Microsoft president Brad Smith has published an opinion article about the company’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, describing Sony’s stance on the deal similar to that of Blockbuster during the rise of Netflix.
Echoing Microsoft’s sentiments about the growth of Xbox Cloud Gaming, the company’s vice chairman and president Brad Smith has said that the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is about growing Xbox Game Pass and giving players even more options for how they play games — such as enjoying the best games on Game Pass and unlocking Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II achievements without actually owning them.
Call of Duty Xbox exclusivity would be “economically irrational,” Microsoft president says
Smith pointed out that Microsoft is currently behind the likes of Sony and Nintendo in the console space, and with virtually no presence on mobile, a market dominated by Apple and Android, the company hopes to compete with its competitors with the aid of Activision Blizzard’s library of games. It’s all aimed at ensuring future games coming to Game Pass aid the service in offering a “full library of popular games,” and the recently reported FTC plans to sue Microsoft and block the deal “would be a huge mistake.” In the article on The Wall Street Journal, Smith said: “While modern consumers can stream videos or music on multiple devices on low-cost subscription plans, many games can often only be individually purchased and downloaded onto one device. Microsoft wants to change that by offering consumers the option to subscribe to a cloud gaming service that lets them stream a variety of games on multiple devices for one reasonable fee.”
Describing Microsoft’s hopes for the future of cloud gaming as a similar shift in media consumption like that of Netflix, Smith said that Sony is “as excited about this deal as Blockbuster was about the rise of Netflix.” We’re not sure how comparing Sony to a company that practically crashed and burned due to the growth of streaming services will help Microsoft’s cause, but Smith has reiterated that the company is happy to be legally bound to the proposed ten-year Call of Duty deal it’s offered Sony. “The main supposed potential anticompetitive risk Sony raises is that Microsoft would stop making Call of Duty available on the PlayStation,” Smith says. “But that would be economically irrational.”
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