Thats a pretty specifically worded statement that if it came from Sony directly (which the WSJ claims) was likely vetted by legal and PR teams before being made. They didn't reference a contractual agreement to blow smoke, as doing so is investor fraud and one of the few white collar crimes actually enforced (because executives can lie to you and me but they sure as fuck can't lie to the investor class).
MS is well aware of any contracts prior to agreeing to acquisition. MS is the second biggest company in the world. MS knows not to violate contract law. Nobody assumes Sony mentoning contracts is blowing smoke. We know contracts exist, we know MS knows contracts exist and will abide by them. They have said as much.
My guess is that the co-marketing deal is through the end of the generation or some similar term and Sony knows that between the 12-18 month review and approval process and the existing co-marketing deal that CoD being exclusive to Xbox isn't a PS5 problem, its a PS6 problem, i.e. half a decade down the road.
Nope, the current contract is 2 years, maybe 3 years, max. This revolving contract goes hand-in-hand with reports we've seen in the last ten years.
Potentially the same for Overwatch. Blizzard was selling franchise licenses to speculative owners and there is a high likelihood those speculators had contractual language ensuring a broad base for the IP. The market value of an e-sports franchise that isn't playable by the current market leader's audience isn't going to be of the same net value as it was when universally multi-platform.
Nope, not how this works. Franchise licenses with esports would not include anything regarding platforms. And those are similar to TOS contracts, they literally give Blizzard the license to end those contracts with organizations at any point for any reason. We've seen it used in League of Legends when Riot dropped professional organizations and voided their contract. The esports license is PERMISSION from Blizzard to play in their game professionally and financially benefit from that license.
Anti-trust isn't just about top line market share. A lot of older industries are regulated by regions, market segments, etc.. My company was denied purchase of a competing facility owned by the national market leader that runs entirely thanks to a cooperative deal we have in place, with 90% of its "product" being from our front line and into our end facilities because we were far and away the market leader in the county (not state, though we're that too, just not by as much) for those services.
Honestly, this was the first tell that this "person who knows" doesn't know. The regions/segments comment is a nonsequitor. This person's company and their facility purchase have ZERO bearing on this. It is akin to "my friendship circle doesn't play Fortnite, obviously Fortnite isn't popular." Let's look at antitrust law.
Relevent antitrust statutes being the Sherman Act and Clayton Act, we would see the key Sections being:
Section 1, Sherman: prohibits price fixing, operation of cartels, prohibits collusive practices that restrain trade. <-- doesn't apply. MS would not be price fixing, operating a cartel, or colluding to restrain trade.
Section 2, Sherman: prohibits monopolization. ,<-- doesn't apply. MS by definition would not be a monopoly.
Section 7, Clayton: restricts M&A that weaken small market competition or create a monopoly. <-- doesn't apply. Does not weaken small market competition or create a monopoly.
The FTC will be looking primarily at the FREEDOM TO CONDUCT BUSINESS. Think of that. Sony has the FREEDOM to create a Call of Duty competitor. Sony has the FREEDOM to create a World of Warcraft or Diablo competitor. This does not RESTRICT competition. That is the key here. A section that the FTC regularly reviews is protecting smaller businesses/consumers. This does not apply to this purchase.
MS owning Activision does not impede Sony from conducting business. Sony is not a small business being impeded by this purchase.
If MS catches a savvy and progressive assessment team they could pretty easily make a worthwhile case that Microsoft adding Call of Duty and Overwatch to Halo, DOOM, and Gears would provide a significant market advantage in online/competitive shooter space specifically and in the FPS genre at large, both significant segments of the market.
It doesn't work like this. The FTC does not work like this. Like this is so clearly an outsider making assumptions. There is no "savvy and progressive assessment team." It quite literally does not work this way. This is a couch lawyer trying to sound smart. It does not work this way. Again, read the previous point. Restricting freedom of competition. In the example listed here, that does not occur. Again, this is a layman trying to explain things in internet lawyer speak. Adding Call of Duty/Overwatch to Halo/Doom/Gears does NOT restrict Sony from releasing an FPS. You cannot monopolize a genre of entertainment form where ANYBODY can create in that genre. That is the point. MS is not buying the rights to make an FPS. Anybody can create an FPS. Anybody can develop an FPS. Again, restricting freedom to conduct business. To provide a counter example, MS buying EVERY fps engine would probably be considered an anti-trust violation because the time and effort into creating such an engine would probably be considered prohibitive and restrictive to the FTC. That would get shutdown. Hence why I believe, for example, if anybody tried to purchase Epic and turn Unreal proprietrary, they would get shutdown. This is not that. End of story.
