Microsoft’s Activision Acquisition Is Anti-Competitive, But Starfield As An Xbox Exclusive Is Not, Says Jim Ryan

Jim Ryan took the stand (in a sense, he appeared through a pre-recorded video) during the FTC’s case against Microsoft today, and his deposition shed light on where Sony stands on some of the key issues regarding Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

On the acquisition of Activision, Ryan is staunchly against it, as we’ve already heard. He confirmed that he did indeed make it clear he wanted the acquisition blocked, and views the deal as “anti-competitive.”

Ryan confirmed that he did indeed tell Activision’s Bobby Kotick “I don’t want a new Call Of Duty deal. I jut want to block your merger.” When confirming the meeting in court, Ryan said “I told him that I thought the transaction was anti-competitive, that I hoped the regulator’s would do their job and block it.”

But Ryan doesn’t see everything Microsoft is doing as anti-competitive – he understands there’s a way to play the game, and that he’s not going to like everything his competitor does.

On making Bethesda titles like Starfield or Arkane’s Redfall exclusive to Xbox, Ryan said “I don’t like it but I fundamentally have no quarrel with it. I don’t like it, but I don’t view it as anti-competitive.”

This isn’t entirely surprising, to see Ryan take this stance, especially because he’d be quite hypocritical to call exclusive games anti-competitive when that’s PlayStation’s bread and butter.

Just like it’s not surprising to see him still hold that the Microsoft acquiring Activision would indeed be anti-competitive. Even if he has no real concern that Activision games will be pulled from PlayStation.

Source – [The Verge]