News Bit: UK Regulator launches In-Depth Investigation into Xbox's Activision Deal

The UK's regulatory board, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially expanded its investigation into the Xbox Activision deal. The CMA has stated it's concerned that Activision Blizzard joining Microsoft could hurt Sony's ability to compete with Microsoft.

CMA has stated that its main concern is that the agreement will harm PlayStation's ability to compete. Sony has also been very vocal about its thoughts and concerns about Call of Duty joining Microsoft since the series is extremely popular and a big seller for PlayStation consoles. Microsoft has countered this by publicly assuring gamers and critics of the deal that the company intends to publish Call of Duty games on PlayStation for several years after Sony's current contract with Activision expires.

Critics of these complaints have pointed out that Nintendo doesn't suffer from the lack of Call of Duty releases. The franchise rarely releases for the Nintendo consoles but the first-party titles from Nintendo are strong enough to sell consoles without the need to use strong third-party games as major selling points.

The next phase of the CMA investigation will be to appoint an independent panel to scrutinise the acquisition further. It's not clear how long this will take however, it's not just the UK regulatory board taking a closer look at the deal. The Financial Times is also reporting that the EU is taking a closer look at the deal.

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