Be careful your eyes don’t roll out your head (pic: Twitter)



A new digital advert on the London Tube claims that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision will lead to 150 million new Call Of Duty players.



Over the last few weeks, it’s Sony that has come under the most criticism for the way it’s handled Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard , with many believing they’ve gone off the deep end as they back a lawsuit from random fans and called UK investigators ‘irrational’ .



Both companies have come out with some clangers but the most ludicrous is Microsoft’s claim that it will create 150 million new Call Of Duty players if it buys Activision, as it brings the franchise to formats it’s not currently available on.



That seem fair enough to the casual observer, until you realise how they got that number: by adding the number of Switch owners to the number of GeForce Now subscribers.



Call Of Duty has been on Nintendo hardware many times in the past but the modern games are too graphically intensive to work on the Switch , and yet Microsoft is claiming that they can get a version running natively.



Although even that ignores the fact that if anyone with a Switch wanted to play Call Of Duty they already would have on another format.



As one of the most popular games in history the idea that Call of Duty is somehow not widely available to those that want it is absurd, and yet Microsoft is repeating the claim in a new series of ads spotted on the London Underground.



Predictably though, the ads don’t explain where the 150 million number came from, just as they didn’t when Microsoft ran essentially the same ad in UK newspapers .







The ads haven’t run anywhere else in the world, but Microsoft is targeting the UK because the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been particularly negative towards the deal.



Their position has softened in recent weeks but Microsoft probably booked these ads before they knew that.




Microsoft is now running digital ads for its Activision Blizzard acquisition at some London tube stations. It comes a month after placing full-page ads in two UK newspapers, and ahead of the CMA’s decision on the deal later this month https://t.co/OYOMDvOsld pic.twitter.com/lbq7ES1mF0 — Tom Warren (@tomwarren) April 13, 2023




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