Today, the UK’s CMA publishedSony’s observations onMicrosoft’s proposed remedies for its merger with Activision. Microsoft has already secured a10-year dealwith both Nintendo and Nvidia to keep publishingCall of Dutyon their platforms, butSony adamantly refused to accept a similar deal. Now we know why.
In theCMA’s report, Sony said that it refused Microsoft’s 10-year deal because it just didn’t go far enough to ensure Call of Duty’s quality on PlayStation. Specifically, Sony implied that Microsoft could make a sub-par version of Call of Duty for PlayStation by using fewer or worse developers to build it.
Related:The Call Of Duty Debate Is Embarrassing For Everyone
“Even if Microsoft operated in good faith, it would be incentivized to support and prioritize development of the Xbox version of the game, such as by using its best engineers and more of its resources,” Sony wrote. “There would be no practical way for the CMA (or Sony) to monitor how Microsoft chooses to allocate its resources and the quality/quantity of engineers it devotes to the PlayStation version of Call of Duty, to ensure that Sony would be treated fairly and equally.”
Sony even went so far as suggestion Microsoft could actively sabotage Call of Duty on PlayStation in order to drive players to Xbox. “For example, Microsoft might release a PlayStation version of Call of Duty where bugs and errors emerge only on the game’s final level or after later updates. Even if such degradations could be swiftly detected, any remedy would likely come too late, by which time the gaming community would have lost confidence in PlayStation as a go-to venue to play Call of Duty.”
Sony has some evidence to back up their claims. The CMA’s own survey confirmeda quarter of PlayStation players would switch to Xbox if Call of Duty became an exclusive title. It’s reasonable to assume a similar number would swap if the Xbox version of Call of Duty became the “best” version. On top of that, Microsoft has alreadysaid it would end PlayStation-exclusive DLC for Call of Dutyfollowing the merger, suggesting the end of PlayStation’s preferential treatment of the shooter franchise.
Of course, as the market leader, Sony has all the incentive in the world to present the merger as an apocalyptic scenario for gamers when it might not be. That said, half of the rival companies the CMA contacted saidthe merger would be a bad thing for their bottom lines.
