South Africa became the sixth country to approve the deal after Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Brazil, Chile and Japan.
On Tuesday, April 17, the South African Competition Commission issued a statement approving the $69 billion Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal. Sony's fears that Microsoft would make the popular Call of Duty game exclusive to its platforms and limit the rival PlayStation were deemed unfounded by the Commission. The regulator considered Microsoft's promise to make the Call of Duty franchise available on other console platforms within a few years.
Microsoft is still awaiting decisions on the deal from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which will announce a final decision by May 22. Without the approval of these entities, which represent some of the largest markets in the world, the merger is unlikely to happen. As a reminder, China's antitrust regulator SAMR refused to review Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard under a simplified procedure in 2022.
Earlier, BRICS Competition Center expert Daria Kotova noted different reactions of market participants to the deal:
"According to CMA surveys, two-thirds of them noted the pro-competitive effect of the deal, although one would expect the opposite position from small businesses and independent game studios. According to market participants, Microsoft can compete with Sony, which has a stronger market position and a fairly closed and based on the terms of exclusivity model of development of the game business.”
A third of market participants believe that the deal should be blocked and see it as a risk to competition.
"The dominant position of Microsoft in the market of operating systems for PCs, which may spread to the gaming market, is pointed out.There are also concerns about increased market consolidation and the formation of an oligopoly between Microsoft and Sony, as they are the main providers of game consoles,"
said the expert.
