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Public squabbles between two of the biggest console game companies have escalated. In a recent podcast appearance, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer he criticized Sony for wanting to grow by “making Xbox smaller”. The indictment comes after the Federal Trade Commission decided to sue to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision due to a pattern of making recently acquired games like it Starfield exclusive.
“Sony is leading the conversation on why the deal shouldn’t go through to protect its console dominance, so the thing they’re holding on to is call of Duty”, Spencer said during an interview with the Second request antitrust podcast last week (through VGC extension). “The world’s largest console maker has raised an objection over the one franchise we’ve said will continue to be distributed on the platform.”
Spencer continued to thwart Xbox’s strategy of bringing its day-and-date games to PC and Game Pass with Sony’s focus on keeping its latest first-party hits like Forbidden Horizon West And God Of War Ragnarok console exclusive for the first few years. “Sony is trying to protect its dominance of the console,” Spencer said. “The way they grow is to make Xbox smaller.” The subtext is that Sony is lobbying to block the $69 billion Activision deal not because it’s bad for consumers, but because it’s not good for PlayStation.
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Microsoft has stepped up its public relations offensive as regulatory agencies weigh the pros and cons of picking up the seventh-largest game publisher in buy it your way in second place in the play space. The company has agreed to keep a 10-year contract call of Duty on PlayStation, as well as plans to bring the franchise back to the Nintendo platform. It supports placing of the likes of Surveillance 2 And Devil IV on Game Pass it means more choice for players, not less. All while Sony continues to do everything it accuses Microsoft of wanting to do, like paying to keep the most important games Final Fantasy XVI off the Xbox.
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But there was a major flaw in the argument: Starfield. Microsoft bought Bethesda for $7.5 billion in 2021 and, months after the deal closed, announced the next sprawling RPG of the Skyrim study would be an Xbox Series X/S console exclusive. Redfall also. The tech giant has been trying to split hairs as to why Starfield it was a unique exception, and why call of Duty and other Activision games would not fall into the same category. Not convinced, the FTC pointed to the Starfield twist as one of the primary reasons for filing an antitrust lawsuit.
And because of that lawsuit, we’ll likely be subject to many more months of nausea console war sniping from both sides. At the very least, it’s refreshing to no longer see mega-corporations trying to pretend they’re making friends on stage at The Game Awards. Companies are not your friends or each other’s.
