PlayStation boss Jim Ryan appeared in a prerecorded video deposition as part of today's Xbox FTC trial, finally sharing his piece on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In the 70-minute prerecorded segment, Ryan called Game Pass "value destructive", admitted that Starfield's exclusivity is not anti-competitive, and said that an email from Phil Spencer last August "set the alarm bells ringing" at Sony. Here's all the important points from Ryan's appearance today.
“I don’t like it but I don’t view it as anticompetitive,” Ryan said of Starfield's Xbox exclusivity.
“The Game Pass business model appears to have some challenges, and Microsoft appears to be losing a lot of money on it,” Ryan said. “I talked to all the publishers and they unanimously do not like Game Pass because it is value destructive."
"We knew that Bobby [Kotick] had been very public and very vocal that he did not see that as a route he wanted to take Activision Blizzard down.”
Last week, Xbox boss Phil Spencer testified that Sony sent PlayStation 5 developer kits to Microsoft well after other developers got them. Spencer claimed that the late access to dev kits is why there is no native version of Minecraft on PS5.
“We simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by our direct competitor having access to that information,” Ryan said. “That information could leak into other parts of Microsoft and potentially allow them to be able to develop similar features to the ones that we would argue that we invented.”
Sony acquired Bungie shortly after Microsoft announced the Activision deal last year, and Ryan claimed Sony will get more out of the Bungie purchase than it would out of buying Activision Blizzard. Ryan said this largely comes down to Bungie's expertise in the live service space.
From The Verge
Sony highly confidential information about its PlayStation business has just been revealed by mistake. As part of the FTC v. Microsoft hearing, Sony supplied a document from PlayStation chief Jim Ryan that includes redacted details on the margins Sony shares with publishers, its Call of Duty revenues, and even the cost of developing some of its games.
We already knew the figure was over a billion dollars, but the document suggests CoD was worth $800 million for PlayStation revenue in just the US during 2021 — and we think the document says $1.5 billion globally. And that’s just the game alone, but when you count accessories, subscriptions, and everything else, then that jumps to (what appears to our eyes) to be $15.9 billion a year — or perhaps $13.9 billion. Either way, it’s a huge amount.
From Pure Xbox
Looking for a complete list of games coming to Xbox Game Pass in July 2023? It can be pretty difficult to keep track of all the comings and goings in the world of Xbox Game Pass every week, so we've put together this handy guide to provide an overview of what's coming to Xbox Game Pass in July, as well as the games that are leaving!
00:00 Game Publishers Hate This Xbox Feature 08:58 PC Gamers Furious Over Latest Starfield Move 12:40 What's Coming To Game Pass In July
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