This week the first public hearing was held between Microsoft and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the purchase of Activision Blizzard. As you know, the regulator opposes the deal and one of its reasons has to do with the developer's content and its possible exclusivity on Xbox.
Previously, the FTC talked about Bethesda and Xbox exclusives in an attempt to thwart the purchase. Now, the agency resorted back to the topic and assured that it disagrees with the possibility of Activision Blizzard's content following the same path and being exclusive to Xbox.
FTC attorneys again use exclusivity against Activision buyout
During the hearing, FTC lawyers spoke about their concerns over the Activision Blizzard purchase. A recurring theme was that of exclusivity, as the regulator believes Microsoft will leverage the aacquisition to make certain games or in-game content exclusive to Xbox.
Lawyers argue that this would result in specific games or content being left off PlayStation or coming to other platforms and services many months later. The FTC believes that Microsoft will have the power to do this and exclude its rivals from certain important developments.
"This is also about what's called partial foreclosure ... if there's a tool or a thing you can buy, maybe you can only buy it if the game is on Xbox, and you can't buy the same thing if you're playing on Sony [PlayStation]. That's partial foreclosure.
"Or maybe gamers want to play a game right away, so it's available first on Xbox, and maybe it only comes to PlayStation or a rival cloud service a year later," said an FTC lawyer.
As Windows Central rightly mentions, this argument comes as a surprise since PlayStation has relied on game and content exclusives for years. Thus, it is striking that the FTC would use the issue to state its position on the case.
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