regarding the US Federal Trade Commission FTC, the European Union and the UK regulatory authorities starting to investigate Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft Vice Chairman and President Brad Smith wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the FTC’s move will harm competition, consumers and thousands of game developers. At the same time, it is disclosed that the company has proposed a 10-year contract to Sony, guaranteeing that the new work “Call of Duty (CoD)” will be launched on the PlayStation platform on the same day as the Xbox.
Brad Smith pointed out that the biggest voice of opposition came from Sony, saying that they were as nervous about this acquisition as Blockbuster was when it faced the rise of Netflix, insinuating that Xbox would surpass PlayStation.
Regarding Sony’s proposal that Microsoft may stop launching “CoD” on the PS platform, Brad Smith believes that it is an economically irrational idea. He pointed out that the main part of the income of “CoD” comes from game sales on the PS platform. Due to the popularity of cross-platform play, Stopping the PlayStation release would be a disaster for both CoD and Xbox itself, and would only alienate millions of players.
Brad Smith, in addition to expressing his proposal to Sony that as long as the acquisition is approved, the new “CoD” work will be launched on the PS platform on the same day as the Xbox for 10 years, he also expressed that Microsoft is willing to make the same commitment to other platforms, and it can be regulated by the US, UK and EU Agency enforcement. He also cited the acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016 as an example, when Microsoft made a similar commitment to the European Commission to ensure that competitors still have access to their key technologies.
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