PlayStation boss’ private email said he wasn’t worried about Xbox-Activision deal
polygon.comSony Interactive Entertainment’s chief executive, Jim Ryan, originally did not view Microsoft’s $68 billion bid to buy Activision — and therefore Call of Duty, and other franchises — as an existential threat, a Microsoft lawyer told a federal judge on Thursday. But, she said, Ryan later changed his tune when his superiors sought a more aggressive and obstructive stance toward the deal.
Ryan emailed Chris Deering, formerly the boss of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, to discuss Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision shortly after it was announced in January 2022. Beth Wilkinson, Microsoft’s lead attorney for this case, read the email in a hearing Thursday in which the Federal Trade Commission is seeking to stop any acquisition activity between Microsoft and Activision.
“Mr. Ryan is saying, not realizing that other people are going to read this email, and he says ‘It is not an exclusivity play at all; they’re thinking bigger than that,’” Wilkinson told Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the Northern District of California. “And they have the cash to make moves like this.”
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“‘I’ve spent a fair bit of time with Phil [Spencer, the head of Xbox] and Bobby [Kotick, the Activision chief]’” Wilkinson continued, quoting from the email, “and I’m pretty sure we will continue to see COD on PlayStation for many years.’”
Wilkinson said Spencer and his boss, Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, had both reached out to Sony to assure them that Call of Duty would remain fully supported on PlayStation.
“And what does [Ryan] say in terms of the threat to his business or competition?’” she said, referring again to an email disclosed through the lawsuit. “He says, ‘We have some good stuff, we think,’ which turned out
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