Microsoft wants to be the Disney of the video game: the purchase of Activision is another step in the conquest of the sector with Game Pass

On By Garmin Philip

Microsoft’s purchase of Activision puts the Redmond company in a position literally unique in the history of the medium. The purchase of a legendary video game company (Activision began programming arcade games in the seventies, and its or its subsidiaries are franchises as popular as ‘Call of Duty’, ‘World of Warcraft’, ‘Candy Crush’ or ‘Overwatch’ ) is much more than a mere coup. It’s all a strategy.

In this case, it is a very notable increase in a portfolio of games that it is still early to know if they will become exclusive or not, although that is not the issue. As happened with Bethesda, the important thing is not whether the next ‘The Elder Scrolls’ or ‘Starfield’ will be exclusive to the Xbox family consoles or not. It is rather that those games They will be from day one in Game Pass, Microsoft’s key project to face Playstation.

Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard and keeps 'World of Warcraft' and 'Call of Duty' for more than 60,000 million euros

The purchases of Bethesda in September 2020 and, almost a year and a half later, Activision Blizzard, represent a sudden increase in Microsoft’s catalog fund, which allows us to compare the Redmond company with another entertainment giant: Disney. When Disney began acquiring companies back in 2009, its strategy went far beyond “eliminating the competition.” Obviously, in 2009, when he acquired Marvel, what he was looking for were successful franchises, which come in handy. But with the progressive purchases of Lucasfilm in 2012 and, finally, Fox in 2017, what he was outlining was an increase in his catalog so that his streaming platform project, Disney +, could stand up to Netflix, HBO or Prime Video.

That is the genuine similarity between Microsoft and Disney, beyond being two giants of entertainment that branch out their activities into areas never seen before. Because it is obvious that Microsoft is very interested in the possibilities for online gaming offered by ‘WoW’ and ‘Overwatch’, among others, and the doors that can be opened in this video game sector thanks to its muscle financial. Or how games of that category and popularity can impact projects like xCloud, Xbox’s cloud game.

The similarity, then, is that these purchases are not for Microsoft to launch an exclusive ‘Call of Duty’ tomorrow to rub EA’s Battlefield in the face (which, by the way, was rumored a few years ago that it was being tempted by Microsoft , but no economic agreement was reached). The resemblance between Disney and Microsoft is that both pull checkbooks to diversify their activities and enrich their respective platforms, where do they find a much more direct economic benefit based on subscriptions than simply with the sale of games or collections in cinemas.

Competition and regulation: what’s next

At the moment it is The voice of the people that Bobby Kotik, the CEO of Activision, remains at the helm of the company for the time being, despite the storm over his head with numerous accusations of abuse of power, undoubtedly the reason why the public perception of the company has eroded notably in recent months. In an email you sent to your employees this morning communicating the purchase, he speaks of June 2023 as the date on which the agreement will be fully closed.

Until then, he says, “Activision will continue to operate autonomously.” And it specifies: “until we receive all the necessary approvals regulation and other mandatory conditions for the closing of the deal are met could be reached at the end of Microsoft’s fiscal year”, that is, June 2023.

The purchase of Bethesda (actually a merger, as it became part of a new Microsoft subsidiary called Vault) was approved six months after the transaction by the European Commission, and also by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. That purchase, valued at 7,000 million dollars, It is far behind the 60,000 million that the purchase of Activision has cost. For this reason, the procedures will be on this occasion, predictably, much slower.

The purchase of Bethesda is another explosive ingredient in that cocktail called Game Pass that can be the nightmare of Sony and its PS5

The purchase will have to go through competition regulation mechanisms to avoid monopolies, such as that of the European Union, which in its regulations WOMEN 139/2004 on the control of concentrations between companies assesses and legislates this type of transaction. From there, the scenarios are those of an approval without reservations, an approval with conditions or the most damaging case and one that could delay the deal indefinitely: an antitrust investigation.

Almost a year and a half after checking if Activision Blizzard and Microsoft can, in fact, join their paths, we can already conjecture what new scenario in the video game industry is going to take shape for future generations of releases. With a Game Pass consolidated as one of the most ambitious projects in the industry in the medium term, perhaps the main question is: even if everything is legally in order, to what extent does the player have to worry, how does the viewer care about Disney, of a complete domination of the landscape by Microsoft?



Reference-www.xataka.com