Microsoft wants to buy Activision, the maker of hit video games like Call of Duty. Regulators oppose what could be the largest acquisition in the gaming industry.
Microsoft’s attorneys expressed willingness to go to court, saying the FTC’s concerns were unrealistic. Removing Activision games from rival consoles would be counterproductive to Microsoft’s chief aim of earning more revenue,“Maintaining broad availability of Activision games is both good business and good for gamers,” they said in a court filing, in response to the FTC’s complaint.
Activision’s lawyers likewise expressed disagreement with the FTC’s concerns about Microsoft being incentivized to take away access to Call of Duty on PlayStation. Such a move would immediately cost billions of dollars in revenue, they said, and hurt the game’s appeal of allowing users to play with other gamers at any part of the world, at any time.
“Withholding or degrading Call of Duty on PlayStation would eliminate this ability to cross-play and destroy the broad Call of Duty community that drives the game’s success,” they said. “The player backlash from making the Call of Duty franchise Xbox-exclusive would be devastating.”that Microsoft’s acquisition of the maker of Call of Duty would enable Microsoft to offer significantly cheaper prices to users who have long played the game on Sony’s PlayStation.
The FTC said Microsoft had made some of Bethesda’s games like Starfield exclusive to Microsoft, despite assurances to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles. Microsoft’s lawyers described the FTC’s account as misleading, saying their client had “explicitly said it would honor Sony’s existing exclusivity rights and approach exclusivity for future game titles on a case-by-case basis, which is exactly what it has done.”
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