FTC Preliminary Injunction Trial Calls For Industry Heads, Mostly From MS, To Testify

The witness lists for the FTC federal case vs the Microsoft Activision deal is out. To put it quite short, this case will be the unlikely meeting place of the gaming industry’s most powerful and important people.

Florian Mueller has shared the bigger names found in the witness lists, though he has opted to pass over some of the smaller figures. We’ll go through each person one by one here.

The witness list for Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King:

Sarah Bond is Corporate Vice President of Gaming Ecosystem at Microsoft. You probably just saw her as the first presenter in Microsoft’s Games Showcase just last week.

Amy Hood is Microsoft’s Chief Financial Officer.

Bobby Kotick is Activision Blizzard King’s CEO.

The witness list for Sony, overlapping with Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King:

Matt Booty is Head of Microsoft Game Studios. Booty’s name came up in a recent rumor in the gamer’s lawsuit vs the Microsoft Activision deal. The rumor is that he wrote the email claiming that Microsoft’s aim was to put Sony out of business.

Satya Nadella is Microsoft’s CEO. Satya transformed the company when he took this position, successfully easing Microsoft’s transition into cloud services. Satya has not been aggressive about moving Xbox away from console into cloud gaming, but the company could better leverage its strengths if they can make it a bigger market.

Phil Spencer is Team Xbox’s CEO. Phil’s tenure as CEO has been a mixed bag even after all these years. While he was a clearly needed replacement for former CEO Don Mattrick, Phil hasn’t been successful in pulling Microsoft out of its third spot position, behind Sony and Nintendo, with either the Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S. On the other hand, the CMA has strongly hinted that Phil has brought Xbox’s market share closer to PlayStation than either party knows.

Tim Stuart is CFO of Microsoft Gaming. Tim is the recipient of the email sent by Matt Booty that allegedly states Microsoft wants to drive Sony out of the gaming business.

Lori Wright is Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President. As Florian had pointed out, Lori also testified in the Epic Games vs. Apple case 2 years ago. Lori testified vs Apple and in favor of Epic, as Epic’s potential win could mean third party stores like Fortnite, and the one Microsoft would want to build, would become legally required on mobile platforms like Apple’s and Alphabet’s.

Finally, there is Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and President Jim Ryan. Jim will not physically be at the event, but will be sending a video deposition in response to both sides.

That hearing starts next week, so you can rest assured we’ll be hearing all about this hearing very, very soon.