Sony forced to show Microsoft exclusives as EU enters Activision finale

By Sean Lawson,

As Microsoft's Activision takeover reaches its EU conclusion, Sony might be forced to reveal all of its PS5 exclusives with third-party studios.

The two gaming juggernauts (PlayStation and Xbox) are still fighting tooth and nail over the Activision-Blizzard acquisition that Microsoft is gunning for — which is looking like it may go through in the EU. Sony's pushback appears to have had an Uno reverse effect as Sony may now have to reveal all of its PS5 exclusives that it has with third-party studios to Microsoft.

Sony may come out worse off after attempting to block Microsoft's Activision-Blizzard acquisition!Sony may come out worse off after attempting to block Microsoft's Activision-Blizzard acquisition!

Sony meddling in Microsoft deal results in exposed exclusivity secrets

Back in January, Microsoft hit Sony with a subpoena in an attempt to bolster its defences in regard to acquiring Activision-Blizzard. Sony, of course, fought against this as best as the company could by calling out many irrelevancies of the request, along with the time and cost of the process. Unfortunately, it appears that Sony is now a predicament where it will have to reveal its exclusivity secrets with third-party studios to Microsoft (thanks, VGC)

The main request that Sony tried to flatline in the subpoena was a request to reveal “every content licensing agreement [Sony has] entered into with any third-party publisher between January 1st, 2012 and present.” However, the FTC has denied the motion to block this request, which puts Sony in this rather peculiar situation.

When will it end Sony? When will it end Microsoft?When will it end Sony? When will it end Microsoft?

Sony argued that the information Microsoft was chasing had no value and would be "unduly burdensome" for Sony to rummage through its 150000+ documents to find relevant files that Microsoft was after. However, the FTC has agreed with Microsoft's counterargument in that this entire case revolves around Microsoft gaining the upper hand in exclusivity that could impact Sony in a negative way, so Microsoft feels it is only appropriate that Sony reveal all of its exclusive deals that could impact Xbox negatively.

The FTC has granted one privilege to Sony after rejecting its argument, Microsoft will only have access to documents that are dated from January 1st, 2019 to the present, instead of the previously requested 2012 date. Still, that's a lot of information on Sony's PS5 and PS4 exclusives Microsoft will have access to, heck, even though we are sure Microsoft will not be allowed to reveal any of this information, leaks are very prominent these days, so more and more information may spill out about Sony's unannounced projects in the coming months.

When will it end Sony? When will it end Microsoft?All of this because of Call of Duty. Wild.

As originally reported by Reuters, it looks as though the deal may go through without issue in the EU. However, Microsoft still needs to get the approval of both the UK’s CMA and the USA’s Federal Trade Commission. But, earning the approval of the EU is a huge step forward for Microsoft.

What do you make of all of this? Happy to see that the deal may go forward? Want to see the end of this feud? Let us know in the comments below!
Sean Lawson
Written by Sean Lawson
Staff Writer Sean focuses on the geekiest Sony news. He specializes in PlayStation trophies, the best PS Plus games, RPGs, and fighting games. Sean uses his years of experience to cover Dragon Age The Veilguard for PS5, all while he dives into his favorite game series like Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, and Persona.
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