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The staff of Microsoft Gaming, headed by Phil Spencer, has been immersed in the last two days appearance before the FTC to defend the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Precisely today it was Spencer’s turn, questioned by the lawyer of the organization that tries and insists on blocking the purchase operation with untenable arguments.
The Xbox executive is showing his face without cutting a hair, making public confessions like that Sony keeps 30 percent of the revenue Microsoft earns on its platform and who use those profits to try to reduce Xbox survivability in the market. But he has gone a step further by mentioning a previous acquisition, that of ZeniMax Media, Bethesda’s parent company.
Thanks to Sony, Microsoft has Bethesda
That is what we can conclude from the words that Phil Spencer has given in response to the FTC lawyer in one of his questions. The head of Microsoft Gaming testified that Microsoft heard that Starfield would skip the release on Xbox. Presumably, this would have been as part of a PlayStation 5 timed exclusivity deal, similar to the deal Sony signed for Arkane Lyon’s Deathloop and Tango Gameworks’ Ghostwire: Tokyo.
Spencer noted that hearing about this information was, in large part, why Microsoft decided to act and get more of its own content. Microsoft announced the acquisition of ZeniMax Media in September 2020, a deal that ended in March 2021 for $7.5 billion, adding Bethesda Game Studios and the rest of ZeniMax Media to Microsoft’s own Xbox content.
Phil Spencer explodes against Sony: “They keep 30% of the profits from our games and want to reduce the survival of Xbox in the market”
we are xbox.com
Starfield is scheduled to launch exclusively on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Windows PC, and Xbox Game Pass on September 6, 2023, at four editions. Something that, we can say, we owe to Sony and Microsoft’s quick reaction in a purchase that will surely bring joy to users of the Microsoft ecosystem.