Lawyers Claim Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision-Blizzard Could Threaten Sony PlayStation
According to a purported internal email from Microsoft, which is being used as evidence in a lawsuit in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court, the company’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard is aimed at eliminating its primary rival, the Sony PlayStation, from the market.
As reported by Axios, an alleged email sent in 2019 by Microsoft head of Xbox game studios Matt Booty to Xbox CFO Tim Stuart predated Microsoft’s announcement to buy Activision-Blizzard.
Axios notes that “the passage appears to be from Exhibit K,” a “sealed document that the players’ lawyers and Microsoft’s lawyers have been arguing about.”
Axios has also received confirmation from a Microsoft representative that the alleged email was indeed sent by Kotick in 2019, but its content cannot be disclosed.
Notably, this evidence is not part of the Federal Trade Commission’s effort to block the deal, but in a separate lawsuit that “is being sued by a group of players to block the deal on antitrust grounds.”
It remains to be seen whether this development will affect the trade in the long term. However, the judge overseeing the case, Jacqueline Corley, has placed a temporary stay on the merger — which Microsoft believes could put the deal at risk of being pulled.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and Sony Computer Interactive CEO Jim Ryan are among the witnesses scheduled to testify in a five-day hearing on the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. Processing starts on June 22 and ends on June 29.
