The opinions of various companies on Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard were collected and made public by Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) a week ago. We saw Sony discussing the importance of Call of Duty, but Microsoft responded ten days later and defended itself.
Sony stated that the Call of Duty saga could influence console selection, but Microsoft denies this. Idas, a ResetEra member, has gathered the American company's response in the Brazilian CADE, and the truth is that they are rather extensive.
Furthermore, Microsoft accuses Sony of stifling Game Pass growth by paying third parties to include "blocking rights" to prevent content from reaching the Xbox service. However, it also discusses Sony's strategy of partnering with third-party developers.
“Considering that exclusivity strategies have been at the core of Sony’s strategy to strengthen its presence in the games industry and that Sony is a leader in the distribution of digital games, Sony’s concern with possible exclusivity of Activision‘s content is incoherent, to say the least,” Microsoft claims in the documents published by CADE.
“It only reveals, once again, a fear about an innovative business model that offers high-quality content at low costs to gamers, threatening a leadership that has been forged from a device-centric and exclusivity-focused strategy over the years.”
PlayStation doesn't want Call of Duty games to end up on Game Pass from launch day because it "isn't resigned to having to compete with Microsoft's subscription service." As Sony pointed out that COD influenced the choice of consoles, Microsoft responded, "PlayStation itself has an established base of brand-loyal gamers."
"The extreme conclusion that Call of Duty is a "category of games unto itself" is simply unjustifiable under any quantitative or qualitative analysis," Microsoft also lays out 4 reasons why it is against Sony's claim that including Activision Blizzard games in Game Pass is anti-competitive.
What do you think of these accusations? Let us know in the comments!
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