After months of deliberation, the competence and market authority, or CMA) today presented a provisional conclusion today before the purchase of Blizzard Activision.
The result?
In order for the acquisition to be completed in this region, Microsoft would have to leave Call of Duty out of contract.
While the final deliberation of the CMA will take place in April, the result presented today makes it clear that getting a positive result is quite complicated.
The regulator of this region indicates that the purchase of Activision Blizzard could reduce competition and result in higher prices, fewer options or less innovation for players in the United Kingdom.
One of the important points is growth and competition in the cloud market.
In this section, it has been pointed out that Call of Duty and other franchises will be important for this medium, and Microsoft could eliminate competition by making these games exclusive to their offer in this sector.
Given this, the CMA proposed that the purchase of Activision Blizzard could be approved if the part of the business that deals with Call of Duty is sold, the Activision Blizzard activation segment is sold, or if the activation and blizzard segments are sold.
This was what was commented:

Xbox and PlayStation compete closely with each other at present and access to the most important content, such as Call of Duty, is an important part of that competition.

Reducing this competition between Microsoft and Sony could result in all players seeing higher prices, reduced rank, lower quality and worse service in play consoles over time.
For his part, Martin Coleman, president of the independent panel of experts carried out by the investigation of phase 2 of the CMA, said:
It is estimated that there are about 45 million players in the United Kingdom, and people in the United Kingdom spend more on games than in any other form of entertainment, including music, movies, television and books.

The strong competition between Xbox and PlayStation has defined the console games market during the last 20 years.
The new and exciting developments in cloud games are providing even more options to players.

Our work is to ensure that the players of the United Kingdom are not trapped in the crossfire of global agreements that, over time, could damage the competition and result in higher prices, fewer options or less innovation.
We have provisionally found that this may be the case here.
Upon making this result known, RIMA Daily, Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Ministry of Microsoft, mentioned:
Our commitment to grant 100% long-term equitable access to Call of Duty to Sony, Nintendo, Steam and others preserves the benefits of the agreement for players and developers and increases competition in the market.

75% of respondents in the public consultation of the CMA agrees that this agreement is good for competition in the United Kingdom Games.

What does 100%mean?
When we say the same, we want to say the same.
10 years of parity.
About the content.
About prices.
About characteristics.
About quality.
About the gameplay.
Although the final deliberation by the CMA will be published on April 26, 2023, the provisional conclusion does not paint a positive panorama.
In this way, the corresponding organisms of the United States and the European Union are expected to provide similar results in the coming months.
Recall that Microsoft has pledged to take Call of Duty to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles in the next 10 years, but it seems that this is not enough.
On related issues, Bobby Kick threatens the United Kingdom for this purchase.

Similarly, Microsoft calls Sony a liar for this acquisition.
Editor’s note:
While the provisional result of the CMA was already expected to be negative, the possible solutions are ridiculous.
It is one thing to leave Call of Duty out of the contract, and another is to sell completely to Activision.

This completely eliminates the purchase of almost $70 billion.