Recently Phil Spencer was interviewed in the Second Request podcast, where the CEO discussed competition in the video game market and obviously the Activision-Blizzard acquisition was brought to the table.
How not to talk about this? At the beginning of the month, the Federal Trade Commission sued Microsoft in order to block them from acquiring Activision-Blizzard; and how to forget when PlayStation’s CEO Jim Ryan personally visited the EU headquarters to stop the imminent deal.
In case you missed it: Brazil Regulator approves Microsoft's purchase of Activision-Blizzard
Finally, Spencer talked directly about Sony and claimed that the Japanese company was the one major opposer to the deal however he made a special remark about why:
“Sony is trying to protect its dominance on the console. The way they grow is by making Xbox smaller […] [Sony] has a very different view of the industry than we do. They don’t ship their games day and date on PC, they do not put their games into their subscription when they launch their games.”
The head of Xbox continued by reminding listeners that the fight is not about exclusives or gamers.
“Sony is leading the dialogue around why the deal shouldn’t go through to protect its dominant position on console, so the thing they grab onto is Call of Duty. The largest console maker in the world raising an objection about the one franchise that we’ve said will continue to ship on the platform. It’s a deal that benefits customers through choice and access.”
To be fair Spencer is right in this one, every time Sony has bought a big studio they tend to lock other platforms away from their next games, which by itself is fair, however, you can’t applaud one company for making exclusives while you completely demonize the other.
On the other hand, as said by Spencer, Microsoft has been very vocal about continuing to sell Call of Duty on every platform at least for the next 10 years. In case you have forgotten they recently signed a deal with Nintendo to bring back COD to their consoles after nearly a decade of absence.
Sadly for both parts, the only way to see who is right is when all of this drama stops and the acquisition finalizes. Do you agree with Phil Spencer's statement? Remember to share your opinions in the comments below!
Comments
Best
New