Activision Blizzard, the U.S. video game giant that Microsoft is acquiring, posted a fourth straight quarter of declining sales on Monday, but said the success of its latest Call of Duty installment broke records.
The groupR17;s third-quarter revenue fell 14 percent to $1.78 billion (approximately 145 billion rupees), with a sharp drop in console and PC games.
The bright spot is that mobile games with apps like Candy Crush and this yearR17;s Diablo Immortal are doing well.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II hit $1 billion (Rs 81 billion) in sales in just 10 days, the company said, the fastest launch in franchise history, but it was too late , which cannot be included in the latest results.
That makes up for the tepid success of 2021R17;s Call of Duty: Vanguard.
The success of Call of Duty, an industry blockbuster since 2003, is at the heart of EU and UK competition authorities, who fear Microsoft will make the franchise an exclusive offer for its Xbox consoles.
Microsoft dismissed the suggestion, saying it made no commercial sense to deny SonyR17;s PlayStation.
US tech giant Microsoft announced in January that it would spend $69 billion (nearly 571.4 billion rupees) to create the world’s third-largest gaming company, behind China’s Tencent and Japan’s Sony.
Last month, Reuters reported that Microsoft had offered no remedy to EU antitrust regulators, which are reviewing its $69 billion acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. proposed with a view to launching a full-scale investigation in the EU.
The U.S. software company is betting on the acquisition to help it better compete with leaders Tencent and Sony, critics of the deal.
At the time, the European Commission, which plans to complete its initial assessment of the deal on Tuesday, said its website was up-to-date. Microsoft has made no concessions to regulators ahead of the expected full EU investigation, the website shows.