Sony Hurts Its Case Against Microsoft Part 1: No Next-Gen Console Information For Activision
The saga of Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard continues. The two biggest remaining hurdles over which Microsoft has to jump to get the deal over the finish line at this point are in the UK with the CMA and in America with the FTC. While Microsoft appeals the CMA's refusal to allow the deal to move forward, the FTC's suit is just getting started. We're just starting to see the content of depositions and hearings at this point and two pretty significant developments have come out of them, neither of them being a particularly good look for Sony.
The first of those for this post is Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan suggesting in a deposition that if the purchase of Activision is allowed, then Sony may no longer share information about future consoles with the developer out of concern of Microsoft learning PlayStation secrets.
If the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft for$69 billion goes through, it could have big consequences for the future ofCall of Dutyon PlayStation. At least that's what Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan keeps saying. In a new deposition for the current lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission, the PlayStation executive said the company won't share PlayStation 6 information with Activision if it eventually becomes part of Xbox.
We simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by a direct competitor having access to that information," Ryan told regulators,as reported by Stephen Totilo atAxios. The CEO also argued that in addition to Sony being unable to share in-development console features" with Activision, theCall of Dutypublisher would have less incentive to develop console-specific features for the PS5 and future devices like the PS6.
On its face, it makes some amount of sense. If Microsoft owns Activision Blizzard, then sharing any future-gen console information with the developer essentially means giving a competitor, Microsoft, insights into Sony's secrets. Except there are a couple of things of note on this.
First, a huge part of Sony's complaints about the purchase is that Microsoft could make major game franchises Microsoft exclusives. And this complaint is well-founded, as we just discussed the company doing exactly that with several Zenimax franchises. But... if the fear is that Microsoft makes games Microsoft exclusives, then those developers of those games wouldn't need or want any information on the upcoming PS6, because the games wouldn't appear on that platform. Ryan suggesting Microsoft might release a version of CoD that is sub-par on the PlayStation due to not having access to upcoming features both suggests that Sony thinks Microsoft will still release those games on PlayStations, entirely negating its reason for opposing the deal, and is a problem of Sony's own making. It all rings as being anti-competitive, the very thing Sony is accusing Microsoft of.
And how come this doesn't seem to be a major challenge when the roles are reversed or other consoles are brought into the equation? Nintendo inked a deal to put CoD on its consoles and this concern never came up. I don't know if Nintendo gives anyone feature peeks for future consoles, but for whatever reason there was no problem for them. And Sony has first-party titles that appear on Microsoft platforms, so why isn't this a problem in reverse?
Sony-owned games likeDestiny 2andMLB The Showcurrently ship on Xbox, and it's unclear if Microsoft has or will face similar concerns with sharing similar info with Bungie and Sony San Diego Studio when new Xbox hardware is being developed.
There doesn't seem to be any major problem in those cases, so why is this such a big deal when it's Microsoft putting out first-party titles on Sony hardware?
At the end of the day, this just wasn't a particularly good look for Sony. Anticompetitive threats issued in the very case where the major concern is anticompetitive behavior is certainly a strategy of sorts.