The gaming industry was officially revolutionized by Activision’s acquisition of Blizzard King Microsoft. It took about 20 months to get the green light from the authorities, but in the end the Redmond giant was able to welcome hugely important franchises into its stable, such as Call of Duty, Diablo, World of Warcraft e Overwatch.
The CMA therefore accepted the merger request, but only because the agreement was revised on some points. For what concern cloud gamingfor example, the rights to Activision Blizzard titles pass to Ubisoft, which will distribute COD and the others via Ubisoft+. In any case, according to an insider, Microsoft’s plans have not changed: wants to create the “Steam dei mobile“, a service with Call of Duty (including Warzone), Candy Crush and so on.
Should Microsoft hit the target, For Apple this would be a problem. The App Store of the Californian giant would in fact lose titles that are free to download, but filled with boundless possibilities of in-app purchases. And in-app purchases mean revenue for Apple.
Microsoft’s plan for the market mobile
The road for Satya Nadella, Phil Spencer and the others is not an easy one. It is in fact necessary that theEuropean Union pass new legislation to force Apple to open up to third-party stores. Just like the one mentioned above from Microsoft could be.
«The European Union is aiming for regulation that could force Apple to open up its walled garden, which would put Microsoft in a good position to take full control of the most popular video games on iPhone and iPad“, he has declared il noto insider Jez Corden.
According to Corden himself, in Redmond they consider the iPad as a rival to traditional gaming consoles. And it’s no surprise: Apple tablets are in fact equipped with very high-performance processors and they transform into real portable consoles when combined with controllers such as those from Sony and Microsoft for PlayStation and Xbox respectively.
«Microsoft will most likely look to partner with major publishers in the industry – like those behind Genshin Impact, Fortnite and Clash of Clans – and offer them a better deal than Apple», continues Corden.
For the insider, the Redmond company now has the opportunity to bring the most important mobile game developers to its side and will “court” them by proposing less restrictive policies. However, we will also have to evaluate Apple’s response, which, seeing itself in a corner, could put it on the table better dealsand at that point it will be up to the developers to choose.
