Microsoft Orders Sony To Attend Activision Blizzard Court Hearing This Summer

@Kaloudz to get those redacted statements out in court? To also straight up ask them how much and who they are paying to keep games off Gamepass? That seems the most logical explanation.

Phil Spencer vs Jim Ryan in a Hell in a Cell match, winner acquires Activision/Blizzard.

This is pretty much expected. Sony's the principal competitor in question, even aside from the fact they're the one raising the complaints, they're the most material witness in the FTC's case, just like how Nintendo, Sony, and MS all found themselves subpoenaed in Apple v Epic despite not even being involved in it directly, because they're involved in the market in question.

Plainly a court case can't discuss MS's effect on the "premium console market" as the FTC has weirdly and narrowly defined their complaint without testimony from the only other player in that market.

Nothing weird or unexpected about the subpoena. The weird part is Sony filing a 1 week extension. They're going to make all that noise, but not respond to a subpoena to appear without stalling for every millisecond they can? What does 1 week buy them other than simply being "difficult" for the sake of it?

Yep, get them dirty laundry dealings out in the open for all of us to see. Let us gamers see for ourselves which corporation is really scummy with their machinations 😂😂... Bring it on!

im on xbox and I dont care about anything activision makes waste of $69 billion in my opinion could have been better spent elsewhere

imagine they had actually spent $69 billion making games. thats 345 exclusives at $200 million each

@Sebatrox I can just imagine both of them have the same kill count and who ever gets the last kill wins but the game freezes, meaning this will be dragged out to 2024.

@Solidchief WrestleMania 39 Main Event sorted!!!

@Solidchief ‘by gawd, Ryan is a crimson mess’

I’d pay to see it 🤣

@Sebatrox Phil actually plays games and worked in game development. It would be a slaughter.

@Solidchief
And Stone Cold as guest referee 😂

From what I read elsewhere MS wants Sony to reveal to the court their upcoming games schedule, including unannouced titles.

The idea is MS can point to third party exclusives and Sony's own output and go "see even if we made CoD exclusive, which we wont, it wont even make a dent in their output."

Sony's extention is so they can argue what can be excluded from the schedule.

As I said on Push Square, so looking forward for the discovery process!!

Wow, Microsoft ordering Sony to do anything surprises me. Usually, whenever I see these two companies in the same sentence, it's Sony reprimanding Microsoft or Microsoft telling Sony how amazing they are.

Please bring up why Final Fantasy VII Remake has been withheld from xbox gamers around the world. FF7R is just the beginning, bring out all that dirty laundry and bleach it!~

@Sebatrox How about Goldeneye - slappers only.

@Kaloudz getting Jim Ryan in there gets the media watching. Microsoft wants to portray itself as the hero in all this. I read it that way too. If Jim gets on the stand and is like 'we just don't think ten years is fair.' and 'we paid this and this to keep games off gamepass' it's going to be a pretty bad look.

@Ashadelo Yeah that's it, I'm really hoping this can be a venue to drag out the truths behind these mysteries in public under government pressure. I'm still not sure MS buying ABK is best for consumers or the industry, but there's a lot of dirty industry laundry, particularly from Sony that consumers have a right to know, the industry has a right to know without fear of reprisal, and this may be the one and only chance to drag the mob-like business of the games industry into the light of day. 7R is the current poster child for dirty dealings. I fear it's a nod and handshake and not a formal agreement, though, so some of this will be impossible to dredge up if not done right, and I'm not sure MS's legal team is interested in the right questions.

I have absolutely no idea of how the legal system works, but would it in theory be possible for MS to pull out of the deal then just buy each IP individually and just get rid of the activision name for good? Then it becomes less of a takeover and more of a company selling off their assets which in theory wouldn’t attract the same scrutiny from the likes of the FTC etc? Maybe not but that would be funny

@grumpypotato He could still play Destiny 2 if he wanted to, it's still multiplatform. Also Sony bought Bungie after Acti-Blizz acquisition was announced, so it had nothing to do with Destiny/Bungie.

