Will the feud ever end? Microsoft and regulatory bodies for the purchase of Activision Blizzard? Obviously yes, but the end is far away, as the company and the institutions are submerged in a crossfire of statements. The stakes are high and it is essential to put all the cards on the table.
Best of all, we are getting really juicy information, the kind that is handled behind the scenes of the industry. With Microsoft’s new response to the UK CMA, we’ve found that Sony has blocked four games to prevent them from coming out on Xbox. This is the statement from the company led by Satya Nadella:
“In addition to having totally exclusive content, Sony has also reached agreements with third-party publishers that require Xbox to be “excluded” from the set of platforms on which these publishers can distribute their games. Prominent examples of these agreements are Final Fantasy VII Remake (Square Enix), Bloodborne (From Software), the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI (Square Enix) and the recently announced Silent Hill 2 remastered (Bloober team).”
Although it is not surprising to see Bloodborne mentioned, since it is absolutely exclusive to PS4, the rest of the works are more striking. Many of us wondered why Final Fantasy VII Remake did not appear on Xbox One and Xbox Series, but now we have the answer. Evidently, Sony and Square Enix have moved this same agreement to Final Fantasy XVI, although with Forspoken it is known that the exclusivity will last two years.
All the alleged agreements have been made with Japanese companies, so the same applies to Konami. The recently announced Silent Hill 2 Remake is exclusive to PS5 and it seems that we can assume that we will not see it on any Xbox. All in all, the main focus of discussion around the purchase of Activision Blizzard is Call of Duty, one of the most powerful franchises in the industry.