Public Support for Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard Acquisition is Strong

A newly released survey from a Chilean regulatory body confirmed what the UK already discovered: public support for Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition is strong. And that’s even true if those surveyed are PlayStation owners. As such, it has approved the acquisition.

As always, Florian Mueller from FOSS Patents does a great job of covering the latest developments. But it breaks down like this: 61 percent of gamers surveyed by Chile’s Fiscalía Nacional Económica (FNE) regulatory body would simply switch games if Call of Duty became unavailable on PlayStation, while only 20 percent of them would switch consoles. And despite Sony’s claims that Call of Duty is somehow a special title that binds gamers to a particular platform, even those who identify as Call of Duty fans in that country consider Grand Theft Auto more of a must-have title than they do Call of Duty.

This data comes in the wake of a similar survey undertaken by the UK Competition & Markets Authority (CMA), which found that 75 percent of respondents supported Microsoft’s acquisition. And that audience included twice as many PlayStation users as it did Xbox users.

“The FNE’s ruling [like that of the Brazilian CADE’s Microsoft/Activision Blizzard decision] went beyond the proverbial call of duty,” Mueller explains after a full reading of its release. “The [US] FTC’s complaint did not dissuade or discourage the FNE from reaching its own conclusion that unconditional clearance was warranted. These results should give any skeptic or critic of the deal pause … [in both the UK and Chile,] the [survey] results support the transaction.”

If you’re interested in this drama, I strongly recommend checking out the latest FOSS patents write-up.