According to the document published by European Commission With the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, which the regulator approved the operation, the following fact emerges: PlayStation surpasses Xbox 4x inside Console sales in Europe.
As we can see, the European Commission has given the green light to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which is currently only blocked by the British CMA. in a speech by Margrethe VestagerThe European Commissioner for Competition is revealing some data on the current situation in the European video game market, later written directly on the official website of the European Commission.
Not only that, research conducted by the EU also shines a spotlight on Activision in particular, downplaying the publisher’s role in the overall European market, informing the label’s importance, and call of Duty If we take into account the private sphere of shooters, it stands out first of all.
“A key finding was that the overall market shares of Microsoft and Activision were generally low in Europe,” Vestager explained.
In addition, when it comes to consoles, it turns out that the data transferred in the first place, namely PlayStation and Xbox, travels with a console. 4:1 ratio on the market, in terms of sales: “As far as consoles are concerned, Sony with PlayStation sells about 4 times more than Microsoft’s Xbox”.
The following factors help explain the decision taken by the European Commission: “Taken in this context, we do not think that the acquisition will create a vertical problem. Call of Duty is known to be a very popular shooter series, but we are evaluating it. Microsoft is very much like PlayStation. “He didn’t want to hurt himself by stopping series sales to a larger player base. Our colleagues at the CMA agreed and ultimately came to the same conclusion.”
In fact, on the specific console front, even the CMA couldn’t object too much, given that the data was unquestionably in Sony’s favour, but wanted to focus on the hypothetical development of the cloud gaming market to impose the block. Meanwhile, Microsoft appealed the UK’s decision, accusing the CMA of making serious assessment errors.