FTC Has Told Sony It Has To Disclose PlayStation's Third-Party Exclusivity Deals (videogameschronicle.com) 22
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has largely denied Sony's request to quash a Microsoft subpoena requesting that it divulge confidential documents. Microsoft served Sony with the subpoena in January as part of its defence-building process ahead of an FTC lawsuit regarding its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The subpoena included 45 separate requests for Sony documents, including copies of every third-party licensing agreement Sony has, and "all drafts of and communications regarding" SIE president Jim Ryan's declaration to the FTC. Sony attempted to quash or limit the subpoena, arguing that a number of the requests were either irrelevant to the case or too time-consuming and expensive to carry out.
However, in a newly filed order made by the FTC's chief administrative law judge, most of Sony's arguments have been rejected. Most notable among Sony's requests was that an order to produce a copy of "every content licensing agreement [it has] entered into with any third-party publisher between January 1, 2012 and present" be quashed, a request which has been denied. Sony had argued that this information had no apparent value, and that compiling the documents would mean an "unduly burdensome" manual review of over 150,000 contract records to find which ones were relevant. Microsoft's argument, which the FTC has agreed with, was that since much of the Activision Blizzard acquisition case revolves around whether gaining access to its IP could result in Xbox-exclusive titles that could negatively impact competition, it was important to understand the full extent of Sony's own exclusivity deals and "their effect on industry competitiveness." One request the FTC did grant Sony, however, was to limit the date range of documents being requested -- as such, only documents dated from January 1, 2019 to the present date will be required.
However, in a newly filed order made by the FTC's chief administrative law judge, most of Sony's arguments have been rejected. Most notable among Sony's requests was that an order to produce a copy of "every content licensing agreement [it has] entered into with any third-party publisher between January 1, 2012 and present" be quashed, a request which has been denied. Sony had argued that this information had no apparent value, and that compiling the documents would mean an "unduly burdensome" manual review of over 150,000 contract records to find which ones were relevant. Microsoft's argument, which the FTC has agreed with, was that since much of the Activision Blizzard acquisition case revolves around whether gaining access to its IP could result in Xbox-exclusive titles that could negatively impact competition, it was important to understand the full extent of Sony's own exclusivity deals and "their effect on industry competitiveness." One request the FTC did grant Sony, however, was to limit the date range of documents being requested -- as such, only documents dated from January 1, 2019 to the present date will be required.
I don't think there's that many "deals" (Score:3)
And the XBox's market share in Japan isn't even sad or laughable, it's bizarre. As in, Sony will sell 30k consoles a week and Microsoft will do 30. It's to the point where I don't understand why Microsoft keeps throwing money at the Japanese market, and without Office Monopoly money they couldn't afford to.
Oh, and there's a handful of Indies and obscure shmumps because Sony directly funds those and Microsoft abandoned them.
I get what Microsoft is trying to do here, trying to leverage this to get their Activision buyout to go through by forcing Sony to reveal things publicly they wouldn't want to, but I don't see that working. I don't think they're going to care all that much.
Re:I don't think there's that many "deals" (Score:4, Interesting)
Sony owns a bunch of "2nd party" studios, i.e. studios that are basically Sony in everything but name so they're obviously not going to make XBox games. [...] I get what Microsoft is trying to do here, trying to leverage this to get their Activision buyout to go through by forcing Sony to reveal things publicly they wouldn't want to, but I don't see that working. I don't think they're going to care all that much.
I think what Microsoft is trying to do here is force Sony to bring some of their titles to other platforms. Whether it will work or not is another matter, but the argument at least seems relatively sound — Microsoft is familiar with the tactic because Bungie. What I hope happens is it actually works, but also backfires on Microsoft, and they have to bring Halo to Sony. Not because I'm a Sony buyer (I only buy Sony stuff used, and even that only rarely) but because I think it would be hilarious.
I don't think so (Score:2)
A common trick when you want to make a lawsuit go away is use the discovery process to get and make public information a company doesn't want to be public. That's what this looks like.
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this is about the Activision buyout
No shit
Now read my comment again assuming that I know that
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This is on Sony. They've been constantly screaming to the FTC about Microsoft's platform exclusivity, so it's only reasonable that they be required to put their own argument in context. If Sony had not been trying to use Microsoft exclusivity as an argument, then the topic of Sony exclusivity would not have been raised.
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> It's to the point where I don't understand why Microsoft keeps throwing money at the Japanese market,
Same reason MS originally invested $2 Billion into developing the Xbox program. They are playing the long game and they have money to spend / "invest" hoping it will reap dividends later.
