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For months now, Microsoft has sworn up and down that it has no interest in making Call of Duty exclusive to the Xbox if and when its proposed $69 billion Activision acquisition is approved. But as the FTC's request for an injunction stopping that acquisition heads toward opening arguments this week, the federal regulator cites one piece of what it calls "powerful evidence" that it can't trust Microsoft's assurances. In short, as the FTC puts it, "Microsoft's actions following its 2021 acquisition of ZeniMax speak louder than Defendants' words."
[...]
Rather than focusing on what it calls a "strained analogy" to ZeniMax, Microsoft would prefer the court look at Microsoft's purchase of Minecraft-maker Mojang, which has continued to publish the game on a variety of platforms after becoming part of Microsoft. This is a better analogy for Call of Duty, Microsoft writes, because Minecraft was similarly "an existing, multi-player, cross-platform franchise like COD."
[...]
Call of Duty is unlike Minecraft, the FTC argues, in part because Minecraft is available in largely the same form on mobile phones, tablets, and the Switch. "Even if Microsoft took Minecraft off of rival consoles and subscription and cloud gaming services, it would still be available for play on many other devices. The context for Call of Duty is very different."Regardless, the FTC also argues that this manufactured categorization doesn't matter, because Microsoft's exclusivity decision applied to "all future ZeniMax games." While Microsoft said in 2021 that "some" future Bethesda games would be Xbox exclusives, no Bethesda non-exclusives have been announced since then.
Previously:
US Moves to Block Microsoft's Activision Takeover - 20230613
Microsoft and Activision Will Miss Their Contractual Merger Deadline - 20230115
FTC Moves to Block Microsoft's Activision Acquisition - 20221209
The Biggest Deal in Gaming is Under Fire From U.S. Senators - 20220403
Related:
Microsoft Acquires ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5 Billion - 20200921
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Tuesday June 27 2023, @09:26AM
Sony had already purchased exclusive rights to Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Microsoft then heard that Sony was also in talks to make Starfield exclusive.
From Microsoft's perspective, since they have a smaller piece of the gaming landscape, they would have had to pay more for an exclusivity agreement than Sony since sales would have been less (and that's assuming that MS would be fine with it skipping GamePass). In some cases, it sounds like it got to a point where the potential profit from sales of a game would make the higher price impossible to justify, yet they couldn't let Sony continue with buying up exclusivity agreements and falling further behind, so MS decided to just purchase the entire studio instead. It also works into their plans for selling GamePass subscriptions and being able to drop AAA games on a regular schedule, but there wouldn't have been so much incentive without Sony's actions.
That is why Microsoft is saying that Starfield is not a fair comparison. If they had not purchased the studio, Starfield would have been a Sony exclusive. Microsoft were backed into a corner that time. Hence, Minecraft isn't a perfect analogy, but it's a much closer one.
My gut feeling is that the deal with go through, since to not allow it would primarily be to protect the market leader, which is Sony (since in the FTC's view Nintendo doesn't count, although of course this is just silly).
Personally, I've never liked Microsoft much. Honestly, I used to absolutely hate the company back when Ballmer and Gates were around. I also hated what they did to Nokia. You can see from the finished games list on my site that I avoid using Windows for gaming where reasonably possible, instead opting to play under GNU/Linux. However, with the crazy price of computer hardware until very recently, I have been gaming more and more on console. From a strictly console gaming perspective, Sony does seem the more anti-consumer company at this time. That could not be said when the previous gen launched (less than 10 years ago), where Microsoft was still being as anti-consumer as they could get. I also wouldn't be surprised if the tables turn again in a few years if MS ever becomes top dog again like they were in the early 360 era.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!