Sony and Activision Blizzard King are at each other’s throats as Microsoft uses its bottomless wallet for advertising the supposed coming Canaan if the $68.7 billion deal can close and they can own the publisher.
In a recent document from the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sony’s concerns are outlined, accusing Microsoft of sabotage: “Microsoft might release a PlayStation version of Call of Duty where bugs and errors emerge only on the game’s final level or after later updates. Even if such degradations could be swiftly detected, any remedy would likely come too late. By then, the gaming community would have lost confidence in PlayStation as a go-to venue to play Call of Duty.
Indeed, as Modern Warfare II attests, Call of Duty is most often purchased in just the first few weeks of release. If it became known that the game’s performance on PlayStation was worse than on Xbox, Call of Duty gamers could decide to switch to Xbox, for fear of playing their favorite game at a second-class or less competitive venue,” Sony said in the CMA report.
There’s another quote: “Any behavioral commitment from Microsoft to grant rivals access to Call of Duty could pose a greater, not lesser, risk for consumers [Because the] myriad ways Microsoft could withhold or degrade access would be challenging to monitor and police.” We must consider bugs, poor performance, and possibly weak PlayStation-specific features (e.g., haptic feedback on DualSense), although the latter is not always used in multiplatform games.
Lulu Chang Meservey, Activision Blizzard King’s chief communications officer and executive vice president of corporate affairs, responded on Twitter. According to her, Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment said during the negotiations in Brussels, “I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger.” That sounds rather harsh, but it seems plausible, given Ryan’s track record. After all, we’re talking about the same Ryan who de-legitimized backward game compatibility and the Middle East (he says no one played there before PlayStation…).
Finally, a word about Microsoft’s advertising campaign: The Verge has reported that the Redmond-based company is advertising in both the Financial Times and the Daily Mail that it could bring Call of Duty to an additional 150 million players if the European Commission, the CMA (whose decision we will hear from no later than April 26) and the US FTC (Federal Trade Commission) approve the deal. The link at the bottom of the ad goes here, and the company is hyping the future. The 150 million also includes Nintendo and Nvidia (they have already signed a deal with Microsoft).
That’s a lot…
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