Phil Spencer calls Activision Blizzard’s takeover blockade “disappointing

These are not easy days for Phil Spencer and is that the refusal of the CMA to the purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, this week has come to Redfall with harsh criticism due to various reasons that have led the game Arkane Austin to be a complete disappointment. Yesterday we already echoed this second issue, but the head of Xbox also spoke of the blockade of the largest operation in the history of the video game industry ... which is about to close and that for the moment, does not look positive for the American company.

Spencer insists: they will keep working

“We’re still confident,” Spencer said on the Kinda Funny Xcast podcast. “I think there are like 14 jurisdictions all up we’re working on approval, and we’ve already got 9″.

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However, Spencer knows that the British CMA’s decision is not final. “The CMA decision was disappointing,” he continues. “I’ve been talking to that group for coming up on a year. They’ve defined a market of cloud gaming that in my mind doesn’t really exist yet today, but they have a point of view that maybe we have a lead in a market that is just forming and that this content could somehow prohibit others from competing in that market. But we’ll appeal it. We’ll stay on it. The company remains very very committed. Activision Blizzard King is not our strategy, but it is an accelerant for our strategy, so we’re still heads-down and working through regulatory.”

And indeed, the reason for the refusal of the operation was, against all odds, a hypothetical dominance of Microsoft in cloud gaming, a technology that has yet to emerge and reach its peak. We say against all odds because both those who fought for this purchase to be approved (Microsoft) and those who wanted to avoid it (Sony, mainly), the real workhorse was Call of Duty, and around the franchise, both have built their strategy of defense and attack.

Source | Kinda Funny