EU Investigates Microsoft-Activision Deal

The European Union has formally launched an investigation into Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard, citing the potential distortion of fair competition as the reason for doing so.

The development comes at the heels of Activision’s latest launch, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which has already generated over $1 billion in sales. Sony previously voiced concerns about losing access to one of the industry’s most successful franchises. Control over the release of future iterations of Call of Duty seems to be a central issue in the emerging dispute, and regulators are beginning to take notice.

The EU has already uncovered potential antitrust issues with Microsoft’s video game distribution model. Indeed, the Microsoft ecosystem has rapidly accumulated a growing selection of exclusive titles. Both Microsoft and Activision have indicated they will continue to cooperate with the European Commission, the body who authorized the investigation and who serves as the EU’s executive branch.

Antitrust regulators in the UK have voiced similar concerns. Notably, the United States Federal Trade Commission has not approved the deal yet.

The EU is one of the most important regulators that companies must comply with. Failing to do so would otherwise shut them out of a very lucrative market. I have not been following Call of Duty for a while, and Modern Warfare 2’s sales figures took me by surprise. It will be interesting to learn how the game’s success will weigh on the Microsoft-Activision deal moving forward. I am also curious to see how other regulators, namely the US FTC, will respond themselves to this development.

Article can be found here: https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-games-8d8340d840a531973c4c0be37b70a15f