The findings shared by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) related to Microsoft’s buyout of Activision-Blizzard already had a few things to say about the deal, but one of the more interesting pieces out of the analysis is actually related to Google Stadia, the cloud gaming service that was shuttered in January.
According to the CMA’s analysis, Microsoft’s xCloud gaming service owned 60-70% of its related market share in 2022, while Stadia only owned roughly 5% in that same year. This marks an astronomic growth when compared to 2021 numbers, which found xCloud held 20-30% and Stadia held 5-10%. Similar services provided by PlayStation and Nvidia were also reportedly steamrolled by xCloud in 2022, claiming about 20% of the cloud gaming market last year.
The CMA does point out a wide variety of caveats to its analysis, but it once more strengthens its belief that Microsoft will monopolize gaming while also casting a light on another factor that likely aided in Stadia’s death, to say nothing of Google’s discovered mismanagement of the platform and its overpromising and underdelivering.
