The saga of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard continues, and this time it is Microsoft that scores a rather important point: the CMA, or the antitrust authority of the United Kingdom, has declared that it agrees with Microsoft, at least on the concern, mainly expressed by Sony, that Call of Duty could become an Xbox/PC exclusive franchise. However, the victory is not yet complete: the authority is still not entirely convinced about the future of the cloud gaming industry. We will have to wait until the end of April for a final decision.

The official note from the CMA (you can read it in its entirety by following the SOURCE link at the bottom of the article) essentially says that in the light of the “new information presented by Microsoft, the conclusion is that overall the transaction will not cause a substantial reduction in competition in the console video games in the UK”. In essence, Microsoft has managed to demonstrate mathematically that the choice to make the franchise exclusive to its platforms would constitute an economic loss in “every plausible scenario”.

Indeed, the CMA admitted that its financial math model was wrong, as Microsoft had suggested, and decided to correct it and revise the accounts. It is interesting to note that all this is even upstream of the ten-year contracts offered to both Sony and Nintendo – indeed it explains quite clearly why the company has not had too much trouble putting them on the plate.

Microsoft has won a battle, we can say, but the war is still long and complicated. Not only on the British front: the EU commission announced a few days ago its intention to postpone its final decision to May because it needs more guarantees from Microsoft. And the US front still represents a gigantic question mark.

source: gov.uk

Capcom promises that it will release a Resident Evil 4 game demo before the full release launch. Starting Friday, March 10, 2023 they have finally released the free demo version of Resident Evil 4 Remake .

This demo is titled “Chainsaw” which includes the initial opening of the game which has been adjusted in such a way. The good news is that there is no longer a time limit like before, so players can spend as much time as possible exploring all the content that the demo has to offer

There are two difficulty levels in the Resident Evil 4 Remake demo, Survival and Experience. Survival for new players, then Experience is a real experience for old Resident Evil players as it will re-imagine the original game in 2005.

If interested, you can download the demo directly to the digital console store for both PS 4/5 and Xbox Series and for PC via Steam.

The PC version of the Resident Evil 4 Remake demo is around 10GB in size.

Resident Evil 4 Remake is a project created to meet the expectations of many fans and will be released for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5 and Xbox Series on March 24 or 25 2023.

It seems that Ubisoft is also going through a relatively difficult period, as indeed is happening for a large number of tech companies (and not only). The company of French origin would have internally announced the closure of several European offices, although the only one expressly mentioned is Ubisoft Benelux. The ResetEra forums report it, quoting an email to all employees of the group. It seems quite clear that there will also be layoffs, but precise figures have not been specified. However, we have a date, next April 1st.

It is interesting to note that the email only mentions offices and not game development studios. Ubisoft motivates its decision by speaking of “several challenges caused by external factors, such as the decline in sales of physical games in favor of digital ones, the centralization of marketing due to the digitization of our communication channels, the transition from large retail releases to free-to-play, mobile and seasonal games and less big physical events”.

According to the latest official statements, Ubisoft has approximately 21,000 employees worldwide. It seems, and we want to reiterate it seems, that with today’s announcement, this figure will not be significantly affected (at least, comparing the tens of thousands of people made redundant that we have told you about over the course of these months).

Having said that, it is worth mentioning that the company is investing heavily in its Assassin’s Creed franchise: this year Mirage should be released on the last and penultimate generation consoles, PC, and streaming (Amazon Luna), and then there are even four more in the pipeline projects in the pipeline. However, the group recently announced the cancellation of three projects and the postponement of Skull and Bones.