Why Is Everyone Treating Sony Like A Major Player In The Activision Deal?

I’ve been following the merger between Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard merger for quite a while, staying up to date on continuing developments such as Microsoft just recently beating the FTC in court, and one thing about this whole situation still doesn’t make sense to me. You’d think that the discussion around a merger between Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard would concern, well, Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard. But for some reason, Sony keeps getting brought up.

Even the FTC’s argument involved how Microsoft may bar Call of Duty from being released on PlayStation. As the prime competitor and the company Microsoft most wants to “spend out of business,” (according to a 2019 email by Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty revealed during the trial), it’s easy to see how it’s happened. But in actuality, Sony is of little concern in the grand scheme of this situation. It won’t be affected the most by it, and how it will faire certainly isn’t the biggest issue at hand.

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I’ve been very outspoken about the threats that this merger poses to the industry as a whole, from the potential absorption of swathes of the market under one entity (moving gaming further towards monopoly) to how decreased competition could lead to more audacious monetization. In fact, it seems my fears about Microsoft trying to take over the industry have been proven to be on the money as—according to GamesIndustry.biz—internal documents have shown that Microsoft has looked into acquiring more than 100 studios, including Sega, FromSoftware, CD Projekt Red, and many more.

However, something I’ve never talked about is how this all affects Sony because… it kind of doesn’t to a high degree. Not to say Sony won’t take a bit of a hit—everyone not under Microsoft will—but it’s in a pretty safe spot. Sony’s one of the biggest players in the market, occupying an incredibly similar position to Microsoft. I’d wager if Sony were in the same shoes, it’d be buying out Activision, given its previous acquisition of studios such as Housemarque and its ongoing plan to buy Square Enix.

The biggest point around Sony is unquestionably Call of Duty, with Sony itself saying that it fears Microsoft will make CoD an Xbox exclusive or sabotage the franchise on PlayStation consoles—an idea so prevalent that it was a major point made by the FTC during the trial. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very bad thing that one company could have the power to wreak so much havoc, but the signing of a deal between Sony and Microsoft to keep CoD on PlayStation for 10 years shows that this isn’t a concern anymore—and I’d argue it never really was. Call of Duty is an IP so massive that it’s practically synonymous with gaming to a casual audience, and the power it gives an already outrageously wealthy company like Microsoft is frightening.

However, this specific scenario is frankly never going to happen. Sabotaging CoD on Playstation would not only incur a PR fiasco, it would also sabotage the game on Xbox, diminishing revenue and leaving players there with fewer online opponents. While Microsoft has kept some titles from appearing on PlayStation, such as Redfall, it hasn’t prevented massive multiplayer titles like Minecraft from going on every platform in existence, because that sort of thing is mutually beneficial for all parties. No doubt about it, the FTC absolutely shot itself in the foot by focusing so much on how the merger would impact Sony.

A deal like this has been handed to Sony before, but why accept it now? Well, according to The Verge, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan was never really worried about Call of Duty not being on PlayStation, saying to Acti-Blizz CEO and Bobby Kotick “I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger”.

Now, Sony and I might be united in disdain for this deal, but I kinda wish we weren’t. Between having spats with Microsoft over which of them is worse, Jim Ryan flew out to Brussels to argue against the deal before EU regulators (as if he thinks himself a real-life Mr. Smith), and the fact that Sony masked its opposition to the merger behind an absurd story about Microsoft sabotaging its own game is all a bit embarrassing. Sony’s antics have undoubtedly been beneficial to Microsoft for that reason—you’ll find no end of people accusing anyone critical of the merger to be a fanboy of PlayStation (something that I was called myself, despite having never touched one of the things) because of how much they’ve associated themselves and their tomfoolery with the situation.

There’s really no reason to bring Sony up in this situation, especially not to the extent that it has been. Sony doesn’t have much to lose and are certainly isn’t the underdog that Jim Ryan might want you to think it is. Rather than focusing all our energy on a company that’ll ultimately be fine, we should center our debate on the ramifications of the game industry centralizing under fewer and fewer powers—and Sony is one of them.

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