Microsoft has asked its major rival for potentially confidential details as it looks to combat the FTC.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against the Microsoft buyout of Activision Blizzardin December last year. Bar a resolution outside of court - which looks to be increasingly unlikely - the case will be heard in the US later this year, and so the owner ofXboxhas subpoenaed Sony for information that it believes strengthens its defence.
This includes details on the “scope of SIE’s production and discovery schedule”, it says in the filing (viaVGC). That’s thought to include future PlayStation game releases - maybe of titles that haven’t even been announced yet.
If Sony does comply with the subpoena (and remember, this is a legal document), it could give its rival vital inside information on its first-party games for the coming months and years - those it has in production.
Sony can dispute the subpoena too, of course, and has until 27 January to respond.
Both the FTC and Sony have argued that the $69 billion acquisition ofActivision Blizzardand, in particular, the Call of Duty franchise will “suppress competitors”.
Microsoft has responded that it has agreed 10-year deals with two competitors already - Nintendo and Steam - to keep (or reintroduce) COD on their platforms. It has also stated that a similar deal was offered to Sony.
The biggest issue for Sony is that, while future Call of Duty games will continue to be produced for rival consoles, Microsoft will undoubtedly release each iteration on Game Pass from day one, making the £60 / $60 or so price tag on PlayStation seem ridiculous. It would unfairly encourage gamers to purchase Xbox consoles rather than PlayStation, it suggests.
But, Microsoft rightly argues that this is just one game - the best-selling game admittedly - but just the one title in comparison to the numerous huge-hitting, triple-A exclusives coming out of Sony’s own studios and close partners - such as theGod of War, Spider-Man, Uncharted, and The Last of Us franchises.
That’s likely the main reason behind the subpoena - to prove that PlayStation’s future exclusive output is more than enough to keep its consoles highly competitive, Call of Duty or no.
