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Prohibition of the Merger Also Means That MS and Abk Won’t Be Able to Try Again for the Next 10 Years (Page 336)
Prohibition would be effected by accepting undertakings under section 82 of the Act or making an order under section 84 of the Act, prohibiting the Merger and preventing the Parties from attempting to merge for a further period: our normal practice would be to prevent a future merger between the Parties for the next ten years, absent a change of circumstances.
MS Thought That Prohibiting the Merger Would Preserve the Status Quo of Sony and Google (Page 337)
Further, Microsoft submitted that the 'two key complainants' against the deal (SIE and Google) have many reasons to preserve the status quo or undermine the Merger in order to extract higher profits to the detriment of game developers and gamers. It submitted that, on this basis, the Microsoft Cloud Remedy protects competition in a way that prohibition will not. Microsoft submitted that 'through prohibition, the CMA is ensuring the ongoing success of entrenched competitors who have no incentive to expand competition'.
A Third Party Thought That Prohibiting the Merger Could Risk ABK Entering Into a Long Term Exclusivity Deal With MS (Page 337)
One third party ([REDACTED]) told us that prohibition would not be an effective remedy because it disagreed with the SLC finding, and that blocking the Merger could risk Activision entering into long-term exclusivity deals with Microsoft which would have the same effect, in its view, as divestiture of the CoD franchise. Another third party ([REDACTED]) commented that prohibition would be 'detrimental' for the growth of cloud gaming and [REDACTED] players as they would not have access to the CoD title.
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I mean, what is stopping Microsoft from just making an exclusive agreement with Activision after this for CoD on xCloud? Absolutely nothing, aside from the asking price, which Microsoft could meet way more easy than anyone else.
