Chile approves Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard

Chile’s national economic prosecutor dismissed the possibility of unfair competition and approved Microsoft’s acquisition of the huge developer.

Microsoft continues in its acquisition race Activision Blizzard and the purchase is still pending final approval. Some countries have already given the go-ahead and Chile has joined in the last few hours, voting in favor of approving the purchase in phase 1.

Chile approves Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard

In the last few hours the news has arrived that the National economic prosecutor Chilethe regulatory authority competent in this type of transactions, announced its position on the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft and the vote was in favor of approving the deal in Phase 1.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the operation “was unable to substantially reduce competition by considering, among other things, the patterns and preferences of video game consumers in Chile”. Furthermore, he added: “In its analysis of the horizontal effects, the investigation excluded risks, considering that in markets where the parties overlap their activities (development and publication of video games, distribution of computer games and sale of merchandising and digital graphic advertising) there were no exceeded the market concentration thresholds set out in the 2022 Horizontal Merger Analysis Guide and that a large number of relevant competitors and a dynamic market were observed.

Call of Duty, a key factor in the decision

The Chilean National Economic Attorney’s Office conducted various surveys among console users to find out what their reaction would be to various scenarios, and the possibility of PlayStation permanently losing Call of Duty was not indicated as a measure that would alter the scenario of the console.

“In the assessment of vertical risk, the possible blocking of inputs was excluded, consisting in the fact that Microsoft, after acquiring ABK, stops supplying games such as call of Duty to your competitors. This considering, among other arguments, that ABK faces competitive pressure from players such as Electronic Arts, Take Two, Ubisoft and Epic Games, Sony and Nintendo, and that the relevance of Call of Duty would be relatively less in Latin America than in other regions of the world.”.

He also added: “It was also considered that the number of consumers who would prefer to switch consoles in the face of a blocking strategy would also be less, as verified through a survey carried out with Chilean consumers, and that the significant revenues generated by Playstation in favor of ABK would discourage the adoption of a blocking strategy”.