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The trial that is taking place at the moment between the FTC and Microsoft for the purchase of Activision Blizzard is being a real source of information about some of the ins and outs of the industry. Without going any further, it has been shown that Jim Ryan lied about the possible exclusivity of Call of Duty for Xbox, an argument that Sony has maintained since the moment it publicly positioned itself against the purchase of the studio several months ago.
And precisely speaking of the protagonists themselves, what has come to light are some of the agreements between Sony and Call of Duty, whereby in addition to having temporary exclusivity for some playable elements such as maps, game modes and skins, it has also been discovered that there was an exclusivity clause as far as advertising is concerned.
The agreements between Sony and Call of Duty limited the advertising that could be done on Xbox
Has been Florian Muller who has shared this information through his Twitter account, in which it has been revealed that Xbox was unable to show the latest installment of Call of Duty through its YouTube channel a year ago (something that usually happens whenever a new big-name AAA is announced, in which each company uploads the trailer to its own channel).
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But it is also that the agreements between Sony and Call of Duty have revealed that it was not possible for Xbox to announce a Call of Duty installment through its own Showcase. The only way they could advertise it from Redmond, was through their own website, the well-known Xbox Wire. These restrictions imposed by Sony meant that Microsoft was always negotiating with Activision about what it could and could not do.
Therefore, it was an agreement whose sole purpose was to limit the forms of marketing that Xbox could carry out on a franchise as important as Call of Duty, subtracting the possible target audience that could end up buying an Xbox console to play the franchise.
Does the FTC support this?
The FTC has positioned itself radically against the purchase of Activision Blizzard because of the possible blow to competition that it could entail. However, it does not seem that any official statement has been made about this information between the Sony and Call of Duty agreements, whose sole purpose is precisely to reinforce a dominant position in the market. It is somewhat strange that the organization defends a position that precisely the greatest beneficiary would be the one who was committing the same thing of which it accuses Microsoft.