It seemed that Sony was managing to impose its position with the pressure it is exerting to avoid the purchase of Activision-Blizzard On the part of Microsoft, however, it seems that things are slowly going wrong for the Japanese giant. The European Union, at least now, points more towards the approval of the operation, while the lawsuit that the US FTC filed against Microsoft could force Sony to have to reveal the exclusivities by agreement and the possible payments that you have been able to make to avoid the appearance of games in the Game Pass service.
Although the FTC filed a lawsuit to prevent the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft, this is not incompatible with the fact that the US antitrust body has initiated, within the investigation, a legal discovery process together with the person responsible from Xbox to cite Sony. The intent of Microsoft and the FTC is to force Sony to release records, internal documentation, and emails about the PlayStation division.
Elaborating on the FTC’s twist, the agency’s chief administrative judge, D. Michael Chappell, has sided with Microsoft’s request to discover details about exclusivity deals made by Sony for PlayStation or that would have benefited the division. The request covers agreements made after October 1, 2019 that allegedly prevented publishers from publishing games on the Xbox Game Pass service. The judge’s decision came after Microsoft previously accused Sony of paying “blocking rights” to prevent the addition of content to the aforementioned Game Pass.
Microsoft’s intention was to ask Sony for all the agreements it has reached since 2012, but the FTC judge saw the request as excessive and has cut the time frame for it to start in 2019. Normally, the exclusivity agreements that Microsoft wants to be revealed remain out of the public light, but the cause between Epic Games and Apple forced at the time to show certain things that for the companies should have been kept secret.
For now the case brought by the FTC is in the discovery stage, with an evidentiary hearing scheduled for August 2, 2023. It is possible that new details will be discovered before the arrival of said date, and given the turn that the cause is taking, possibly more than one of those new details will show things that erode Sony’s position.
As we have already said, it seemed that Sony had everything with it to prevent the operation from being consumed, but Microsoft has been able to read the situation better than the regulators themselves and has maneuvered so that the winds are now blowing more in their favor. While the Redmond giant already has the go-ahead from some regulators, the last word apparently rests with regulators in the United States (FTC), United Kingdom (CMA) and the European Union. If Microsoft wins on all three fronts, it will almost certainly be able to complete the Activision-Blizzard takeover.
