PlayStation boss says exclusives are not “anti-competitive” and calls Xbox Game Pass “value destructive”

Here’s what Jim Ryan told the FTC in his statement

Marco Wutz | Jun 28, 2023

PlayStation boss says exclusives are not “anti-competitive” and calls Xbox Game Pass “value destructive” /

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently investigating whether Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is anti-competitive and is looking to stop the deal from going through before it can come to a final decision, which is what the current hearing before court is all about.

In this context, the court heard a recorded statement of PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan, who among other things was asked how he felt about the upcoming RPG Starfield not getting a PS5 release. “I don’t like it,” Ryan stated (via IGN), “but I have fundamentally no quarrel with it.” He continued: “I don’t view it as anti-competitive.”

Clearly, any other position would have been the acme of hypocrisy considering PlayStation’s own aggressive exclusivity policy.

The question of console exclusivity for future Activision Blizzard titles is one of the central issues regarding the planned business transaction with Call of Duty being in the spotlight. Sony called the popular shooter series irreplaceable several times and warned against the consequences for the entire market should it become an Xbox exclusive.

Microsoft, in turn, offered deals to anyone who’d take them that would guarantee the release of Call of Duty on their platform or cloud gaming service. Sony never took them up on that offer, preferring to indicate that Microsoft would sabotage the series’ PlayStation versions. Xbox chief Phil Spencer said that Sony wants to block the survival of Xbox by opposing this deal from going through.

Ryan commented (via IGN) on Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass as well, saying that every publisher he talked to doesn’t like it, “because it is value destructive.” He also claimed that it’s unprofitable and loses Microsoft a lot of money, though there seems to be no evidence for that. It’s also not clear which publishers shared this opinion with him.

Ryan’s statement was the highlight of the third day of the trial, more news is sure to be coming out from the legal procedures over the coming days.

Published Jun 28, 2023

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg