The industry revelations after a massive lawsuit between the FTC and Microsoft are quite impressive. Internal company data and lots of company moves to take advantage of whenever possible, and that’s what was experienced a few years ago with the move to the next generation of consoles and the benefits that Activision was looking to bring their games to the Xbox Series.
As revealed by Sarah Bond, Activision had threatened not to bring Call of Duty to next-gen Xbox consoles if profit sharing in favor of the development studio was not improved. According to Bond, they agreed to this out of fear that one of the larger franchises would hit the platform, since the deal and asset split was 20-80 in favor of Activision.
It was clear that Call of Duty would be on PS5 and it wouldn’t have been a good thing if it wasn’t also on Xbox if it came out at the same time.
Sony’s dominance forces Microsoft into these uneven deals
We already know that Avtivision has accepted various exclusivity agreements with PlayStation to promote the Sony console on the market, which has forced Microsoft to accept, a priori, unfair contracts with Activision. Of course, that’s all that is known at this time, but we don’t know what other companies forced Xbox into these deals.
Now that a merger is in the works, the FTC lawyers ask if it would not be a similar case, but in favor of Xbox, to which Phil Spencer replied no, because they will pay wages. Of course, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a greater advantage, but it does imply that Microsoft will be the one to invest in the development and bear the benefit or loss. It is clear that, if the merger is carried out, Xbox will be able to walk more calmly before Call of Duty games and make a profit with the brand.
The trial continues, and we can expect more surprises like this to learn more about how the video game industry works.
