The Federal Trade Commission has announced plans to block Microsoft's attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard. Microsoft announced its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard in a massive $69 billion deal earlier this year, marking the largest video company acquisition in the history of the industry.If Microsoft successfully acquires Activision Blizzard, it would give the company control over some of the industry's biggest video game franchises, including hugely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft and the blockbuster Call of Duty franchise. With Call of Duty consistently standing as the top-selling video game each year, Microsoft's potential control of it has been a huge point of contention from those who have opposed the acquisition. PlayStation in particular has been upset about the possibility of one day losing Call of Duty to Xbox.It seems the Federal Trade Commission is siding with Sony and others who are concerned about the acquisition, saying that allowing the deal to go through would allow "Microsoft to suppress competitors." The FTC believes that allowing the deal to go through would potentially harm consumers, as Microsoft would have "means and motive" to harm competition by "manipulating Activision's pricing, degrading Activision's game quality or player experience on rival consoles and gaming services, changing the terms and timing of access to Activision's content, or withholding content from competitors entirely."
As evidence that Microsoft may do this, the FTC has pointed to the actions its taken in the wake of the ZeniMax acquisition. Since Microsoft acquired ZeniMax and Bethesda, it honored previous timed-exclusivity deals that were made with Sony, with Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo both launching first on PlayStation 5. However, Microsoft is now moving to make Bethesda-published games exclusive to Xbox consoles.
This will really become apparent in 2023 when the release of co-op vampire shooter Redfall and the highly-anticipated open world sci-fi RPG Starfield. Both Redfall and Starfield will be Xbox Series X console exclusive games, with no plans to bring the titles to PlayStation platforms. Presumably, this will apply to all future Bethesda-published games as well, with The Elder Scrolls 6 potentially skipping PlayStation in favor of Xbox and Game Pass, too.
What's interesting about the FTC complaint is that it accuses Microsoft of potentially doing what Sony already actively does with the Call of Duty brand. Sony's deals with Activision have seen entire game modes withheld in Call of Duty games for upwards of a year, and CoD titles still release PlayStation-exclusive content. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft and Sony respond to this development.