As reported by VGC, a recently shared story on Dealreporter claims that the Sony Interactive Entertainment boss traveled to Brussels, Belgium earlier in September 2022 to meet the EU headquarters of the competition regulatory, speaking of his concerns about the Activision-Blizzard deal, which could make important video game IPs such as Call of Duty an Xbox-exclusive in the future.
From the moment that Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion, Sony was concerned about the future of the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation consoles. As head of Xbox Phil Spencer revealed earlier this year, he had talks with PlayStation head, ensuring them that the Call of Duty franchise will remain on PlayStation consoles for several more years, but that doesn’t sound like much of a heartwarming promise for Sony.
Sony previously criticized the Activision-Blizzard deal in talks with the Brazilian competition regulator, but it seems like the Japanese developer and publisher is more concerned about this matter than expected as Jim Ryan has decided to meet EU headquarters to have an in-person conversation about the controversial deal.
Microsoft does need at least 20 approvals from competition regulators around the world to officially acquire Activision-Blizzard. Thus far, Microsoft has only received one approval, with the other regulators still investigating the deal.
According to Dealreporter, Jim Ryan traveled to Brussels on September 8 to discuss the matter, and we will probably learn more about the consequences of this meeting when the European Commission releases the result of its Phase 1 investigation on the Activision-Blizzard deal in the coming weeks.
In addition to Sony, it seems like Google has also criticized this huge gaming deal in a conversation with the European Commission. For now, it remains unknown whether the deal would go through or not as the UK competition regulator has also announced an in-depth investigation of the deal.
If Sony could stop the Activision-Blizzard deal, it remains unknown how Microsoft would react to its failure. That being said, Phil Spencer has already confirmed that Microsoft is not done with acquisitions, and it will try to add more developers to the Xbox Game Studios where it sees fit.
