The legal dispute between Microsoft and Sony due to Activision Blizzard is revealing really interesting data for both companies. Either because of the statements made in the case of the FTC or the CMA, both one and the other have left real pearls in the face of video game information, and the last one has had PlayStation as its protagonist.
As has been pointed out @DeekeTweakin the first phase of the investigation carried out by the CMA, Sony made some statements in which it assured that high-profile PlayStation exclusives might not exist if they weren’t from third-party franchises like Call of Dutywhich help a lot when it comes to financing their own game development projects.
PlayStation exclusives wouldn’t exist without franchises like Call of Duty, according to Sony
According to the company led by Jim Ryan, the statements made in the first phase of the investigation on the feasibility or otherwise of the purchase of Activision Blizzard ensured that, without third party franchises like Call of Duty, it would not be possible to make high-level PlayStation exclusivessince they imply a high percentage of benefits that serve to be dedicated directly to the development of this type of titles.
This, in turn, would also reduce the potential return on the production of innovative first-party games, thus decreasing SIE’s (Sony Interactive Entertainment) ability and incentive to invest in new games.
Therefore, with this information it is clear that Sony not only fears the loss of players that the fact that Call of Duty was exclusive to Xbox could imply, but that its greatest concern lies in the amount of benefits that franchises like Activision Blizzard’s they report year by year in the Sony accounts, something that we could even take for granted without having access to this information.
Sony is sued for breaching competition rules after accusing Microsoft of doing so
we are xbox.com
For now, we just have to wait and see what both the FTC and the CMA, and even the EU Commission, rule. But in recent weeks, given the movements of Microsoft, everything seems to indicate that the balance is increasingly leaning more towards the interests of Redmond than those of the Japanese.