168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty was a huge sticking point for the Microsoft-Activision deal in the lead-up to the CMA's decision, with Sony arguing that it being an Xbox exclusive would cause Microsoft to dominate the industry with a near-monopoly. This led to Microsoft making promises to bring the series to Nintendo platforms, Sony claiming it believes 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Microsoft would make CoD bu🌞ggy for PS5 on purpose, and 168澳洲幸运5开ꦜ奖网:Microsoft telling Sony to make ♚its own competitor. But a✅llegedly, Sony CEO Jim Ryan was never scared of losing Call of Duty.
In a new document shared by the FTC, Microsoft claims that Ryan made contradictory claims about PlayStation losing Call of Duty in private on the day the deal was announced (thanks, ). His claims are redacted, but the document says, "Withholding COD would harm Xbox. It would ♛contradict the valuation the Board relied on in approving the deal, which assumed profits from continued PlayStation sales."
Allegedly, Ryan was certain that Call of Duty would remain on PlayStation because of its hold on the market, something backed up in the same FTC document; "Even if the merger were to cause every PlayStation owner that played COD for as little as two hours per month to buy an Xbox--a wi🐎ldly implausible scenari💎o--PlayStation would still remain the console leader [...] [It] would at most put a small dent in [PlayStation's] massive lead."
PlayStation has actually benefitted from exclusivity within Call of Duty over the past few releases. For example, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Black Ops Cold War had a timed exclusive Zombies mode, Onslaught, that you could only access via Pla🐠yStation for an entire year before it later arrived on Xbox and PC. The $20 battle pass bundle also offered an additional five tier skips, while PlayStation players who partied up would get a 25 percent bon♔us to weapon XP on top of monthly double XP bonuses.
The sticking point for Ryan doesn't appear to be whether PlayStation keeps Call of Duty. There are no doubt plenty of reasons why he doesn't want his competitor to engage in one of gaming's biggest deals, but we can only speculate on the finer details. What we do know is that, according to an Activision executive, Ryan allegedly said, "168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I just want to block your merger", making it explicitly clear that there's no possible outcome in which he sees 🌜t🌸his as a positive.