Negotiations between the US and the FTC over the Activision Blizzard acquisition are underway this week, and from there there’s been a steady stream of news, mostly surprising announcements from Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, and Sony.
An example of this comes from a file obtained on Twitter by Axios reporter Stephen Totilo. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan has stated that Sony will not share information about PlayStation 6 unique features with Activision Blizzard if Microsoft owns them:
“We simply cannot risk access to that information by a company owned by a direct competitor.
I believe their motivation — their primary motivation, post-acquisition, will be to optimize their overall Xbox business, not Activision’s business.
While it’s understandable that Sony doesn’t want to share competitive secrets with a company wholly owned by Microsoft, it also means there’s a risk that PlayStation-exclusive features won’t be implemented in Activision Blizzard’s PlayStation 6 games, and hardware secrets won’t be available in Use in the same way.
This ultimately means that PlayStation boss Jim Ryan doesn’t believe the parity Microsoft has promised in future PlayStation versions of Call of Duty will happen.
Thanks, Pure Xbox.