Judge gives Microsoft access to Sony exclusivity dealings in FTC suit
As Microsoft gears up for the lawsuit with the US Federal Trade Commission over the Activision Blizzard acquisition, an Administrative Law Judge has partially upheld a subpoena by Microsoft to view a trove of Sony’s internal documents outlining its exclusivity deals.
This will give Microsoft access to a lot of Sony’s behind-the-scenes dealings when securing exclusivity deals, marketing partnerships and more, allowing them to highlight the exact clauses, restrictions and limitations that Sony puts upon their business partners.
Not everything that Microsoft demanded to see has been granted, with Judge Chappell ruling that “SIE’s Motion [to quash the subpoena] is granted in part and denied in part.” While Sony won’t have to disclose executive performance reviews (which was pretty darned weird), they will have to share “the nature and extent of SIE’s content licensing agreements are relevant to… allegations of exclusivity arrangements between video game console developers and video game developers and publishers.” These will only be from 2019 onwards.
The FTC is suing to block Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard on antitrust grounds, but Microsoft is pushing hard to counter this in a number of ways. Trying to appease global regulators, they’ve signed deals with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to their platform for 10 years, and with Nvidia to allow Xbox first party games onto the streaming platform – this specifically to show they’re willing to work with rivals to Xbox Game Pass.
They’ve also revealed the massive advantage that PlayStation currently holds over Xbox in market share, and with this ruling, they’ll be able to point at how Sony’s exclusivity deals work to keep games off Xbox Game Pass, secure exclusive content
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