In a new filing from Microsoft detailing the company’s “findings” and “conclusions” after the trial recent victory in court against the Federal Trade Commission, the Xbox maker revealed that call of duty Leaving Steam is part of Activision’s plan to develop Battle.net. But according to the documents, the controversial move was a “resounding failure”.
In 2018, Activision announced that the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Operation 4 will skip Steam and launch exclusively on Blizzard’s Battle.net service. And for about five years, Activision stuck to this plan, even though it disappointed fans. Then, in 2022, Activision reversed course and release Call of Duty Modern War II On steam. Is it doing it because it cares so much about its fans and wants to do something nice? No, it turns out that the publisher plans to develop Battle.net using call of duty failed and Activision gave up after several years of trying.
The information comes from a July 13 court filing from Microsoft, part of its ongoing legal battle against the FTC when the government organization tried to stop Microsoft from continuing with the plans Acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. In the new document, Microsoft’s legal team uses two examples to show that a “platform” (including consoles, digital stores, and online game services) does not need call of duty to be successful, and “having access” to the popular FPS series does not guarantee success.
call of duty Leaving Steam doesn’t help
Microsoft describes Activision’s 2018 decision CoD The PC-exclusive Battle.net was a “resounding failure”. The new filing explains that the reason behind this controversial move is to “attract users to come and grow,” Battle.net, Activision Blizzard’s own PC game store and launcher. However, this didn’t work, and Battle.net’s monthly active users remained “relatively stable over the period when it had exclusive access” to Call of duty. Steam’s number of monthly active users has only gotten bigger over that same period, growing from 67 million users in 2017 to 132 million in 2021.
The point that Microsoft’s legal team is trying to make is call of duty It’s not necessary to be successful, and even if a platform has it, that doesn’t mean that platform will have a significant increase in customers. So according to Microsoft, even if it is done call of duty Xbox monopoly, which they keep saying is no, that won’t matter because there are already successful platforms without CoD.
In that same section of the document, Xbox lawyers point to the Switch as another example of how a platform can succeed despite not having access to call of duty. Microsoft’s legal team also suggests that if Activision content becomes exclusive to Xbox, PlayStation maker Sony could respond in a variety of ways, including reducing prices or buying more outside studios and publishers Tuesday.
While all of this may be true, it ignores the fact that even if CoD As a Battle.net exclusive, it is still available to anyone who owns a PC. That won’t be the case for PlayStation owners if the shooter series becomes an Xbox exclusive.
If you’re tired of all the legal drama and court documentaries, I have sad news: It’s not over yet. On Thursday, The FTC has been appealing the court’s decision since earlier this week allowing Microsoft and Activision to merge. And meanwhile, Xbox maker still has to deal with UK CMA, which has not yet approved the agreement. This is not over yet.
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