Brazilian regulator says Sony could compete without Call of Duty, like Nintendo does
Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) has said it believes PlayStation could still be competitive with Xbox even if Call of Duty were to become exclusive to Microsoft’s platform.
On Wednesday, the country’s competition watchdog said it had approved Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion merger with Activision Blizzard with no restrictions.
Explaining its reasoning for the decision, CADE appeared to imply that Sony can have little reason to complain about potential exclusivity given that exclusive content played a role in the PlayStation’s success story.
“Investment in exclusive content is, and always has been, very important for the competitive dynamics in the console segment,” CADE’s report states.
“Exclusive content was, most likely, one of the main factors responsible for positioning the PlayStation as a leader in the world console market for more than two decades, a leadership that continues to this day.”
CADE then claimed that even if the deal eventually resulted in PlayStation losing access to Activision Blizzard content including Call of Duty, Sony would still have the means to remain competitive – as Nintendo has managed to do without having the blockbuster FPS series on its consoles.
“With the acquisition of a publisher such as Activision Blizzard, and considering the (theoretical) risk of the company’s content becoming exclusive to Xbox, it is likely that the eventual conclusion of the transaction will give Microsoft a considerable competitive advantage in the console sector,” it said.
“Even so, CADE does not see that such an advantage represents a risk of closing this market for current competitors. As is already seen, Nintendo does not currently rely on any content from Activision Blizzard to
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