Sony is prepared to cut Activision Blizzard from PlayStation 6 strategies
Sony is ready to place restrictions on Activision. Microsoft must get publisher knowledge of Blizzard’s PlayStation 6 strategy. Axios reports that a deposition from April reveals that PlayStation will “no longer share private information” about its forthcoming console.
SIE head Jim Ryan told the FTC that Sony “might not risk of a business that was owned by a direct rival having access to that details.”
Sony claimed a merger would be detrimental to the next PlayStation console late in 2015. It predicts that users of the PlayStation 6 will be “very susceptible” to migrating to the next Xbox, which will presumably highlight Activision brands like Call of Duty and Overwatch as key selling features.
Future Call of Duty games (or Diablo, Crash Bandicoot, etc.) may theoretically run even worse on the PS6 if Activision Blizzard’s system data is frozen. Everyone in the industry, from artists to players, would be negatively impacted by such a move.
Ryan followed this line of thought in his deposition, saying that Activision Blizzard might create games under Microsoft that don’t make use of PlayStation-exclusive features. Since this section of the paper was heavily censored, he seems to imply that Microsoft and Mojang had a disagreement on Minecraft after Microsoft acquired the designer in 2014.
After the acquisition, Ryan explained, “their rewards would be to enhance its general Xbox service, rather than Activision’s business.”
Is PlayStationin factthreatened by the Microsoft-Activision merger?
Since 2015, Sony has done everything it can to show why it does not want the merger to proceed. It has been asserted that third-party earnings would take a significant damage, and that the company would be unable to create a worthy competitor to Activision Blizzard’s shooting franchise.
Ryan’s final belief that PlayStation will be fine if the merger succeeds has been on display throughout the ongoing FTC vs. Microsoft hearing. A recently declassified email purports to show him assuring Sony that “quite sure [Sony]will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for several years to come.”
He wrote, “We have some excellent things cooking,” in the e-mail. I wish this hadn’t happened, but rest assured that everything will be fine.
Sony has been unusually quiet about the studios it acquired from other parties. At the time of this writing, it has not demonstrated how it would handle multiplatform games like Bungie’s Fate 2 or MLB The Show, both of which were developed by Sony San Diego.
As Sony and Microsoft continue their battle of words over what games will (or will not) be available on their upcoming consoles, it’s probable that neither will seem as good or as bad as they claim to be.
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