So, it seems that under direct questioning Microsoft has been forced to admit that cloud gaming is not as big of a deal as they have been saying it is. We have long held that their generous 10-year cloud licensing deal for cloud gaming was not an honest attempt at competition. After all cloud gaming represents a little less than 1% of the total gaming market. Now Sarah Bond has admitted that it is not a popular option and that it is most commonly used as a feature for Microsoft consoles.

Unless you have been living under a rock or just do not care about gaming at all, you have probably heard a lot about the Microsoft Activision merger/acquisition. The deal, one of the largest in history, is a monster. Microsoft wants to buy, lock, stock and barrel, the Activision Blizzard game development company for a whopping $68.7 Billion (with a “b”). The deal would give Microsoft complete control over everything Activision/Blizzard. Now for some this might not be a bad thing if you look at it from just a game perspective or if you are just a PC gamer. The problem comes when you get into how games are really developed and how game developers work with component and console makers to ensure their games work properly.

In our coverage of the Microsoft Activision/Blizzard deal we have often wondered why so many of the groups that approved the deal, and one that opposed it, focused only on cloud gaming. We saw the UK say that the deal was bad for cloud gaming while others stated that a 10-year licensing deal for cloud gaming services that Microsoft agreed to made everything all better. As we looked over the approvals and oppositions this odd focus on what represents less than 1% of the gaming market seemed so out of place that started to feel that the opposition was just a token resistance and the deal (which is a bad thing) was just going to get rubber stamped.

Remember how the EU regulators said the Microsoft Activision deal was pro competition and pro-consumer? Well, I wonder what they might be thinking now as news is dropping saying that both Microsoft and Activision are considering pulling games out of the UK in order to push the buyout through. The deal all on its own is far from pro-competition and standing on licensing agreements that affect 1% of the market defied logic, but now we see the lengths that Microsoft is willing to go to in order to get their way.