Sony Hits Back At UK Regulator

Sony has hit back at the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over its revised stance regarding Microsoft's proposed $69 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard, which has softened significantly in recent days.

The CMA published Sony's response, which calls out the organisation's abrupt about-face, stating: "The CMA’s reversal of its position on its consoles theory of harm is surprising, unprecedented, and irrational."

The PlayStation platform holder goes on to argue that the CMA has taken the "diametrically opposite approach" based "almost exclusively on a single economic model". The model in question is the so-called "lifetime value" model, which (in addition to being mildly dehumanising) determines what the average player is worth to a company over the course of their lifetime as a customer.

Sony says that the CMA assessed flawed data and that if the "errors" were to be corrected, then the profits Microsoft would reap from each PlayStation player leaving the platform to play Call of Duty on Xbox would be "three times as high as the lifetime value of an average PlayStation user".

Sony's closing statement goes scorched earth, stating that: "The addendum does not justify the CMA’s U-turn on the consoles theory of harm. To reach a robust decision, the CMA should revisit its analysis of Microsoft’s incentives and partial foreclosure, correcting for the errors identified in this paper."

At this point, we should just have Jim Ryan and Phil Spencer arm-wrestle for the fate of Call of Duty — make a real spectacle of the event, you know? In a world without E3, we must be entertained. What do you think of the CMA's reversal and Sony's response? Grapple with it in the comments section below.

[source gamesindustry.biz, via videogameschronicle.com]