The European Commission has revealed in a follow-up to its approval of Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal that PlayStation outsells Xbox consoles by 4:1 in European territories .
European Commissioner for Competition, Margarethe Vestager, explained why the regulator approved the deal, noting that one deciding factor is due to the fact PlayStation has significantly stronger marketshare than Xbox in the region. To be precise, Sony’s hardware sells around four times as much as Xbox.
An important finding was that the overall market share for Microsoft and Activision was generally low in Europe. It’s only when you look at specific segments like ‘shooter games’ that you get to above 20%. And for consoles, Sony sells about 4 times more PlayStations than Microsoft sells Xboxs.”
With this context, we did not think the merger raised a vertical issue. I am told Call of Duty is a very popular shooter franchise. But we found that Microsoft would probably not shoot itself in the foot by stopping sales of Call of Duty games to the much larger PlayStation player base. Our colleagues at the CMA agreed with us and ultimately reached the same conclusion.
Microsoft’s deal has been approved in a number of regions, although one major territory that has blocked the buyout is the UK. However, the Xbox format holder has confirmed that it will be contesting the decision.
[Source – European Commission]