Xbox has dismissed some recent skepticism over its proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition, insisting that removing Call of Duty from PlayStation "makes zero sense." Its comments on the matter were a direct response to the regulatory pushback that the Activision Blizzard takeover is facing from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority.
The British antitrust watchdog started mounting consistent opposition to the consolidation not long after Microsoft announced its preliminary agreement to acquire the World of Warcraft maker in early 2022. One of the latest pieces of evidence testifying to that trend arrived in February, when London floated the idea of removing Call of Duty from Activision Blizzard's Microsoft acquisition portfolio. The CMA argued that the incredible popularity of the franchise would provide Microsoft with an unfair advantage over Sony, leading to many PlayStation owners moving to the Xbox ecosystem as a direct result of the deal.
Microsoft has now moved to dispute that claim, with its Competition Law Group VP Rima Alaily positing that removing Call of Duty from PlayStation "makes zero business sense." Elaborating on that matter, Alaily cited a January 2023 survey from British market analytics firm YouGov that found only 3% of all PlayStation users intend to buy an Xbox console should the Call of Duty series leave Sony's ecosystem. That Microsoft-commissioned study stands in opposition to the CMA's insights gathered by a different British company—DJS Research—back in December, which found that as many as 15% of all PlayStation owners would switch to Xbox in that scenario.
The key methodology difference between the two studies is that the one commissioned by the CMA focused on consumers who invested at least 10 playing hours or $100 in the Call of Duty series over the past year. In contrast, the percentage cited by the YouGov survey applies to all existing PlayStation owners, many of whom aren't Call of Duty fans. As for those that are, the study financed by Microsoft indicates that only one in 10 gamers who rank the series among their two favorite ones would move to Xbox should it be removed from PlayStation.
The insights cited by Xbox also don't reflect on the proportion of PlayStation gamers who'd switch to PC should the franchise be pulled from Sony's consoles, whereas YouGov found 9% of them would do just that. In total, the CMA's findings imply that one in four Call of Duty fans would move to the Xbox ecosystem as a direct consequence of the series' hypothetical exclusivity. The fact that Call of Duty will be added to the Xbox Game Pass catalog should the Activision Blizzard acquisition go through is likely the key driver behind these metrics; after all, even Microsoft's own research suggests nearly half of PlayStation gamers are interested in Game Pass.
Source: Axios
