Microsoft’s Acquisition Of Activision Blizzard “No Doubt Weakens” Sony, According To Analyst

Microsoft is cur­rent­ly attempt­ing to acquire Activi­sion Bliz­zard for $68.7 bil­lion, the com­pa­ny’s biggest acqui­si­tion ever and the largest buy­out in gam­ing his­to­ry. If this deal were to go through, it would “no doubt” have an impact on Sony’s posi­tion in the mar­ket, at least accord­ing to one analyst.

Piers Hard­ing-Rolls of Ampere Analy­sis said in a blog post, “There is no doubt that this deal weak­ens [Sony’s] posi­tion in the market.”

Even if Microsoft con­tin­ues to release Activi­sion Bliz­zard games on PlaySta­tion, those games will still be released on Game Pass, which will “under­mine Sony’s third-par­ty busi­ness,” Harding=Rolls said.

“Sony has ben­e­fit­ted from the abil­i­ty to nego­ti­ate timed exclu­sive con­tent for Call of Duty but this is now under threat.” Of course, Hard­ing-Rolls is refer­ring to Sony’s long­stand­ing deal with Activi­sion to release Call of Duty con­tent for PlaySta­tion users first.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it looks like Sony is already suf­fer­ing from the news of this acqui­si­tion. The com­pa­ny’s share price fell dra­mat­i­cal­ly after the news broke, los­ing $20 bil­lion in Sony’s value–its biggest drop since 2008.

Hard­ing-Rolls point­ed out anoth­er effect of this acqui­si­tion. Third-par­ty games that don’t launch on Game Pass “may suf­fer as the breadth and appeal of con­tent in Game Pass expands.”

He went on to add that Microsoft would have a “for­mi­da­ble pro­duc­tion engine” with the buy­out of Activi­sion Bliz­zard, as well as numer­ous oth­er stu­dios they’ve pur­chased. Hard­ing-Rolls also stat­ed that Microsoft prosed buy­out could trig­ger anoth­er mas­sive deal from anoth­er major com­pa­ny just to keep up.

“This deal, its scale and wider indus­try ram­i­fi­ca­tions, means that the chances of anoth­er large acqui­si­tion have risen to an extent. Oth­er pub­lish­ers and com­peti­tors will be busy eval­u­at­ing what this means for their strate­gies,” he explained.