Sony Makes Extra Money For Each Call Of Duty Sold Under PlayStation

gameranx.com:

The UK CMA has made a blockbuster revelation in the recent documents they released, in connection with their investigation of the merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King.

Basically, Sony makes a little bit of extra money for each Call of Duty game sold under their PlayStation consoles.

This is the language that the CMA used in their appendices to the third party investigation that the CMA commissioned to DSJ. This text, shared courtesy of IDAS in Resetera, is found in page E6 of the document:

“SIE applied a third-party margin of [REDACTED]% for CoD sales on PlayStation. SIE currently receives a margin of [REDACTED]% on CoD sales on PlayStation. SIE stated that it did not believe that the current discounted margin would remain post-merger, given their main competitor will control ABK’s content. SIE carried out a sensitivity analysis in which it assumed SIE receives a margin of [REDACTED]% on CoD sales. It estimated that the critical switching rate at which it becomes profitable for the Merged Entity to foreclose SIE increases from [REDACTED]% to [REDACTED]%.”

This revelation was part of Sony’s argument to the CMA that Microsoft’s purchase of Activision would “foreclose” or harm competition, based on the assumption that Call of Duty players would switch consoles from PlayStation to Xbox.

In other words, Sony was not compelled to share this information by virtue of the CMA’s authority, or a subpoena by Microsoft. Sony willingly volunteered this information, for the sake of strengthening their own case. This means they have opened themselves up to public scrutiny.

It’s not a secret that Sony paid for this deal with Activision in regards to Call of Duty. We publicly know this deal exists. It’s the reason that