Brazil has become one of the first countries in the world toapprove the acquisitionof Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, it has been revealed. Earlier this week, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense said that they “approve this merger without restrictions”.
This doesn’t mean that the acquisition is complete though, as it still has to go through scrutiny by various other regulatory boards around the world. This is, however, one step closer toMicrosoftcompleting the acquisition ofActivisionBlizzard.
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One of the biggest factors surrounding Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision surrounds one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world,Call of Duty. Although Microsoft hasstated in the pastthat Call of Duty will not become an Xbox-exclusive title, it has been under scrutiny by regulatory bodies.
As reported byVGC, Brazil’s regulatory body stated that “it’s also reasonable to assume that if upcoming Call of Duty games became exclusive to the Microsoft ecosystem, players loyal to the PlayStation brand could simply abandon the series, migrating their demand to other games available on their favourite console”.
However, they go on to then explain that “despite this, one cannot rule out the possibility that Microsoft may deem potentially profitable to adopt an exclusivity strategy on Activision Blizzard games, even if a decision in this direction could result in the sacrifice of a relevant part of sales, users and even the Call of Duty popularity”.
The board explains that they believe that exclusive games are a benchmark of competition between Microsoft and Sony, but no exclusive titles so far have shifted the balance in favor of a console. It was also noted how Nintendo continues to compete with Microsoft and Sony, despite not having Activision Blizzard titles on their platform.
Although this is a clear win for Microsoft, there is still a long way to go. The United Kingdom’s regulatory body announced earlier this week that a deadline of March 1st, 2023 has been set for them to publish their findings into the acquisition.
