According to Mark Zuckerberg’s company (which includes Facebook and Instagram), there is no problem with Microsoft taking over Activision Blizzard after Bethesda (or, more precisely, its parent company, ZeniMax Media).

Meta has answered CADE’s, the Brazilian competition authority’s questions. It tells us that Meta believes that there is an “abundance” of content being produced and that players are constantly expanding the size of the camp, so Sony Interactive Entertainment will not lose any blood if a big publisher ends up being acquired by its competition, even if its games are likely to become Xbox exclusives (at least on console, because Microsoft always launches PC versions simultaneously as on consoles, and we’ll probably never see that from Sony…).

Meta thinks it’s inappropriate to segment the market based on platform and hardware and that the development/publishing threshold is low: “The emergence of different business models in electronic games – including the traditional licensing model, the in-app purchase model, the subscription-based model, and the free-to-play, ad-supported model – also gave developers more options to monetize, further promoting the reduction of barriers to entry and allowing developers to bring their content to market in the most efficient way, both for them and their users,” the firm added.

Meta also answered the question about who Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s competitors in AAA games are: Sony Interactive Entertainment, Capcom, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Konami, SEGA, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive, Tencent, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. NetEase seems to have been left off the list: if Tencent, the other big Chinese tech giant, is there, why isn’t NetEase, which recently acquired Quantic Dream?

Sony has already had its grievances voiced to CADE (Jim Ryan’s company opposes the acquisition), but Microsoft essentially only has a competition authority barrier in the UK.

Source: PSL