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The last few hours have been really important as far as the future of the Activision Blizzard purchase is concerned. After Microsoft has confirmed the list of witnesses that it will present in its trial before the FTC, we have had information that seems to have been leaked from another of the proceedings leading up to this one. And it is that, according to a series of emails that have transpired, it seems that Microsoft intended to expel PlayStation from the video game market.
This was revealed yesterday by Stephen Totilo, a renowned journalist from Axios, who has shared information about the legal proceedings that took place between a group of players against Microsoft and Activision for their attempted merger. Although the lawsuit was dismissed, what has been revealed has been truly shocking in recent hours, as it has been blamed on Xbox the intention to expel PlayStation of video games with this deal.
Microsoft wanted to push PlayStation out of the video game market, but before Activision Blizzard
This information has been disclosed by a email sent by Matt Botty, head of Xbox Game Studios, to which he assured that they should try to do everything possible to expel PlayStation from the market. On this, the court has stated the following: “The Court has also failed to consider indisputable evidence that Microsoft intended to expel its main competitor, PlayStation, from the market. And This purchase is part of the strategy. In an internal email, the head of Xbox Game Studios communicates the following to Xbox’s financial officer “.
Jim Ryan was convinced that Call of Duty would not be exclusive to Xbox, even though he told the CMA and FTC otherwise
we are xbox.com
The reasons why, even with these statements, the Court decided not to admit this evidence as valid is that there does not seem to be a direct relationship between the purchase of Activision Blizzard and the intention to destroy competition with PlayStation. The reason is that the email dates from the year 2019something that representatives of the American company have confirmed to Axios, and that would mean that it was sent a long time ago that Microsoft tried to make any offer for Activision Blizzard.
Therefore, it seems clear that these statements that have set the networks on fire correspond to a moment well before the acquisition of the owners of Call of Duty, among others. In addition, we would also have to attend to the context (something we could do by reading the exact extract of the email), to know what kind of talk Botty and Tim Stuart were having.