Microsoft Blew a Massive Hole In Sonys Case Courtesy of Sonys Own Emails

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Microsoft Blew a Massive Hole In Sony’s Case, Courtesy of Sony’s Own Emails

Microsoft may have just destroyed Sony’s case against its Activision Blizzard purchase, and it has Sony’s own emails to thank.

Sony has maintained that its main objection to Microsoft’s Activision deal is that the Redmond company could decide to make popular Activision titles, such as Call of Duty, Xbox exclusives. The company has shouted that objection to the heavens, despite Microsoft’s promises to the contrary, sounding like a broken record in the process.

In the first day of the FTC v Microsoft hearing, Microsoft blew Sony’s arguments out of the water using Sony PlayStation chief Jim Ryan’s own emails, according to The Verge.

“It is not an exclusivity play at all,” Ryan wrote in an email to Chris Deering, former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. “They’re thinking bigger than that and they have the cash to make moves like this. I’ve spent a fair amount of time with both Phil [Spencer] Bobby [Kotick] over the past day and I’m pretty sure we will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for many years to come.”

The email is a particularly damning revelation for Sony, one that undermines nearly all of its objections. While the hearing is about the FTC’s attempts to block the deal, much of the agency’s concerns mirror those of Sony. To hear that Sony’s own executives don’t even believe their own objections will make it that much harder for the FTC to make its case.

To make matters even worse for the FTC, according to Windows Central, Microsoft openly admitted that its Xbox is in distant third place in the console wars.

“Xbox’s console has consistently ranked third (of three) behind PlayStation and Nintendo in sales. In 2021, Xbox had a share of 16%, while Nintendo and PlayStation had shares of [redacted] and [redacted], respectively. Likewise for console revenues and share of consoles currently in use by gamers (‘installed base’), Xbox trails with 21% while PlayStation and Nintendo have shares of [redacted] and [redacted], respectively.”

These two revelations drastically undercut the FTC’s case and should go a long way toward muzzling Sony’s disingenuous objections.

Microsoft Blew a Massive Hole In Sony’s Case, Courtesy of Sony’s Own Emails
Matt Milano

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