During a legal negotiation between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission, a judge authorized the tech giant to dig into Sony’s archives. The Japanese company will notably have to reveal whether or not it pays video game publishers not to go on the Xbox Game Pass.
The Activision-Blizzard takeover saga continues. While the US federal state is trying to block the acquisition of this essential video game publisher by Microsoft, accused of unfair competition, legal negotiations have convinced a judge to bring Sony into the dance.
As the American media explains The VergePlayStation’s parent company may have to reveal if it’s paying (and how much) to block video games from being available on Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s subscription-based video game service.
Sony will have to answer the charges
This decision comes in a particular context: after the decision to buy Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft for the modest sum of 69 billion dollars, the Federal Trade Commission of the United States took the company to court in December 2022. In particular, she accuses Microsoft of wanting to prevent popular Activision-Blizzard franchises (call of duty, Overwatch, Candy Crush Saga) to be playable among its competitors.
The tech giant is preparing its defense and in turn accuses its little comrades of not respecting the rules of competition. In particular Sony, which Microsoft already accused in August 2022 of signing exclusivity agreements on certain video games to prohibit their presence on the Xbox Game Pass. Then, surprise, on February 23: an FTC judge agreed with Microsoft and asked Sony to respond to the charges.
What is the price of loyalty?
In his judgment, the administrative judge therefore considers that, if they exist, the details of these secret agreements are useful to Microsoft for its defense and that the company must have access to them. The FTC therefore asks Sony to reveal the nature and content of the contracts signed since January 1, 2019… where the amount of these exclusivity bonuses should be indicated.
A loyalty price that should be of great interest to players in the video game market, but also to consumers: as the specialized media reminds us Kotaku, these decisions whether or not to exclude games on certain platforms directly affect players. A little transparency wouldn’t hurt.
Nevertheless, even if the procedure goes to the end, The Verge notes that it’s rare for this kind of information to come out of the FTC’s closets, even though it did in the case between Epic Games and Apple in 2021. All that remains is to cross your fingers.
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