This Was Microsoft’s Case That Their Activision Deal Would Not Hurt Cloud Gaming

gameranx.com:

Microsoft failed to convince the EU that their Activision deal would not trigger the cloud gaming theory of harm. For this reason, they had to offer remedies to competitors, namely the 10 year deals for Call of Duty that they gave their console competitors in Sony and Nintendo, as well as cloud gaming companies Nvidia, Ubitus, and Boosteroid.

With all that said, it is interesting to see what arguments Microsoft made for their case. As you may see, the EU may have been in the wrong in their judgement.

Microsoft lays out their argument on paragraph 472, page 113 of the document:

“The Notifying Party submitted that no anticompetitive effects will arise even if Activision Blizzard’s content was made exclusive to Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming.  It argued that neither Nvidia, the “clear market leader” in cloud gaming, nor other providers of cloud game streaming services could be foreclosed.

In particular for Nvidia, it has sufficient content to remain the leader in the race for the provision of cloud games streaming services and has managed to achieve this success without any Activision Blizzard content.  Moreover, not having access to Activision Blizzard’s content would not force any supplier of cloud game streaming services to exit the market.

Finally, even if the Notifying Party made Activision Blizzard’s games exclusive to Xbox Cloud Gaming, Sony and Steam would remain the market leaders in the overall market for the distribution of console and PC games.”

Microsoft’s argument is interesting, in that they claim even in the considerably smaller market for cloud gaming, Activision Blizzard games aren’t important to their success. It is true that these cloud gaming companies, including Microsoft itself, are not able to offer