{"id":1630133,"date":"2022-09-01T18:34:59","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T22:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1630133"},"modified":"2022-09-01T18:35:08","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T22:35:08","slug":"microsofts-69-billion-activision-deal-could-harm-competition-uk-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/microsofts-69-billion-activision-deal-could-harm-competition-uk-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft\u2019s $69 billion Activision deal could harm competition, UK says"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmicrosofts-69-billion-activision-deal-could-harm-competition-uk-says%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1630133&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>By Paul Sandle and Radhika Anilkumar<\/p>\n<p>LONDON (Reuters) \u2013     Britain\u2019s antitrust regulator said Microsoft Corp\u2019s $69 billion acquisition of \u201cCall of Duty\u201d maker Activision Blizzard could harm competition in gaming consoles, subscription services and cloud gaming, and it needs to be investigated in depth. <\/p>\n<p>The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Thursday the deal, the largest ever in gaming, could damage the industry if Microsoft refused to give competitors access to Activision\u2019s best-selling games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are concerned that Microsoft could use its control over popular games like \u2018Call of Duty\u2019 and \u2018World of Warcraft\u2019 post-merger to harm rivals, including recent and future rivals in multi-game subscription services and cloud gaming,\u201d the CMA said. <\/p>\n<p>Microsoft, with Xbox, and its rivals Sony and Nintendo have led the console market for 20 years, with limited entries from new rivals, the CMA said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want people to have more access to games, not less,\u201d Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSony, as the industry leader, says it is worried about \u2018Call of Duty\u2019, but we\u2019ve said we are committed to making the same game available on the same day on both Xbox and PlayStation,\u201d he said.  <\/p>\n<p>Several analysts described the move as unsurprising and said that the deal would not be anti-competitive if competitors were given access to Microsoft games, as Microsoft has pledged.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft needs to give a greater deal on assurances and put down in writing certain specifics around exclusivity, said Atlantic Equities analyst Kunaal Malde.<\/p>\n<p>Activision still expects the deal to close in Microsoft\u2019s financial year to end-June 2023. The companies have until Sept. 8 to submit proposals to address the CMA\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Shares in Microsoft were down 1.2%. <\/p>\n<p>CLOUD GAMES<\/p>\n<p>The deal, which was announced in January, will require  approval in the United States as well as other major jurisdictions including the European Union and China. <\/p>\n<p>Reuters previously reported that Microsoft would pay a $3 billion break-fee if the deal falls through, according to a source familiar with the matter, suggesting the company was confident of winning antitrust approval.<\/p>\n<p>The CMA said Microsoft was well positioned to succeed in cloud gaming, given it had a leading cloud platform in Azure and the leading PC operating system in Windows OS, as well as Xbox.<\/p>\n<p>It said these strengths in combination with Activision\u2019s games could damage competition in the nascent market for cloud gaming services. <\/p>\n<p>Microsoft said in a blog on Thursday that it would launch major Activision games on its Game Pass subscription service and also make them available to other consoles and mobile devices through cloud game streaming technology.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru and Paul Sandle in London,; additional reporting by Sinchita Mitra and Akash Sriram; Editing by Arun Koyyur, David Goodman, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Nick Zieminski)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/?attachment_id=2744076\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI8025J-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI8025J-VIEWIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Paul Sandle and Radhika Anilkumar LONDON (Reuters) \u2013 Britain\u2019s antitrust regulator said Microsoft Corp\u2019s $69 billion acquisition of \u201cCall of Duty\u201d maker Activision Blizzard could harm competition in gaming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1630133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1630133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1630133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1630133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1630133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}