There is no shortage of interesting facts and tidbits of history behind some of the leading video game industry companies right now. Thanks to Microsoft’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard, the company has been shedding some behind-the-scenes details through the court battles. Regulators are going through this purchase offer, and one of the battles Microsoft is currently undergoing is through the FTC. But now we’re finding out that there were other companies Microsoft was keen on picking up besides Activision Blizzard. One of which was Square Enix.
Court documents are hitting the web and one of which details Microsoft’s initial interest in offering a bid for Square Enix. This comes from Axios Gaming Stephen Totilo, who shared a document online. This was a consideration within Microsoft back in 2019, where Phil Spencer offered his feedback on the proposal. We’re not sure just how far into this proposal got before Microsoft decided to move on.
However, the documents show that Microsoft was toying with the idea of keeping the recently announced games coming to the already planned platforms. What would be different is that Square Enix games would land on the Xbox Game Pass subscription service at launch. That would, however, hurt some of the portions of base game sales, according to the document. But at the very least, it does look like there were other additional companies that Microsoft was looking into.
But of course, now the online community is wondering just how much further Microsoft could take these acquisitions. Perhaps there are even more plans going beyond Activision Blizzard, although we’ll just have to wait and see what the case ends up being. At any rate, we’ll need to continue to watch and see what comes of this current Activision Blizzard purchase.
That said, this is far from the only shed of interesting news from the FTC trial. For instance, we had an email surfaced online that showed Sony’s Jim Ryan was not concerned with Call of Duty not hitting PlayStation consoles and even a remark that stated none of the publishers he’s spoken with even likes the Xbox’s Game Pass subscription service model. Furthermore, Jim Ryan suggested that Call of Duty wouldn’t even be much of a franchise that Nintendo fans would be interested in. If you don’t recall, Microsoft had made contracts to ensure that Call of Duty would land on competitor platforms like the Nintendo Switch for at least ten years if Activision Blizzard does get acquired.
