The debate surrounding Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard continues to heat up. This time, the focus has been on comments that SIE president Jim Ryan reportedly made before the EU regulator.
Jim Ryan, Image credit: Washington Post Gaming
Lulu Cheng Meservey, executive vice president of corporate affairs and chief communications officer at Activision Blizzard, offered her own explanation for why Sony rejected Microsoft’s 10-year Call of Duty agreement.
According to her latest tweets, written in the wake of Sony’s recently published response to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Jim Ryan elaborated on the matter during a closed hearing with the European Commission in Brussels on February 21.
Microsoft offered Sony (the dominant console leader for well over a decade, with 80% market share) a 10 year agreement on far better terms than Sony would ever get from us.
We’ve also offered Sony guaranteed long-term access to Call of Duty.
But they keep refusing.
— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey) March 8, 2023
“I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger,” the SIE president reportedly said.
The CEO of SIE answered that question in Brussels.
In his words:
“I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger.”
— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey) March 8, 2023
Meservey noted that Microsoft offered Sony a 10-year agreement “on far better terms than Sony would ever get from [Activision Blizzard].” So what she is trying to say is that the Japanese company’s ultimate goal is not to reach a better deal for itself and its customers, but to push regulators in Europe and the US into blocking the $68.7 billion acquisition.
Neither Ryan nor Sony has publicly commented on these claims.
In its response to the CMA’s proposed remedies, Sony expressed its skepticism that an agreement with Microsoft “could be reached, much less monitored and enforced effectively.” It also added that “there is no realistic prospect of such an agreement being reached that would maintain effective competition.”
At the sime time, Microsoft insists that it has no intention to remove Call of Duty from the PlayStation platform. The company noted that it wants to guarantee content and quality parity between consoles and increase availability of Activision Blizzard titles by brining them to other cloud and subscription services.