Thats what anti-trust really amounts to. Does the team catching this at the FTC have the perspicacity to split these hairs, the desire to do so, and if so does the argument hold merit enough for a judge to agree.
If the FTC team on this decide to go after it they'd be able to make some real lop sided looking pie charts within specific segments of the VG industry. They probably won't as the FTC are largely a bunch of old heads who don't get IP power at all, but who knows, Biden's admin claims they're turning things around.
Again, total tell that this is a layman talking. The FTC is not splitting hairs. They receive all data from both companies, all internal communcations regarding the acquisition. There are no pie charts created hahaha. That's not how this works. They're not creating a presentation to present to MS telling them they reject or approval the M&A. This is all pie-in-the-sky talk that does not happen. This is not a hollywood movie.
And they wouldn't create lop-sided piecharts of the industry because at the end of the day the pie chart of revenue would be enough in this dreamworld where a federal commission rejects/accepts a M&A with a piechart presentation. Like what? This is insanity.
Depends on the terms. For something like Activision and CoD, where CoD is basically all they currently make under the main Activision banner and they have an extensive co-marketing deal Sony could pretty easily:
1. let MS violate the terms.
2. see a CoD release as an Xbox exclusive despite existing contract requirements being violated.
3. argue that damages caused irreparable harm to the Sony brand.
4. require that future CoD releases would only increase the harm and therefore a stay on all future CoD releases is required.
5. Literally make up a mythological number for damages that MS would then be obligated to pay.
6. MS can then either pay Sony billions and go back to honoring the contract or appeal/challenge repeatedly, likely ultimately still lose, and not get to make any money off CoD until its resolved.
Again, this is a layman speaking. Thinking that Sony will SECRETLY ALLOW MS to violate terms of a contract? What? The first two points make zero sense. We've already seen this play out with Deathloop and soon Ghostwire Tokyo. They honored previous contracts. If anything, that is a MASSIVE feather in MS's cap for this acquisition. Their paperwork filed with the FTC will included statements regarding their abiding by previous contracts (get this) even AT THE DAMAGE TO THEIR OWN BUSINESS. That alone speaks volumes to this M&A. They hurt their own business (Xbox) to allow a GOTY contender to remain exclusive on a competitor because they abided by a contract.
This is clearly a dream scenario of a layman/fanboy thinking MS is somehow going to fucking up a seventy billion dollar acquisition by ignoring a contract and Sony catching them with their pants down and suing them. This is the second largest company in the world. They're not ignoring a contract after a M&A.
We've had multi-billion dollar copyright infringement cases in recent history for the smartphone sector (Samsung caught quite a few specifically) over things with less demonstrable damage than pulling the #1 selling game off a platform despite a contract requiring the exact opposite.
Copyright infringement has nothing to do with a contractual IP exclusivity agreement. Samsung and their tech advances have zero being on this and there is simply no correlation beyond both are big companies. Again, clearly a layman throwing out ideas here because anybody with any knowledge of any industry can see this would have no bearing. I don't even understand bringing up copyright law. It's entirely different from IP exclusivity agreements. And copyright law is nothing like "pulling" the #1 selling game off a platform despite a contract. Again, MS is not some joke organization that just ignores contracts. After spending 70b dollars. What is this stuff?
But MS' executives would never intentionally violate a contract like that because while they wouldn't "go to jail" they would massively fuck up the operations of the trillion dollar company and a multi-billion dollar division within it that they've been entrusted with running.
And because they aren't absolute fucking morons."
Exactly. Glad we agree on this. Again, obvious layman. Nobody is going to jail even in the insane scenario where they break a contractual agreement. So we just read an entire raving post about breaking contracts, getting sued, only to end with "but this won't happen because MS isn't dumb." Like yeah, agreed.