UK Government publishes Sony and Microsoft's full arguments in Activision Blizzard acquisition case
We now have a clearer idea of what Sony told the UK Government to undermine Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision.
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has been investigting Microsoft's propsed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, has published a major update to the case. The government body has been hearing from both Microsoft and Sony on whether or not this would diminish the competition in the games industry.
Essentially, each side submitted their arguments to support their position. That includes statements, data/evidence, as well as counters to points made by the other side.
The arguments, posted earlier today on the Gov.UK website, are quite long. Sony's is 22 pages [PDF], while Microsoft's is a massive 111 pages [PDF].
If you've been keeping up with Sony and Microsoft's public statements so far, you pretty much know what to expect. The difference, of course, is that the documents include much more verbose versions, and - in many cases - reveal how both companies see themselves and their competition.
Microsoft, for instance, leans hard into highlighting how much better Sony exclusives have been compared to Microsoft, and how many of them there has been. It's also happy to point out the many other PlayStation console exclusives Sony paid third-party publishers for, either for a time or in perpetuity.
Sony, on the other hand, goes on about the importance of Call of Duty, and how owning it would allow Microsoft to raise hardware and service prices. Sony also maintains that Microsoft's habit of citing Nintendo as an example of a platform thriving without Call of Duty misses the point.
We're going through the documents now to see what interesting revelations can be gleaned from them.