Jim Ryan Denies Sony Is Misleading Regulators Over Xbox's Activision Blizzard Deal

His obsession with Call of Duty is insane. "Oh no but CoD" you know this deal isn't a threat when the only thing they care about is one game out of everything they have.

@Kaloudz He has the most punchable face of 2022.

Misleading or not they’re using their dominant market position to try and sway regulators, they don’t care about gamers, just their bottom line which is seriously under threat from the deal going ahead.

I’m not saying Microsoft are any better, their history shows how ruthless they can be also but it’s clear what Sony and big Jim are trying to do.

I really don't about this deal, if I want a game I'm buying it (even those on GamePass)
But this guy.. I can't stand his crying face no more.

Also if this deal not going to happen its gonna be bad for future deals now that we know that one company can impact other decisions.

@Kaloudz I'm not usually someone who says things like that but the way he's carried on with this deal is absolutely outrageous. It's like he's given birth to Call of Duty from his own insipid birthing sack.

I think I’m leaving business to business on this one as have said enough before.
What will be will be in the end.

Can’t wait until this deal is done and don’t have to hear the two bickering.

Sony was real public about the 3 year deal "not being enough." It is hysterical that he is unwilling to comment on an insanely long 10 year deal. It just goes to show he is unwilling to reach any sort of agreement on this.

Hand this man a packet of tissues!!!! I honestly wish he would EFF OFF ………. sick of his whinging

Wonderful German word "backpfeifengesicht" which translates as a face you want to slap. This guys picture should be alongside it…

@Kaloudz Haha, I can see where you're coming from with Mjr! Yeah that's it, he has been so irritating.

I've just read that Xbox have offered Sony a ten year deal on Call of Duty. Sony are withholding comment.

This the same Sony that did its best to end Sega and Nintendo? If Sony had their way then the other options for gamers would disappear

Will be glad when these deal goes through in the next 6 months and we can finally have an end to this pathetic behaviour.

Jim Ryan is being such a clown over this deal. Heck his entire tenure at Sony has been an era of decline for me.

@carlos82 Exactly. It amazes me how these regulators seem to be so concerned about what is best for Sony, when Sony has always been a highly capitalistic company that did everything they could to monopolize the industry in the past. It's like we don't need to be bending over backwards for them, they seem to be doing just fine without all these measures to help ensure their success.

Especially when it seems like they've been doing everything they can to raise prices for consumers this gen, it's hard to call them a pro-consumer company.

10 year contract, but then offered to keep CoD on PS as long as it existed. They both need to stop grabbing for media attention and get a contract down, then we can judge. This crap is getting old.

@grumpypotato
Always preferred the english ‘epicaricacy’ but fully agreed!

Its sad to be so many people cheering for monopoly and wants to take away games from other plattforms.
Was same with Bethesda games.
Still with both Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard in Microsoft studios Xbox players still has same amount of games to play.

Somehow Sony making deal for FF7 remake is bad for gaming but Microsoft buying 30 studios and making exclusive is good.

Only hypocrise is from Xbox gamers that thinking gaming is better that less players has access to games cause they wants more games on gamepass so they dont need to buy anything.

Players only thinking for themself are not a good gaming community so sad to see these things.

@Neverwild Yeah ok.

@cburg
You proved my point.

@Neverwild LOL with that logic then all Playstation exclusives should be available on Xbox, because I don't understand why it's bad for Xbox to have exclusive studios under their belt but good for Playstation? Please enlighten.

Dude kinda sucks. If Microsoft didn't give gamers a choice there wouldn't be Minecraft on Playstation.

@TrevorP86 Sony is a lot stingier than Microsoft when it comes to exclusivity.

@grumpypotato
Well when they can make great games I can cheer on them but trying to buy monopoly of industry then not.

I also have Xbox console so no Im not lost.

@OriginalDrGonzo
I dont see Playstation fans crying about Halo, Forza and Gears not being on Playstation console, only hearing Xbox players cry about Playstation games.

Well since Microsoft are not giving you more games only taking away games from other platforms its not good.

No one is complaining about having exclusives but buying everything gets complains.

