Sony has confirmed that it won’t share any PS6 details with Activision Blizzard if Microsoft successfully purchases the company.
Speaking to the US Federal Trade Commission (via Eurogamer) PlayStation boss Jim Ryan confirmed that it would not take the risk of sharing console details with its competitor.
“[Sony] simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by a direct competitor having access to that information,” he explained.
His comments were received by the FTC in April after he was quizzed about statements submitted by Sony that explain the company’s position on Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
In an FTC v MS/ABK deposition, PlayStation chief Jim Ryan said that, if deal closes, Sony couldn’t tell Activision about its next console
Is then asked about Sony working with Mojang (Minecraft) after MS bought them. Discussion is redacted but Ryan says it supports this concern pic.twitter.com/M86CBm3CcY
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) June 21, 2023
Sony complained that its game development would be interrupted since it “could no longer share confidential details about its next console in development”.
The impact of this is obvious – if PlayStation no longer feels confident sharing PS6 details, this would severely hamper, if not completely obliterate, Activision Blizzard’s efforts to develop games for the console.
Follow-up statements from Ryan addressing the impact on Sony were heavily redacted from court documents.
However, he was also concerned that Activision Blizzard would not have an incentive to develop PlayStation-only features into its games, such as the use of the DualSense’s haptic feedback if it was owned by Microsoft.
“I believe that [Microsoft]’s incentives – their primary incentive will, at post-acquisition, would be to optimise its overall Xbox business, not the business of Activision,” he said.
He also said that details of upcoming PlayStation consoles are “immensely sensitive.”
Axios reporter Stephen Totilo explained on Twitter that this is often an issue already when Microsoft deals with PlayStation-owned studios such as Bungie.
“The shoe is sometimes on the other foot,” he explained. “Left unexplained in these exchanges is what Sony expects Microsoft to share with Bungie (Destiny) or Sony San Diego (MLB) when those studios make games for MS platforms, present or future.”
In other news, Nintendo announced the Metal Gear Master Collection Vol. 1 which brings classic Metal Gear games to Nintendo Switch.
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