Game Pass Prices Will Not be Raised After Activision Blizzard Acquisition – Microsoft
As a respone to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority’s statement about Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the Xbox maker has stated it has no intention of raising the price of Xbox Game Pass.
“Prices for subscriptions can easily be revised, and Microsoft may have an incentive to do so once it adds content that is as popular as Activision’s, including CoD,” said the UK’s CMA as part of its provisional findings on the merger.
As a response to this, however, Microsoft has stated that the prices of Game Pass will not be raised as a result of the merger. Microsoft has also stated it will not be raising the price to offset the release of Activision Blizzard games on Game Pass.
“Game Pass prices will not increase as a result of the Merger, and certainly will not increase to a point that offsets the substantial benefits of Activision titles coming to Game Pass on a day and date basis,” Microsoft said in its response. “This is especially so given Game Pass will continue to be constrained by B2P [buy to play].”
To help its point, Microsoft pointed out how games released by Bethesda have not seen an increase in Game Pass prices, which includes major franchises like Fallout, Doom, Dishonored, and The Elder Scrolls. The company talks about its acquisition of Activision Blizzard going through would incentivise it to ensure better distribution of games as well as raise the output of games released on Game Pass.
“The integration of Activision and Microsoft will result in a classic elimination of double marginalization effect because Microsoft will be able to acquire these games at (opportunity) cost and will have incentives to distribute them more broadly and increase the output of Game Pass relative to its
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