PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan har fløjet verden tynd for at forsøge at blokere Microsofts køb af Activision Blizzard, og det er i brede træk lykkedes, eftersom både engelske CMA og amerikanske FTC forsøg at blokere handlen.
Hvordan konkurrencen er imellem Xbox og Sony har været et primært fikspunkt for lovgiverne, men EU har altså godkendt handlen, og det lader til at et deres argumenter er at Sonys magtposition på markedet som det er lige nu er ret stort. Magrethe Vestager har udgivet en rapport, hvor hun forklarer hvorfor de valgte at godkende handlen.
"An important finding was that the overall market share for Microsoft and Activision was generally low in Europe. It's only when you look at specific segments like 'shooter games' that you get to above 20%. And for consoles, Sony sells about 4 times more PlayStations than Microsoft sells Xboxs. With this context, we did not think the merger raised a vertical issue. I am told Call of Duty is a very popular shooter franchise. But we found that Microsoft would probably not shoot itself in the foot by stopping sales of Call of Duty games to the much larger PlayStation player base. Our colleagues at the CMA agreed with us and ultimately reached the same conclusion."
CMA lader dog til at blive den primære forhindring, og Microsoft har netop lanceret deres appel.