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

CTOnews.com, March 22 (Xinhua)-- regulators have expressed concern about Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, saying it could significantly reduce PlayStation's competitiveness because it means Microsoft will own the call of Duty series, which Sonny insists is "irreplaceable."

In addition, Sony fears that Microsoft will deliberately retaliate against itself, such as "limiting or not focusing on PlayStation's multiplayer experience", "releasing a defective version of the game for PlayStation", or not trying to optimize and adapt the unique features of the PS5 host.

Prior to this, Microsoft has repeatedly expressed its willingness to provide every new call of Duty game on the PlayStation platform with the same content and functionality as the Xbox in the next 10 years, promising to "provide Sony with the same treatment as the Xbox platform in terms of release date, content, features, upgrades, quality and playability," but Sony still refused to accept it.

Under the circumstances, Microsoft made it clear that if the proposal to buy Activision Blizzard is approved, it will make full use of the PlayStation game console when launching the call of Duty series for Sony's PlayStation system.

Microsoft told the UK Competition and Market Authority (CMA) that not only will it ensure that all the functions of the PlayStation are equivalent, but that the version of the Sony system may have more features than those on the Xbox, such as the tactile feedback of the PS5 DualSense handle, which is a feature that Xbox Series X / S does not have.

Microsoft has hinted that any call of Duty game released on the PlayStation console in the future will include this feature, even if it makes the PlayStation version of the experience better.

In particular, the two sides pointed out that in the interim investigation results, there was no so-called basis for "exceeding due obligations" and asked Microsoft to develop a PlayStation version of "call of Duty" with more features than the Xbox version.

As Microsoft will release CoD on PlayStation in accordance with its remediation commitment, Microsoft will take full advantage of developing games that provide optimized support for PS5 features (such as tactile feedback) and future game consoles to maximize sales on the platform.

It is worth mentioning that Microsoft told CMA in a recently released document that it believes that 10 years will be enough for Sony to build a game comparable to call of Duty, and that its 10-year contract will be extended to next-generation consoles, so players can actually play for more than 10 years.

In its latest response, Microsoft pointed out that the 10-year period was longer or equal than the license agreements enforced in other mergers and acquisitions. "while Microsoft is willing to continue constructive discussions with CMA, there is no reason to extend the remedy beyond the time limit proposed by Microsoft." Microsoft claims.

Of course, CMA's final report on the Activision Blizzard deal will be released on April 26, and CTOnews.com will report further before that.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.