Everything indicated that CMAthe UK’s antitrust authority, was about to give its go-ahead to Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard, but the authority recently officially released its decision to block the operationwhich obviously represents a setback in the plans of the giant from Redmond.

The CMA explained in a press release that it “blocked Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Activision-Blizzard due to concerns that the deal would change the future of the fast-growing cloud gaming market, leading to reduced innovation and less choice for the UK.” players for years to come.”

The Antitrust Authority noted in its key points that “Microsoft’s solution had significant flaws and would require regulatory oversight by the CMA”. On the other hand, Martin Coleman, president of the CMA, said in his statements that “cloud gaming needs a free and competitive market to drive innovation and choice“.

Our readers will already know that Microsoft has reached an agreement to buy Activision-Blizzard in exchange for $69,000 million. The move was a blow to Sony that reverberated in the stock market, especially over the possibility that Call of Duty, the world’s most popular video game saga, would stop appearing on PlayStation consoles. This was the main argument used by the Japanese giant to convince the antitrust authorities not to allow the operation.

Sony seemed to be convincing at first, but Microsoft knew how to read the situation more intelligently, so that the waters flowed in its favor and won the support of the authorities of many countries, including those of Japan. However, as we said before, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union are important squares, and it cannot be forgotten that the CMA was the institution that sank NVIDIA’s intentions to take over ARM.

Faced with the threat of PlayStation running out of Activision-Blizzard games, which would depend solely on orders if they ended up as a subsidiary, Microsoft maneuvered to reach ten-year deals to bring the Call of Duty saga to Nintendo consoles and platforms like NVIDIA GeForce Now . However, these agreements do not seem to have satisfied the CMA, which is focusing its arguments on blocking the operation on cloud gaming.

In the verdict published by the CMA, one can read that “in cloud games, our assessment is different. Microsoft already has a strong advantage in this market. It runs Windows, which is by far the leading PC operating system and the operating system most PC games run on; It has important infrastructure and systems in the cloud through Azure and Xcloud; and has a strong gaming base thanks to its ownership of Xbox and a portfolio of leading games. No other cloud gaming operator has this combination of benefits. Some of these strengths are already reflected in Microsoft’s current share of the cloud gaming market in the UK is between 60-70%.”

“Activision games like Call of Duty, Overwatch and World of Warcraft are among the most popular content available on consoles and PC. We found that Activision games are likely to be important to cloud gaming services in the future. While Activision has yet to offer its games on a cloud gaming service, evidence suggests that it will have strong incentives to do so, especially given forecasts of significant growth in cloud gaming. We conclude that, absent the merger, Activision’s games would be available on cloud gaming services in the UK in the near future.”

Therefore, we came to the conclusion that Combining Activision’s strong gaming portfolio with Microsoft’s numerous current cloud gaming strengths would allow Microsoft to harm current and emerging cloud gaming competitors by denying them Activision games. and unlike consoles, we found no real reason to stop.

In short, the fact that Microsoft is commercially the owner of the losing platform in the video game console market, the Xbox, does not justify an operation that would allow it to extend its already clear dominance in sectors such as cloud gaming and locally installed PC video games because Windows is by far the most widely used desktop operating system. yes indeed none of this will stop Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard appeal against CMA decision Or at least try to, so this matter should not be postponed at this time.

CMA reintroduces a 360-degree and truly cross-platform approach to the subject. Microsoft has used Sony’s disdain for Nintendo as an argument to say that PlayStation has a clear dominant position in the tabletop video game console sector, adding to its alleged dirty tricks, but the CMA reminded the Redmond giant that it has exactly the same position in the company cloud gaming and local installation on a PC.

From the CMA’s decision, it can be concluded that Microsoft (Xbox), Sony (PlayStation) and Nintendo are not little sisters of charity, but for-profit corporations playing cards in the market, all of which have sins and contradictions. their syllabus.