On a recent video interview from IGN contributor Destin Legarie, Wedbush Securities Managing Director Michael Pachter went into a good bit of detail on why he is confident that the Microsoft deal to acquire Activision-Blizzard will be allowed to go through soon after months of negotiation with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.
Concerns of monopoly have held up the acquisition, mainly as Sony has tried desperately to convince the CMA that Microsoft will make Call of Duty Xbox-exclusive or otherwise attempt to infringe on Sony’s profits with the franchise. Microsoft has repeatedly said they don’t plan to do so, and has even signed a ten year agreement.
Pachter claims that one way that Microsoft will get around this roadblock, due to the UK only being one country (and the only major stumbling block that appears to be in the acquisition’s way) by forming a PLC (publicly listed corporation) to run in the UK, but still be a subsidiary of Microsoft. In this way the company respect’s the UK’s law, but is still able to get what it wants.
Considering Sony’s excuses for why Microsoft can’t be allowed to do the acquisition have been getting weaker and weaker (at first claiming they would make Call of Duty Xbox-exclusive and then claiming recently that they will make Playstation versions of future games deliberately buggy to destroy trust in the brand, something Microsoft’s research has disproven), there doesn’t really seem to be much standing in the acquisition’s way.
Pachter went on to say that should Microsoft is already ready to commit to supporting the Playstation 5 for the next ten years, and that Sony has no legal ground to stand on for beyond that as nobody knows what the Playstation 6 will be capable of.
Either way, hopefully Pachter will be correct and the Activision-Blizzard acquisition will be allowed to go through. To hear more about Pachter’s thoughts for the entire deal, you can find the full interview above.