So when Activision-Blizzard deal is done Microsoft has bought around 35 studios in 4 years all of which has been multiplatform before.
So taking away 35 studios from Playstation gamers is a good thing, so then you wouldnt complain if Sony bought Capcom, Sega, Square, Bandai and Koei Tecmo to counterpart that since taking away lots of studios from certian gamers is a good thing.

Is there a fine or anything for misleading the commissions? I hope they at least do a deeper dive into the Sony practices as a result, I'm sure a lot of those details were in the redacted parts released earlier. Sony is definitely loosing a lot of respect as a company with Jimbo at helm.

I haven't seen any ads with the Xbox logo in them for CoD... Nor is there any exclusive content for anyone except PlayStation. Not to mention Sony is putting more importance on a SINGLE 3rd party title when they have first party IPs that can compete. Instead, they pretend they don't exist and choose to cry about CoD. How about a new Killzone? A new SOCOM? A new Resistance? All titles that PlayStation fans have been asking for.
Are regulators ignoring that?

@Neverwild You do know that Ghostwire Tokyo, a PS console exclusive was developed and published by Bethesda, right?

@Savage_Joe Minecraft... The Ori series... Cuphead... all titles owned by or made with MS's help that are on other platforms.
To be fair, Sony is more reliant on exclusives than anyone else.
Again, crying over this acquisition while advertising exclusive content and having your logo as the only one plastered on ads isn't a good look...

@carlos82 they tried to end sega & Nintendo by making a better product ? Also the PS1 was originally a collaboration between Sony & Nintendo until Nintendo backed out

wanna know why this grown man is crying all the time? Warzone 2 just had 25 million players in 5 days. All this man cares about are all the microtransactions that might shift from PS to Xbox when this deal goes through.

@Neverwild those companies were for sale tho, it wasn’t like someone wasn’t going to buy them and i would rather it be one of the Big 3 then say Google, Amazon , Tencent or Netflix. Sony is doing just fine with their games and will still have Call of Duty and many others. The same way i was happy to see Sony buy Bungie, those games are staying on both platforms but Sony will Learn a lot about making online games, a space they are not good at at the moment. It would be way worse to see Bungie go to Amazon and Bethesda go to Google or someone outside the big 3. I own all 3 consoles and it’s great to see all of them having something worth owning them for. These deals hasn’t hurt the industry, but keep the big 3 largely in the lead from anyone else entering or having major IP’S on small install base platforms.

The few point’s everyone is missing is the UK is a small part of the gaming revenue dollars, throw in the fact these are two American companies trying to merge and the UK protecting Sony isn’t going to hold back a American deal. Most if not all other areas will approve this and the UK will look like bias Sony land that was the only one not doing best for the industry and more worrying about Sony’s bottom line and if Call of Duty are on “their” PlayStations.

@OriginalDrGonzo so moat of anyway studios they helped fund from their early stages and built up to what they are today. The one exception woukd be the recent purchase of bungie but that isn't their normal purchase- they aren't part of the first party PlayStation studios and sit separately as a multiplatforn developer. But that is one studio. There is nothing wrong with Microsoft having its own exclusive studios. Nothing wrong with them working together with indie studios on ip's that are xbox only titles and purchasing those studios eventually.

There is however everything wrong and it is awful for the health of the gaming industry in general for them to come along and purchase whole publishers acquiring a multitude of big established developer most of whom have been multiplatform developers for decades.

The reason why is because one method grows the industry and creates new jobs and new IP. The other method doesn't grow the industry, restricts gamers choices and simply blocks IP of various platforms permanently.

It's completely incomparable to temporary 3rd party timed exclusivity deals etc. Something Microsoft basically introduced as the norm and could organise plenty of, if they wanted.

@Green-Bandit This is completely incorrect. A) the uk is actually a pretty significant market for gaming. B) It isn't just the UK, the EU regulatory have been saying almost exactly the same thing. C) the companies are multinational and operate in the uk- therefore technically the deal can't go ahead without uk approval. If you actually read the UK's CMA initial findings and responses to Microsofts response you woukd realise thst the UK CMA actually only considered the issue of Sony and console markets as their final point, almost an afterthought. Their primary concerns relate to a monopoly in the game streaming and gaming subscription services area of the business and that due to how expensive and time consuming it is to setup server infrastructure that the costs of entry may mean it's not viable for new competitors to enter the market, or for companies like amazon or gogogle tot take the risk. With all the existing IP's MS could make exclusive to their streaming services as a result of this deal it could according to thr regulator tip the balance and give them a monopoly in thjs area. That is their primary concern.

