PS6 release date, Indiana Jones exclusivity, Game Pass – everything learned from day one of FTC Trial
A huge amount of new industry info has been revealed overnight, as the FTC has taken Microsoft to court for the company’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. Emails, prior mergers, and more were dredged up as the July deadline for the deal draws near.
Numerous people were brought up to the stand, including Bethesda’s head of publishing Pete Hines, Matt Booty over at Xbox Game Studios, and Jim Ryan from PlayStation and more. The result was a full day of juicy reveals that granted an insight into the goings on behind the scenes at some of the video game industry’s largest companies.
The vast majority of these stories come courtesy of IGN, who had journalists present inside the courtroom to write up what was squeezed out by judges overseeing the proceedings between the FTC and Microsoft. First up, the revelation that Bobby Kotick demanded a larger revenue split for Call of Duty on Xbox. Without that increased payout, he threatened to remove the hugely popular FPS series from the platform. This, according to Xbox Vice president Sarah Bond, was a demand Microsoft met: “Time was limited. We had players whose expectations we wanted to meet, so we ultimately made a decision that it was the best thing for the business.”
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