Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, February 8 (Xinhua)-- the British Competition and Market Authority (CMA) released its interim conclusion on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard and proposed to remove the "call of Duty" from the deal.

UK regulators said the deal could reduce competition and "lead to higher prices, fewer choices or less innovation for UK gamers", so it suggested that a "partial spin-off of Activision Blizzard" could be a potential solution.

Divest part of the business related to call of Duty

Stripping the active part of Activision Blizzard

Complete stripping of Activision and Blizzard

In a statement to foreign media VGC, Rima Alaily, vice president and deputy general counsel of Microsoft, said: "We are committed to providing effective and easy-to-implement solutions to address CMA's concerns.

"our commitment to grant long-term 100% equal call of Duty access to Sony, Nintendo, Steam and others retains the benefits of the deal for gamers and developers and increases market competition."

Alaily also reiterated the 100% statement of equal access, adding: "what does 100% mean? when we say equal, we mean equal, including content, pricing, functionality, quality and playability."

CTOnews.com learned that CMA's statement said the proposed merger would have a negative impact on the supply of cloud gaming services and consoles. It claimed that by acquiring Activision Blizzard, Microsoft would "significantly reduce the competition it would otherwise face in the UK cloud gaming market. This could change the future of games and could hurt British gamers, especially those who cannot afford or do not want to buy expensive consoles or game PC."

CMA also said the evidence provided to the agency, including "data on how Microsoft measures customer value in the day-to-day business process", suggests that "Microsoft will allow Activision games to monopolize (or experience worse on PlayStation) on its own gaming platform".

Martin Coleman, chairman of the independent expert panel responsible for the second phase of the CMA survey, said: "it is estimated that there are about 45 million gamers in the UK and Britons spend more on games than any other form of entertainment, including music, movies, television and books. The fierce competition between Xbox and PlayStation has defined the console game market over the past 20 years. Exciting new developments in cloud games provide more options for gamers. Our job is to ensure that British gamers do not get caught up in corporate acquisitions, which over time could hurt competition and lead to higher prices, fewer choices or less innovation. We have found that this may be the case for the time being. "

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