@Neverwild
But the reality is that these games will reach MORE people if the deal goes through.
Game Pass is available on console, PC and Cloud.
Xbox has also spoken about wanting COD on Nintendo Switch.

What PlayStation is worried about is not Xbox taking COD away from their console, but having it on Game Pass and probably including perks.
PlayStation knows the COD crowd are a pickle bunch.
Just as they migrated from Xbox 360 to PS4, the same could/will happen if COD hits Game Pass day and date.

@BBB you can't have actually just said something so dense? If the studio has been multiplatform for like 2 decades (as is the case with all activisiton studios and Bethesda studios) then as a general rule anything they were working on woukd have been a multiplatform title and released on all platforms. Even with a timed exclusivity deal it eventually releases on other platforms just with a delay. So not publishing new entries in existing IP on other platforms, or new IP in development for years already - games like starfield. Buying these studios that have always been multiplatform studios and restricting their output is without ding content from a large number of gamers. It is not the same as a first party studio Sony have owned since the ps1- crating a NEW IP and releasing it as an exclusive. That is VERY different to restricting the output of a previously 3rd party developer and purchasing multiplatform developers and making them exclusive ones.

What else could he say "yeah we totally hoodwinked the regulators so we can squeeze a better deal out of MS, dont tell them"

@BBB
Starfield and Redfall has been taken away as of now and more coming.

@blinx01
No it wont reach more people, if people playing on mobile was interested on those games they would have got a console or pc to do so.

Phil can say all he want but he says one thing and does another.

Another click bait article with nothing to say except stirring up the usual hate mobs. Such a shame to see it here on pure, its one of the reasons I'm here more than push, because push have done a ton of these non articles simply stirring up hate.

Both things quoted from Jim in this article are true - I'm not falling one side or the other on the deal, I'm bored of that discussion, and use all systems so I'm not personally concerned.
But Microsoft ARE the corp that's misused its power to shut out smaller business and have a history of this which cannot be denied - more anti trust issues than any other corp. Buying Studios to make excusive content when they were previously multi plat DOES remove player choice, that's also a fact.

So the only two quotes on here from Ryan are demonstrably true.
There are plenty of counter arguments of course, and many posts here make decent points, but these statements are not wrong.

@FraserG Thanks for your reply, and I guess I was being a little harsh, this is not the same league as the Push reporting I dislike, but the inevitable hate appeared, as expected.
I've spent so long arguing with Sammy that the tone of push articles is attracting entitled militant gamers and putting off genuine gamers who just want to have some fun and read news, that I feared such an article may be the 'thin edge of the wedge' for pure. However, there little else in the editorial content here that suggests that's where we are headed, so I've jumped the gun a bit - you are not indulging in that. My apologies.

@BBB
So studios has release 1 out of 20 games to other platforms and that is same to you for a entire publisher releasing like 100 games on differrent platforms.
Good to see that you're not bias at all.

@BBB
No its not the same, its a big differrence but sadly you are so bias you cant see it.

@Jaded_Uniped timed. It will come to other platforms.

Mr "we believe in generations" himself would NEVER say anything misleading!

@BBB the difference is that a) I think in 25 years insomniac had like 2 titles that weren't exclusive to PlayStation and that Sony didn't own the IP/have the publishing rights to the ip for. Most of housemarques games were funded by Sony and as for guerilla games I think they released one flop of a multiplatform title sometime in the early 1990's? The thing is here without working with Sony and without dony's funding none of these developers would be what they are today. Sony grew those developers into what they are today. That's healthy for the industry. Microsoft is just buying developers that are already successful multiplatform developers with multiple AAA titles under their belt and a publisher with the rights to literally hundreds of IP.

