Microsoft and Sony recently had some pretty spectacular things to say in Brazil about the former’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Sony certainly wants to prevent this if it can, and says it would be a game-distorter if Microsoft took full control of Call of Duty.
Now, Microsoft has responded to the statement to Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense, or CADE, providing a detail that was previously widely rumored and hinted at during the Apple/Epic trial. It turns out that Sony is aggressively paying publishers to not release some of their games for Game Pass. Here’s the review (via VGC), which is pretty interesting for anyone wanting to know more about what’s going on behind the scenes, and Microsoft also took a swipe at Sony, claiming they have a double standard:
“Considering that an exclusivity strategy has been at the heart of Sony’s strategy to strengthen its presence in the gaming industry, and that Sony is a leader in digital game distribution, Sony’s concerns that Activision content may be excludable are incoherent, to say the least.
It just resurfaces the fear of innovative business models that deliver high-quality content to gamers at low cost, threatening the leadership built over years of device-centric and exclusivity-centric strategies.
Indeed, Microsoft’s ability to continue expanding Game Pass has been hindered by Sony’s desire to curb that growth. Sony pays “blocking rights” to prevent developers from adding content to Game Pass and other competing subscription services.
There’s more on this in this filing (though not all of it is public), and Microsoft thinks Sony is concerned that if Game Pass becomes too attractive, they’ll only be pretty expensive to get by buying it The market position of the game will be destroyed. So they’d rather pay to try and stop the growth of their competitors than offer something better themselves:
“In other words, Sony opposes the introduction of new monetization models that would challenge its business model.
What do you think of this strategy from Sony? Is it a good thing that they pay to block content on Game Pass, or should they be using these resources in other ways, like creating more content themselves?