Microsoft accused Sony of paying for “blocking rights” to keep games off of Game Pass

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Questioned by the market regulator, Sony expressed concern that Microsoft's purchase of Activision would have too much influence on the market and prevent it from fair competition. More specifically, the exclusivity of Call Of Duty would be negatively affected.

Sony told the regulators in Brazil that Call of Duty as an IP is indescribably important, and in addition to regularly being the best-selling game for the past 10 years, Call of Duty as a series with regular releases is the only one that can be compared to the other biggest products of the entertainment industry such as Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings IPs.

Sony opposes Microsoft's purchase of Activision: No one has ever bought or developed an exclusive that would create such an imbalance Sony's answer is public on the website of the Brazilian government, Microsoft also saw it and responded.

"It is not surprising that only Sony has decided to publicly express its opinion, which differs significantly from Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, and other publishers," says Microsoft.

Sony is not giving up on the competition with Game Pass

"Sony doesn't want Call of Duty games from day one on Game Pass because it doesn't give up on the competition with our subscription service," Microsoft is convinced that this is precisely what is behind Sony's involvement in the matter.

Also, Microsoft disagrees that Call of Duty is as superior as Sony wants to present it. "Call of Duty is just one of a series of best-selling games," Microsoft claims. And while he once again repeats the "desire" that Call of Duty does not become an MS exclusive, he states that loyal fans are the foundation of PlayStation, which became so thanks to exclusive games.

So he comes to the conclusion that exclusive games do not make PlayStation a completely different market from other consoles. Guided by this logic, Call of Duty cannot be a category by itself and eventual exclusivity would not bring the market of gaming consoles into imbalance.

In fact, Microsoft goes so far as to accuse Sony of making immoral moves to stifle the growth of Game Pass. He claims that Sony is paying other developers and publishers not to distribute their titles on Game Pass. Microsoft is also attaching confidential documents that allegedly confirm that thesis, but it is a condition that they not be made public.

What exactly does Sony want?

Finally, Microsoft reiterates that it does not want to make Activision Blizzard's titles exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem, since their attractiveness is not enough to attract enough players to cover development costs.

However, the point of Sony's opposition is that even by including the next Call of Duty titles on Game Pass from day one, it will distort market competition. Because, as Sony executives have repeatedly stated, no economic calculation would justify such a practice with titles that cost tens of millions of dollars to produce.