Also the price they are paying fir the company is a questionable one, I know there are actually court cases occuring that the company's own investors and board have taken out over the fact that clearly activision is worth more than they are being bought for. Just look at how much money call of duty made in the past year and what MW2 and warzone 2 are on track to make over the next 12 months. That one franchise makes the price for activision look cheap that's before you look at King mobile games and franchises like warcraft, diablo and Starcraft to name but a few.

@extermin8or Nintendo don’t have half the games that come to PlayStation and outsell it. But games and possible new franchises hitting GP will end Sony and Xbox spring boards into full on Monopoly? Thats not how this happens. PlayStation is still the world wide leader in name and sales. Japan alone makes Microsoft no monopoly, granted Japan is a smaller market like the UK. Sounds like to me Sony would need to up their offerings on their services, cause at the moment it stinks. Take Brazil for a good example, sony increasing game prices hurt that market into buying and playing less games, hence they seen GP as a alternative way for players in that region to game at a more affordable price and signed the deal. In the UK you literally had a person say call of duty needs to be on ‘MY” PlayStation. Sony needs competition and if this deal spilt the market for Sony and Microsoft in half or gave a slight lead even to xbox, sony would still have sales of 60-90 million consoles, thats not a monopoly. People are not just going to stop loving the brand and ecosystem of PlayStation to the point they sell 24 million PS6 or PS7’s. Nintendo is not going to just stop selling switches, so there’s no Xbox monopoly. UK is the 6th largest gaming market, so i stand by my comment that they are on the smaller side.

Some users on this site are taking the toxicity of console wars to a new level. Go ahead and argue his comments as much as you want if you disagree with them. But to start mocking his appearance is childish and unnecessary. At this point people are just grasping at straws to find something negative to say about PlayStation.

It seems to me that if Sony keep pushing back against all the olive branches MS seem to be putting out so say "look your not losing Cod completely", if the courts side with MS then sony could well lose every offer and could potentially end up back with a 3 year offer rather than 10.

@extermin8or Just like FF VII R? My point is that they handle things on a case by case basis unlike Sony who make everything exclusive to their platform, Microsoft at least weighs the benefits and then makes a decision. Throwing Bethesda out there is just lazy. We've already seen Microsoft share IPs and developers with Nintendo AND Sony. I have yet to see Sony share much more than a baseball game with Xbox. Same with Nintendo.

I have mentioned this before. And I appreciate its in an unrelated industry to gaming. But all the talk of Sony monopolising - Microsoft absolutely do the exact same thing elsewhere.

The whole big corp vs big corp bickering gets really old.

I own consoles from all 3 platform holders so think of myself as platform agnostic. However, there's just something about Jim Ryan's pathetic, hypocritical, whining that makes me like PlayStation less as a brand. Nintendo isn't the biggest gaming brand in the world. Xbox isn't the biggest gaming brand in the world. It's PlayStation. Yet he acts like he's president of a tiny start-up being bullied in the playground by the older kids.

I've also said this before but, Sony bought EVERY single studio that makes their wonderful first party games. Just because Microsoft has the wallet to do so on a bigger scale, in one hit, doesn't mean it's not the same thing.

Jim Ryan looks a bit to much like Paul Robinson the villain in neighbours. 🤣🤣

... or does Paul Robinson look like Jim Ryan the villain in gaming?

My view on all this is yes, this is leading more to monopolization of the industry. There are legitimmate reasons for the deal to be opposed.
At the sane tume sony isnt opposed to it for any legitimate reason other than they think its gonna be a threat to there game pass like service which they keep making clear.

Microsoft keep going! I truly hope you guys win this.
There wont be enough tissues left lol.
Just because of the weeping babys with those bubbles of snot lol i hope the deal will go through.

Jimbo denies a lot of things that are otherwise true.

Sincerely,
A PlayStation customer

It's getting to be a bit much. He'll get approval anyway. There's no point in dragging it out.

@Neverwild Sony wouldn't let me refund games for pre-orders, has removed hundreds of games from PSNow and jacked the price up, and has auto-renewed my subscriptions a bunch of times even tho I deactivated them on my consoles (plural) AND on the website via PC....Meanwhile Xbox lets me refund digital games and play old games I already own for free. Sony makes me sick and I hope MS wins.