There has been some development in the journey of Microsoft trying to get the thumbs up by regulators so they can buy Activision Blizzard gaming conglomerate and historically, its biggest acquisition yet.

First, yesterday’s edition of the printed version of Financial Times, featured a full page ad by Microsoft in a clear attempt to appeal to public opinion about its intention to buy Activision Blizzard, in a historical $69 billion deal.

Here Microsoft is claiming that should the $69 billion deal go through, Xbox will be able to offer Call of Duty to more than 150 million additional players, a keypoint that Sony, maker of Playstation have been using to have regulators to reject the buyout under antitrust reasoning.

Sony has admitted that Call Of Duty is the top 3rd party franchise and believes that Microsoft owning the franchise will affect their capacity to compete as COD being available on Xbox Game Pass will be too great for fans to ignore it.

Talking about Sony…

Sony has pressed hard this week with two new developments.

At the United Kingdom scenery “of the war”, Sony has suggested to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that Microsoft could release degraded versions of Call of Duty games for PlayStation consoles should the Xbox maker acquire Activision Blizzard as a response on why it doesn’t reached an agreement with Microsoft as the current deal of Playstation as “platform focus” expires with 2024 main Call Of Duty game.

This was a jab after Microsoft claimed that Call Of Duty ports for Nintendo Switch will not mean that they will be developed for the Nintendo Gaming cloud, but installable games on the Switch using Apex Legends and Fortnite as examples, which in my opinion was a BIG mistake.

Finally, today it was revealed yet the most obvious and direct answer from Playstation via CEO Jim Ryan on rejecting a 10 year deal and it is the fact that Sony wants the deal blocked, period.

This time it was in Brussels, the European Union scene “of the war” that Playstation CEO confirmed that it is not negotiable losing Call Of Duty as an independent partner.

While the quitting was on February 21th, 2023, it was not clear if it is a follow up on the closed-door deposition that Microsoft reassured that buying Activision Blizzard was not about exclusivities entirely and key games that sells being on multiple platform, will remain so with the reveal that Microsoft and Nintendo made the Call Of Duty ports for Nintendo in 10 years official and in contract in hand, Microsoft President Brad Smith exposed Sony stubbornness on saying no.

Public Relationship speaking, this does not look well on Sony, with not only this development, but via their rationale, have been neglecting other FPS games just to have a counterpoint against Microsoft and of course, this does not go well with the gaming development community.