The UK Competitors and Markets Authority’s provisional report on the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard acquisition contains an admission from Microsoft that placing video games into its Sport Cross subscription service cannibalizes gross sales of these titles. GamesIndustry.biz studies: “Microsoft additionally submitted that its inner evaluation reveals a [redacted]% decline in base sport gross sales twelve months following their addition on Sport Cross,” the CMA famous in its report. That affirmation runs counter to claims Xbox head Phil Spencer made in 2018 that Sport Cross boosts gross sales moderately than undermines them.
“While you put a sport like Forza Horizon 4 on Sport Cross, you immediately have extra gamers of the sport, which is definitely resulting in extra gross sales of the sport,” Spencer mentioned, including, “You say, ‘Nicely is not everybody simply going to subscribe for $10 and go play this factor?’ However no, avid gamers discover issues to play based mostly on what all people else is enjoying.” Elsewhere within the CMA’s report, it cites Microsoft as saying that Activision took a dim view on placing its titles into multi-game subscription companies on any platform, believing that “severely cannibalize B2P [buy-to-play] gross sales, notably within the case of newer releases.”