Als onderdeel van zijn reactie op de Competition and Markets Authority van het Verenigd Koninkrijk, heeft Sony betoogd dat Microsoft Starfield en toekomstige releases van The Elder Scrolls exclusief heeft gemaakt voor Xbox na de overname van Zenimax. Volgens Mp1st heeft Sony deze verklaring afgelegd als onderdeel van zijn argumenten dat de beweringen van Microsoft om toekomstige releases multiplatform te houden, niet relevant zijn voor de huidige situatie met de aanstaande overname van Activision Blizzard.
“First, Microsoft argues that “its past business practices are consistent with its stated position” that it does not intend to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation (or degrade access to it),” aldus Sony in een statement. “This is difficult to square with what has actually happened. The CMA “reviewed Microsoft’s strategy following its previous acquisitions” and found that Microsoft “typically makes games exclusive to Xbox”. Microsoft has never disputed this.”
“Microsoft is fond of arguing that, with its prior acquisitions, it did not make the existing, already released games it acquired exclusive to Xbox. But the foreclosure concern in this case is not about past releases of Call of Duty. It is about the impact of Microsoft making new Call of Duty releases (which are launched every year) exclusive, as it has done for the new releases of Starfield and Elder Scrolls following the acquisition of ZeniMax in 2021. As the PFs explain, these releases were announced in 2018 and were not expected at that time to be Xbox exclusives. It was only after acquiring ZeniMax that Microsoft’s Phil Spencer revealed that, all along, the deal had been about “delivering great exclusive games” for Xbox.”
“Second, Microsoft points to Minecraft as an example of an acquisition where it did not pursue exclusivity. But this example is not relevant to an exclusivity strategy regarding future releases of Call of Duty. Minecraft is a single release game that is already in users’ hands: unlike Call of Duty, there are no future releases of Minecraft. The CMA correctly points out that Minecraft’s “legacy monetisation model of a one-time fee for lifetime access and updates…differs significantly from Call of Duty, where users buy the new premium iteration of the game every year for a higher fee”. SIE therefore agrees with the PFs that the more relevant indicator of Microsoft’s intentions on exclusivity for Call of Duty is the ZeniMax deal.”
Sony heeft in een recente verklaring ook toegegeven dat Game Pass ver voorloopt op PlayStation Plus wat betreft marktaandeel. Het bedrijf betoogde dat dit Microsoft zou stimuleren om de PlayStation-lanceringen voor toekomstige Call of Duty-games te beïnvloeden, door ofwel inferieure versies op Sony-platforms uit te brengen, of het exclusief te houden voor Game Pass.