Today, there’s a major development in the ongoing drama surrounding Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The merger (which began in January 2022 of this year) has been to Sony’s chagrin, with some back and forth between the two companies as the deal neared completion.
Several government agencies are currently reviewing the deal, one of which is the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority. As part of a case study examining whether Microsoft Corp.’s anticipated acquisition of Activision Blizzard is above board and healthy for the video game market as a whole, the government agency released Sony and Microsoft’s responses to its findings.
The results are very convincing. And some line of choice about how many players or games each platform has (“more than 280 exclusive first-party and third-party games on PlayStation in 2021, nearly five times as many as Xbox,” Microsoft said in its response), with each Here are some insightful observations about how the company sees its own games.
A particular highlight is Microsoft’s point that “Sony has more exclusive games than Microsoft, many of which are of better quality”. As you can see below, the bullet points state that “Sony and Nintendo exclusive first-party titles are top-selling titles both in Europe and globally,” and that “current Sony exclusives include notable first-party titles, Examples include The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, and Spider-Man.”
Microsoft went on to say: “In addition to having completely exclusive content, Sony has also entered into agreements with third-party publishers to “exclude” the Xbox from the platforms on which those publishers can distribute their games.” Remake, Bloodborne, Silent Hill 2 Remake, and Final Fantasy XVI.
Clearly and officially seeing Microsoft’s acknowledgment that Sony has more and better quality exclusives is pretty telling – perhaps the pair are working on an upcoming Xbox game (think Fable, Perfect Dark , StarCraft, etc.) were frustrated.
This whole back-and-forth between Microsoft and Sony is likely to get more confusing as it nears completion. We will keep you updated on other developments.
