The head of PlayStation has convinced the US competition authority with an interesting argument.
Although the UK competition authority is currently blocking a $69 billion deal, it looks more and more that the fate of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard will ultimately be decided in the US. The FTC sued in December to block the deal, based on allegations by Sony that it was trying to scuttle the acquisition.
Now, the new information is public regarding the offshore operation, in April this year, Jim Ryan, the head of PlayStation business, stated in an FTC hearing that if the deal goes through, the company will not be able to deliver it. Activision Blizzard’s PlayStation 6-related trade secrets, as the information could go to direct competitor Microsoft.
In practical terms, this would mean that Activision Blizzard developers would only have access to the console’s hardware development kit and documentation around the time of the PS6 release, but would not be able to create versions of their games that take advantage of the product’s capabilities in time.
In FTC v. MS/ABK filing, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan says that if the deal closes, Sony won’t be able to tell Activision its next console.
Then he was also asked about Sony’s work with Mojang (Minecraft) after MS bought it. The discussion has been revised but Ryan says it supports that concern pic.twitter.com/M86CBm3CcY
– Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) June 21, 2023
The situation will be a huge competitive advantage for Microsoft, since Activision Blizzard Studios will certainly have access to the next generation Xbox, so Call of Duty, for example, could be nicer and better for a while.
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