News Summary:
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Quick recap: Microsoft has spent the past 12 months trying to buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. But many regulators, governments and rival companies around the world have opposed the merger. These entities were concerned that the deal would give Xbox too much power over the video game industry. In response, Xbox executives and attorneys have spent the past year trying to convince people that it’s perfectly acceptable for one giant corporation to acquire another, no matter what. any negative consequences. In an effort to appease lawmakers and regulators, he’s also continued to try to convince Sony to sign an agreement that will keep Call of Duty on the PlayStation console. (Microsoft signed a similar deal with Nintendo last month.) And now Sony seems worried that even after signing the proposed deal, there could still be problems.
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In the new documents, Sony is more worried and paranoid than ever that Microsoft will own Call of Duty if that company’s deal to sell Activision Blizzard goes through. This goes as far as to suggest that Microsoft may increase the price of Call of Duty installs in the future, or potentially release a port of lower quality, more buggy games on Sony’s PlayStation console.
In new documents submitted to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sony lays out hypothetical ways in which Microsoft could break the proposed 10-year agreement (or any future) that it supplies PlayStation. Among those possibilities, Sony posed the scenario of a new Call of Duty game launching but with more bugs on the PlayStation, which it said could lead gamers to choose to buy the upcoming Xbox shooter instead. next. Sony doesn’t go as far as to say that Microsoft and Activision will intentionally release a worse, more buggy port of CoD on the PlayStation console. But the bigger point the company is trying to make is that Microsoft can still seek to harm the PlayStation brand through its handling of Call of Duty, even if a fair settlement is reached and approved by the CMA and other agencies. other management approved. For example, in another part of the document, Sony further suggests that Microsoft may choose to “ignore PlayStation-specific features” such as the DualSense controller’s preferred tactile triggers, or not invest lots of money or time into the CoD multiplayer experience on PS5 or PS4.
