In a recent filing seen by Rock Paper Shotgun, Microsoft told the New Zealand Trade Commission that Activision Blizzard doesn’t make “must have” games. This statement sounds very strange indeed. “There is nothing unique about the video games developed and published by Activision Blizzard that is a ‘must have’ for rival PC and console video game distributors that give rise to a foreclosure concern,” the company says in the document. In other words, Microsoft believes that owning the rights to Activision Blizzard’s best-selling franchises, such as Call of Duty, won’t prevent rivals such as Sony from competing with it.
On the one hand, this argument seems meaningless about a company that Microsoft plans to spend $68.7 billion to acquire. Nevertheless, the company is making this claim in response to its competitors. In a statement filed with Brazilian regulators, Sony called Call of Duty “an essential game” and an AAA title “that has no rival”.
It claims that the franchise is so popular that it influences which consoles people buy. Sony probably speaks from its own experience. In 2015, the company announced an agreement with Activision under which some Call of Duty content would appear first on PlayStation consoles.
Such statements are just one way Microsoft is trying to appease regulators. In February, the company promised that it would continue to release Call of Duty games on PlayStation consoles until the end of the agreements between Sony and Activision made before the acquisition was announced.
