Microsoft has made an interesting comment in their response to the CMA’s provisional findings.
On page 18 of their response, they say:
“Sony also has exclusive agreements for many of the most highly anticipated third-party releases in 2023, such as Final Fantasy XVI and Forspoken both from Square Enix, with whom Sony has a decades-long relationship.
Industry commentators note that Sony is “the dominant platform that publishers like Square Enix simply can’t afford to ignore”. Sony could easily retaliate if Microsoft were to make CoD exclusive post-Merger, including by making more popular games exclusive to PlayStation.”
Microsoft says what a lot of gamers already know, and have probably taken for granted because it seems to have always been true. Sony really has fostered close relationships with many third parties, which is the reason that they get many exclusive games, or better versions of those games.
While Microsoft gives Square Enix, their Final Fantasy games, and Forspoken as their examples here, we know there are tons of other games and studios in the same situation. It’s the same thing for Atlus and their Persona video games. And Bandai Namco’s Tekken games. And Sega’s Yakuza games. All of these games were easier to access, for many years even exclusive to PlayStation. And they are still closely associated to the platform today.
But, that’s not everything. Microsoft adds to these arguments on pages 18 to 19:
“Sony is a dynamic competitor and continues to grow the PlayStation console. It continues to acquire more studios, including minority stakes in big publishers.
Sony’s Corporate Report 2022 refers to Sony as a “world-leading creator of innovative videogames and network products and services” and a “category leader in gaming brands”.
It also states that through “extensive investment and company acquisitions have built a portfolio of leading global game development studios, best in class technology, and flagship franchises”.
The idea that PlayStation would be a passive competitor that took no steps protect its dominant position in response to hypothetical withholding of one game is not credible. It already looks to strengthen itself today.”
Microsoft did not name names here, but we already know that they are alluding to Sony’s very own major game studio acquisition. Sony stealthily announced they had picked up Bungie, the developer behind Destiny 2, earlier this year. Their stated objective for this was not just for Bungie to make more games for PlayStation (Bungie is reportedly working on future live service games for Sony) but also to bring the Destiny IP to multimedia projects, possibly movies or shows.
Here’s the thing to remember: there’s nothing wrong with Sony buying studios or fostering relationships with them to get exclusive games. Microsoft is not characterizing that as bad or wrong or anticompetitive either.
Microsoft is simply pointing out that Sony is not entirely helpless if they lose access to Call of Duty, whether that’s because of Microsoft or something else.
In fact, Sony have themselves taken moves to pull Destiny 2 from Game Pass, though the game isn’t entirely removed from the Xbox marketplace.