@Sol4ris The answer is all of them, because they are corporations. They all exist solely to make money, none of them are your friend. By the way you don't consider a company that is fighting to spend $70 billion, but just fired 10,000 people scummy?

By the way you don't consider a company that is fighting to spend $70 billion, but just fired 10,000 people scummy?

Google are laying off 12.000 jobs, Sony fired thousands of people via restructuring last year, Amazon is reportedly laying off 20,000 and, yes, it is absolutely horrendous but what exactly it's your point?

@Solidchief Sony can't afford it.

@Kaloudz I wouldn't say devious but smart. Sony is the devious one trying to pull the strings in this deal. Hopefully this will expose Sony and allow things to pass.

@Kaloudz this could put Sony in the corner, instead of actively trying to derail the acquisition.

@Kaloudz I'm not that familiar with where everything is. If Sony isn't just trying to troll the acquisition they will grow up and say what they really want to say. They look pathetic acting like this. I hope they do have to go and get put in their place. There should also be rules put in place to keep anti-competitive moves like paying to block content on other platforms. I hope this backfires on Sony.

@Solidchief That's Don Mattrick's music!

@Sol4ris

I don't see the point of this.

Yeah, they have games in the pipeline, microsoft's probably has more. What is he going to say? That sony's pipeline games will be better and sell better (vs cod?)

I don't think the square enix/japanese exclusives will amount to cod, wow, starcraft, diablo and overwatch numbers.

@Sebatrox

I like the 1v1 cod match

@trev666

People don't want 200 new games. They want playstation to have less games.

@Sol4ris

His point is... microsoft has way more money and can keep those employees.

@Kaloudz MS may not be the leader in producing games, they leave Sony in the dust when it comes to the overall size and wealth. Windows is practically on every work computer. Their cloud services make them most of their money these days. Sony just takes their dominance which is shrinking in the gaming market, and is trying to play dictator with it. When I saw their marketing and influence during the Xbox One days, all I saw was Sony being a bully. Microsoft has to stop playing nice to these companies that are hostile to them. My guess this request for Sony to attend sounds like a last ditch effort to involve them before telling them they get nothing.

@GodofCapcom

His point is... microsoft has way more money and can keep those employees

None of these corporations is in such dire financial situation that it needs to lay off thousands of workers, none , including Sony. But this is capitalism (the neo-Liberal kind) and not some genuinely egalitarian society, although I very much wish it was... So again, what was his point?

@GodofCapcom

People don't want 200 new games. They want playstation to have less games

Yes that must be it mate....people want less games on PlayStation... 🤦

@Sol4ris

Sony is still not as big. It's just as simple as that.

@Sol4ris

The comment was towards fanboys and not you. You must've got triggered for some reason.

Are Google & Nvidia also attending since they're against the acquisition aswell

@Would_you_kindly They're a lot more passive in their opposition than Sony is. They don't support it, but Sony has been engaged in an all-out effort to block it by any means at their disposal.

@trev666 COD is GOAT in FPS multiplayer..if your not interested what about crash spyro and Diablo prototype?if your still intrested..if microsoft get the deal and there revenue rises this will reflect on game quality and the investment in studios and 1st party studios

Issuing a subpoena to Sony was actually a smart move. I’ll be grabbing the popcorn to watch this all unfold.

@Gamingforlife i have no interest in any of those games

Activison make 2 billion a year in profit so you spend $69 billion to make $2 billion doesnt make much sense to me

@trev666 thats what an investment is for, you dont get your money same year ...you invest to have profit in long term ...and microsoft have many interests in ABK beside direct profit ...they want in to the mobile market (king) and they want to push their xbox branding forward and ABK is one hell of a push

worst case they make their money back in 35 year if market didnt expend and if ABK didnt grow an inch

@trev666 MS gets all the studios, IP (active and dormant), mobile infrastructure, and revenue from mobile & CoD. That is huge. MS will make their investment back in less than a decade.

F federal trade communists.