Microsoft welcomes CMA U-turn on Activision deal, Sony decries "irrational" decision
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Microsoft and Sony have responded to the Competition and Market Authority's revised findings that the former's purchase of Activision Blizzard will not harm competition in the console space.
The CMA said last month that making Activision's games, including Call of Duty, exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem would be "significantly loss-making under any plausible scenario" for Microsoft.
The UK regulator has now published responses from the two platform holders, with Microsoft welcoming the addendum to the original provisional findings.
"Microsoft has been clear since the announcement of the merger: it has no intention to withhold or degrade access to Call of Duty or any other Activision content on PlayStation," the company wrote.
"Such a strategy would be in direct contrast to the interests of gamers in the UK and around the world. Rather than limit choice or access, Microsoft intends to use the merger to bring more games to more people on more platforms and devices."
Sony, meanwhile, said the CMA's reversal of its position is "surprising, unprecedented, and irrational," spending much of its 11-page response detailing the errors it believes the UK regulator made in calculating the lifetime value of an average gamer for either platform.
"SIE respectfully submits that the addendum does not justify the CMA’s U-turn on the consoles theory of harm," the company wrote.
Sony claimed the model the CMA used was biased towards finding that Microsoft had no incentive to withhold Activision's games from PlayStation, and ignores "without sound reason" the analysis of other evidence in the provisional findings regarding Microsoft's incentives.
It added that
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