Sept 1 (Reuters) – Britain’s competition authority, the CMA, said on Thursday it had opened an in-depth investigation into Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion (69.1 billion) takeover of Activision Blizzard. Billions of Euro’s).
The CMA believes that this project could significantly reduce competition in game consoles, multi-game subscription services and those based on the cloud (cloud computing).
“Following our Phase 1 investigation, we are concerned that Microsoft is abusing its position on popular games like ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘World of Warcraft’ post-merger to harm its competitors, including recent rivals,” the authority wrote.
Asked, Microsoft and Activision have declared that they want to continue to cooperate with the CMA.
“Sony, as an industry leader, says it’s concerned about ‘Call of Duty’, but we’ve said we’re committed to making the same game available to customers on the same day on Xbox and PlayStation,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Activision Chief Executive Bobby Kotick said he still expects the deal to be finalized during Microsoft’s fiscal year ending June 30, 2023.
Microsoft and Activision have until September 8 to respond to the CMA.
On Wall Street, the title Microsoft fell by 1.20%, while that of Activision advanced by 0.08% around 12:40 GMT. (Report Radhika Anilkumar in Bangalore and Paul Sandle in London, with Sinchita Mitra; French version Claude Chendjou, editing by Sophie Louet)