Does it make financial sense? Probably not but that is one of the hills MS seems bound and determined to die on.
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It feels like this is something (worrying about more than just the present) that we want all companies doing fairly often.
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Well, there are titles from Square Enix that are "never to be made for Xbox" that are non-exclusive. For example, look at Fin
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The issue was blocking Game Pass for third party games.
According to previous court documents at least in some instances, Sony prevented Microsoft from signing 3rd party publishers on Game Pass. That is literally monopolistic behavior, and should actually be investigated by FTC.
I think Microsoft's plan is making this apparent. So that the merger becomes the "smaller issue", but Sony using dominant market position to block competition is more important.
Will it work? We will see.
(Personally I could make jokes
Although I hate sony I feel this is wrong (Score:2)
Although I hate sony with a passion, especially after the rootkit CD's they sold me and my friends, I really feel this is not a valid way to do things. It's not much different than if my neighbor is getting a divorce and makes a bunch of comments about how a good marriage looks so then I get told to disclose lots of my personal life details.
Where does this lawsuit have anything to do with Sony? Their competitor wants to buy something so Sony has to pony up private details? How?
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Appreciate your thoughts. I remember the rootkit CD's too.
But, here the issue is monopolistic behavior.
The FTC will try to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard on the ground(s) that it will create a monopoly. I believe that the only big player consoles are PS5 and Xbox. So, the big(gest) player is highly relevant.
For your example, it is more like your neighbor is trying to get details of the marriage of a marriage expert (if they exist).
Re:Although I hate sony I feel this is wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Where does this lawsuit have anything to do with Sony? Their competitor wants to buy something so Sony has to pony up private details? How?
Sony objected to the merger [gamerant.com]. They involved themselves. Reasonably, in my opinion, but that still opens them to scrutiny.
You're still going on about the rootkits? (Score:2)
Now, I'm way, way more pissed at how Microsoft is about to buy out yet another major game publisher despite the clear anti-trust violation it presents. Unlike the rootkit thing, where the system worked, this isn't ev
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As others mentioned, Sony is the loudest voice pushing for the merger to be blocked. Their argument is that if Microsoft buys Activision, then they'll restrict Call of Duty to XBox (and PC) and make it harder to sell PS5s, even if they're guaranteed 5-10 years of Call of Duty releases. And it's not just that they complained to the press, it's that they submitted formal documents to the judge explaining their formal complaint.
And by involving themselves in the case, they're opening themselves to obvious sc
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I can't imagine that Sony expected that they would win, since their argument is pretty illogical, but they succeeded in getting some serious concessions from Microsoft on the deal.
If I were running the Xbox division, one of my major long-term goals would be to trick, force, coerce, or otherwise induce Sony to bring Gran Turismo to Xbox. Forza was surprisingly good from the start, but Gran Turismo still sells Playstations. Giving up "concessions" now might pay off for them later, if they can use them as arguments to that end.
The concessions are mostly promises to continue to sell games they are already selling across multiple platforms, and also to bring some games to a new platform,
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Does Gran Turismo really move that many Playstations? I can understand maybe 15-20 years ago that Gran Turismo was a big deal, but there's so many options in the racing world and my couple of buddies who are into racing games have never mentioned it. Maybe it just feels important right now because a new entry just came out. Anecdotally, GT6 sold half as many copies as GT5 and both were on PS3.
Of course, both Forza and GT are eclipsed by the most popular racing franchise out there, Mario Kart. Mario Kart
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Does Gran Turismo really move that many Playstations? I can understand maybe 15-20 years ago that Gran Turismo was a big deal
It's still a best selling exclusive despite the decline, and there's still a whole community around it, so I think so. Especially if you can get the other games you want on multiple platforms, which is sometimes the case, then it becomes a bigger differentiator.
Internships (Score:2)
Watch for unpaid internships at Sony legal!
Kettle calling the teapot black. (Score:1)
Basically Sony objected to the merger, saying that limiting access to IPs is anti-competitive and bad, so they shouldn't be allowed to gain that exclusivity access for anti-competitive reasons to those IPs.
So Microsoft said, "Okay, but I'm pretty sure you make deals for exclusive IPs as well don't you for your own benefit? Let's see what deals you've done and how that affects competitiveness."
Now Sony's is like, whoa whoa whoa, this uh, isn't about us, it's about you.
I know some people feel bad for Sony for
Sony and CoD excluisivity... (Score:2)
Sony is upset with the Microsoft-Activision deal because it would mean an end to all the CoD content that is PlayStation exclusive (and give players one less reason to buy PlayStation over Xbox)