Modern Warfare 2
While there are plenty of disingenuous arguments on all sides of the debate around Microsoft’s pending acquisition of Activision, the more time goes on, the more it seems like Sony specifically is starting to lose the plot.
Microsoft is increasingly trying to paint itself as the reasonable party, offering decade-long contracts for Call of Duty to its rivals, including Sony, and using data to try to explain why no, they’re not suddenly going to take the series exclusive.
Sony’s arguments in contrast are…getting pretty absurd. Here’s a new one this past week:
To be clear, what Sony is accusing Microsoft of here is having the potential to actively sabotage the PlayStation version of Call of Duty with bugs and errors. That is probably the most unhinged argument I’ve heard during this entire process, and given where we are, that’s really saying something. Not only would Microsoft be literally insane to try something like that, it’s honestly insane for Sony to suggest it as a genuine possibility. This says to me that Sony is running out of legitimate arguments here if there are turning toward actual conspiracies.
And that’s not all. Yesterday, outspoken Activision CCO Lulu Cheng Meservery relayed what she says is a closed-door quote by Sony’s Jim Ryan, which he said during the private meeting in Brussels early this month:
“I don’t want to do a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger.”
It’s not clear if that’s an exact quote or paraphrasing, but the fact that she’s out there saying he said that is a new pointed criticism I haven’t seen before. While it’s true that yes, of course Sony is trying to block the Microsoft deal, hence why any of this is happening in the first place, you wouldn’t just say that out loud.
As I’ve said previously, Sony has no reason to take any Microsoft deal as doing so would likely be a huge point of evidence to get the acquisition approved, though I will say the longer this goes on, the more Sony seems like they are permanently damaging industry relationships. Sony and Microsoft have long liked to pretend the console wars aren’t real on the corporate level, but if you ever needed evidence that they absolutely are, look no further.
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