Microsoft has published an open letter on its future corporate policies.
The company says the text was developed “in part to respond to Microsoft’s growing role and responsibilities as we begin the process of obtaining regulatory approval in capitals around the world for our acquisition of Activision Blizzard.” .
Microsoft is committed to adapting to new laws aimed at promoting competition, particularly in the application market. Much of the text is devoted to the principles that will guide the Microsoft Store to ensure free competition.
Further on, we talk about the takeover of Activision Blizzard, an operation worth 70,000 dollars announced last January. The Redmond-based company understands that this purchase may cast doubt on regulators, so it wanted to leave two points clear.
The first of these is that “Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular titles available on PlayStation for the duration of existing agreements with Activision” but it has also agreed with Sony to “make it available on PlayStation more than agreements now and in the future so Sony fans can continue to enjoy games safely.” It also indicates that they are interested in taking similar steps to “support the successful Nintendo platform”.
“We believe this is the right thing for the industry, for the players and for our business.”
The second point must be seen with its own Xbox store. Microsoft indicates that the laws that are approved to regulate PC and mobile device stores do not take consoles into account and consider that for this reason, that “video game consoles, in particular, are sold to gamers at a loss to establish a strong and viable ecosystem for game developers. These costs will then be recouped through revenue generated in the dedicated console store.”
Despite this lack of legislation, the same basic principles apply to the Xbox Store as in almost any Microsoft Store. The points that remain outside the Xbox store are those related to “developer freedom”, such as the ability to allow payment systems to make in-game purchases, for example, although they will try to do both app stores will end up being more similar in the future.
