Let’s take a look at what happened in court on June 27 and 28.

Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, said Xbox’s original bid to keep Call of Duty and Activision Blizzard’s King games on PlayStation “didn’t make sense” because key titles were missing (for example, their bid included Overwatch, but Overwatch 2 does not). The deal was not discussed. Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, emailed the proposal to Ryan, who rejected it without a counter-proposal. Previously, Ryan was less concerned that Microsoft could close the $68.7 billion transaction, as he hoped that Sony could still come to an agreement with both parties, but Phil Spencer’s August 26, 2022, unfortunately non-negotiated email ” it really rang the alarm bells”.

Ryan reiterated Sony’s position (Microsoft wants to use Call of Duty to PlayStation’s disadvantage; some of Sony’s American players who spend their gaming time solely or primarily on Call of Duty may switch to Xbox). According to Kotaku, Ryan also suggested that Microsoft’s games are more popular in the US than in other territories because most of them have shooter elements and online multiplayer. Even the partial exclusion of Call of Duty from the PlayStation would hurt Sony’s business, because according to Ryan it would somehow mean a degraded, degraded experience, but he also admitted that Microsoft respected the PlayStation exclusivity agreements previously made with Bethesda (Ghostwire Tokyo, Deathloop). . He has no objection to Redfall’s xbox exclusivity, and with Starfield he expressed that he doesn’t like it, but doesn’t see it as anti-competitive. Activision Blizzard’s current commitment to release Call of Duty on PlayStation expires at the end of 2024.

Ryan believes that between 2025 and 2035, cloud gaming will be a significant component of how players access games. PlayStation Now had a subscriber base of three million before it was “leaned” into the revamped PlayStation Plus, although Ryan says it wasn’t a large community considering their line of business. He also revealed that there was a three-month period in early 2021 when sales of the Xbox Series X/S exceeded sales of the PlayStation 5 due to inventory shortages and shipping issues, but Sony’s console has been on top ever since. Ryan told investors in early 2022, roughly a month after the Microsoft-Activision deal was announced, that publishers unanimously dislike Xbox Game Pass because it destroys value. According to the PlayStation boss, Sony’s acquisition of Bungie will benefit the platform owner more than if it had bought Activision Blizzard, mainly because of the studio’s experience with live service games.

In his report, Harvard economist Robin Lee struggled to clearly explain how a merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King would hurt consumers. Lee also testified that Call of Duty is a unicorn, meaning a product that cannot be easily replaced with other content, so if it were to become an Xbox exclusive; it would be hard for PlayStation to create something similar, especially with yearly releases. Microsoft brought in another economist, Elizabeth Bailey, who disagreed, saying Lee’s definitions were too narrow and out of touch with market realities. According to Eisler, Nvidia is satisfied with the ten-year agreement with Microsoft, adding that Call of Duty games are among the most popular games on their service. These happened on the 27th, let’s look at yesterday’s developments…

Sony has serious censorship problems, as some of the submitted documents contain confidential information that they do not want to make public. During the trial, Sony indicated several times that this information could harm the company if it fell into the hands of competitors. This attitude covers not only the details of the deals with Microsoft, but also Sony’s internal business strategy and future plans. The judge in the case is currently considering which documents and information can be made public during the hearings.

According to one of the submitted documents, Sony plans to develop more ‘AAA’ quality games that they want to present as exclusives on the PlayStation platform. The games included in the documents, but not detailed, include some that are already in development and some that are still in the design phase.

It was also revealed that Sony will continue to focus heavily on virtual reality technology. While they did not detail what new products or services they are working on, the documents revealed that Sony believes VR will play an important role in the video game industry in the future.

Meanwhile, during the trial, several documents came to light that hint at possible collaborations between Sony and other developers. While the details of these documents are also confidential, it is clear that Sony continues to strive to build closer relationships with the game development community and thereby improve the quality and choice of the PlayStation platform.”

Forrás: Gamesindustry, PCGamer