The 10-strong group has filed a lawsuit in a US federal court claiming that the $69 billion acquisition would “create a monopoly in the video game industry”. It makes reference to the fact that “Studies show 46% of PlayStation and Nintendo users in the United States would consider subscribing to Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service with the inclusion of Activision Blizzard titles,” with the Call of Duty franchise proving a particularly large draw. One thing’s for certain: if Microsoft does manage to push through the Activision acquisition, it will have faced serious adversity and annoyed a lot of people along the way. This latest court case follows on from the US government suing to to stop Microsoft from acquiring the Call of Duty publisher. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets”, said Holly Vedova, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. Prior to that, rival console maker Sony had taken the lead in opposing the purchase. The PS5 maker filed a complaint with Brazilian authorities claiming that Call of Duty was so popular it could “influences users’ choice of console” if it were only available on Xbox consoles. Microsoft responded to these complaints with assurances that Call of Duty games would continue to come to PlayStation consoles for at least three years – a measure that PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan dismissed as “inadequate on many levels”.
