Microsoft's purchase of Activison-Blizzard has had a notable breakthrough after the Brazilian Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) made official its conclusion on the review process approving the acquisition without any restrictions. Actually, the CADE verdict was accompanied by a direct message to Sony.
In recent days, Sony’s concerns have been making headlines as Jim Ryan flew to Brussels to visit the European Union headquarters in order to voice his worries over the acquisition. However, Brazil’s approval has been making headlines too as their document does not include any type of restriction for Microsoft or anything that could be favourable for Sony.
The regulator made clear that “It is not their job to protect special interests.”
The specific part of the document with these claims was shared by independent analyst Benji Sales: "it is important to highlight that the main objective of CADE is the protection of the competitive environment understood from the welfare of Brazilian consumers and not the defence of particular interests of specific competitors”.
Brazil also adds
— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) October 5, 2022
• It's not their job or role to protect Sony / PlayStations interests or position
• Even if Call if Duty or Activision Catalog goes exclusive to the Xbox Ecosystem they don't believe it makes the market anticompetitive
Translation via ResetEra user Idas https://t.co/6MHb6JwwDR pic.twitter.com/2aGmTJmAck
On the other hand, CADE pointed out that after its analysis of the Call of Duty situation, it determined that there are no elements to affirm that a possible exclusivity of the franchise with the Xbox environment would affect competition in the video game sector.
“Considering the huge popularity of Call of Duty, it is reasonable to infer that if Activision Blizzard games were no longer available on Sony consoles, PlayStation users could decide to migrate to Xbox, or even a PC, to continue having access to franchise games.”
That is not all! They also noted that despite this, one cannot rule out the possibility that Microsoft may deem it potentially profitable to adopt an exclusivity strategy on Activision Blizzard games, even if a decision in this direction could result in the sacrifice of a relevant part of sales, users and even the Call of Duty popularity which has been the main argument from other industry experts.
So far, the purchase of Activision has already been approved by regulators in Saudi Arabia and Brazil, leaving the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States with the last word.
What do you think about Brazil's approval? Will the remaining authorities think the same? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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