Microsoft is currently trying to persuade the British antitrust regulator “Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)” that their acquisition of Activision Blizzard will not reduce market competition, and the documents provided by Microsoft contain unexpected information – Their “next-gen” Xbox store will not only sell PCs and consoles, but also launch an app market for mobile games.
If Microsoft wants to launch a mobile game store, Activision Blizzard is sure to play a key role. After all, Activision Blizzard not only has its own “Call of Duty” IP and other series to launch mobile games, but Activision is still early It bought the well-known mobile game developer King, as well as its “Candy Crush” and other games. These mobile games account for about half of Activision Blizzard’s revenue and will lead users to Microsoft’s mobile game store.
But the problem is that the two main platforms of mobile phones, the App Store and the Play Store, have achieved an almost exclusive position on their respective operating systems. Among them, the Apple App Store is basically a closed ecosystem, and it is impossible to enter unless it is exposed to anti-competitive laws. And if it is on the Android platform, users may have to sideload the store, which will be a huge obstacle to their promotion.
And for Microsoft’s purpose, which is to calm the CMA’s concerns, this step is also quite fragile. Microsoft means that the combination of Xbox and Activision Blizzard may bring competition to the current situation where mobile games are currently dominated by the App Store and Play Store, but in reality, CMA’s concern is not related to platform diversity, but Activision and Blizzard’s huge number of games will be locked onto Microsoft’s own platform, becoming exclusive to Microsoft. In this regard, whether Microsoft launches its own mobile game app market, it seems that not only will it not make a difference, but it may also deepen the CMA’s suspicions?
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