The hearing that confronts Microsoft with the FTC for the purchase of Activision Blizzard is leaving us with very valuable information. Today was a significant day because Phil Spencer, director of Xbox, intervened to answer questions from the regulatory body. One of them is related to Starfield and is generating a lot of conversation.
The biggest revelation has to do with the purchase of ZeniMax, which owns Bethesda, for which Microsoft shelled out $7.5 billion during 2020. While there was interest in growing the Xbox-exclusive bookstore thanks to this acquisition, there is another reason why. the one that the Redmon opened the wallet.
According to Phil Spencer (via The Verge), Another of the reasons that prompted the purchase of Bethesda is that they found out that Sony was negotiating the exclusivity of Starfield.
We must remember that Starfield is by far the most promising and highly anticipated game on the Xbox platform today.
However, when it was announced in 2018, most of us sensed that it would be available on all platforms. It seems, then, that Sony wanted to get hold of Starfield to offer it as an exclusive addition to its catalogue.
“When we acquired ZeniMax, one of the impulses was that Sony had made a deal for Deathloop y Ghostwire. They paid Bethesda not to release those games on Xbox. So when we hear that Starfield It would also potentially end up bypassing Xbox, as the third-placed platform we couldn’t get any further behind in terms of content ownership. So we had to get the content to stay sustainable in the business,” Spencer said.
Darts against Sony, beyond Starfield
The manager also commented that for years they have been forced to redouble their efforts with their partners to be able to deal with PlayStation exclusivity agreements. “We needed to do a lot of work with a lot of partners given the competitive situation we had against the market leader,” Spencer added.
Another tremendous statement that the Xbox director left us is about Sony’s alleged practices to suppress Microsoft in the video game industry. Spencer said that the Japanese company keeps 30% of the games they distribute on the PlayStation platform, such as Minecraft. Posteriorly, use those profits to hurt Xbox:
“Every time we release a game on PlayStation, Sony takes 30% of the revenue that we make on their platform and then they use that money to try to reduce the survival of Xbox in the market. We try to compete, but like I said, in the last few 20 years we have not managed to do it effectively.”
Phil Spencer.
At the moment, yes, Sony has not yet ruled on the matter. It is already a fact that Starfield It won’t be coming to PS5, but it certainly will. Deathloop y Ghostwire yes they were temporary exclusives of the japanese console. As the hearing continues, we will surely have more information about how these companies have moved in recent years to protect their interests.
