Many within the legal and gaming community agree that this is the most important part of the journey of Microsoft trying to legally buy Activision Blizzard as the FTC decided to invoke a preliminary injunction.

If successful, will give the agency time to make their case more in a more controllable state and that the time variable play against the transaction, which cannot pass July unless Microsoft and Activision Blizzard agrees on modifying the deal which means probably Microsoft giving out more money.

While today is “free day” at Federal Court, the first two day were dramatic enough to safely say that even in successful being granted the preliminary injunction, FTC have much fired their main ammunition to co-play the dire scenario that Sony have been trying to portrait of Activision Blizzard as a gaming conglomerate is a negative competitive nightmare for Playstaiton. 

IT’s been a while since my last editorial all right, but I wanted to sum up some of the important things that Day 1 and 2 of the Preliminary Injunction hearing has revealed while day 3 starts on Tuesday.

Microsoft braking opening: “Xbox has lost the console wars”

While Microsoft was no stranger to video gaming, its true entry to home console was with the original Xbox back in 2001 and since then, have been the triforce with Nintendo and Sony in the gaming industry since then if PC gaming is considered a non-factor.

Ups and Down, seems that Xbox was  never being able to  capitalize against both its japanese counterparts that has even prompted on being a more diplomatic rather than straight competition with known exceptions of Xbox Game Studios landing on Nintendo Switch and games that were already available on Playstation before Microsoft bought their dev studios (like Mojang, devs of Minecraft) were not enough.

Initial filing of the prem injunction, Microsoft said that Xbox has “lost the console war,” with the company saying that it’s third behind rivals Sony and Nintendo. The statement goes on to say that the Microsoft consoles have always been behind since joining the gaming landscape more than 20 years ago.

Activision demanded more revenue cut to avoid stopping development of COD on Xbox

Back in the year 2020, time was pressing and we were still in the middle of the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and Activison surprisingly was NOT TOO ABOARD of Xbox Series S/X, so Bobby Kotick personally demanded Microsoft to release a 80/20 revenue share if both new consoles wanted to see Call Of Duty.

Despite all that and Microsoft unable to reject, Kotick also demanded that Microsoft should not market Xbox Series S/X with Call Of Duty BEFORE the launch of the game so the Playstaiton and PC version could truly capitalize. 

Indiana Jones original video game announced on 2021 is now an Xbox exclusive

Back in 2021, Lucasfilm Games (formerly LucasArts) licensed a Bethesda owned studio to create a new and original Indiana Jones video game.

In the first day of the hearing, the FTC brought it to their case against Microsoft where Bethesda executive Pete Hines confirmed that the game is an Xbox exclusive because the scope of the game improved by the time Microsoft bought ZeniMax and the agreement was amended with LucasFilm Games having MachineGames (Wolfenstein) as developers.

Xbox Game Pass Cloud is a steroid-boosted demo showcase

Microsoft did acknowledge that they see gamers using Xbox Game Pass Cloud as a way to test games before buying and this was the FTC trying to use the UK CMA’s card on Cloud Gaming being a big leverage of Microsoft.

Activison will not get info/dev kit of Playstation 6 if its becomes a new Xbox Game Studios member 

A main unknown reactiveness of Playstation after Microsoft bought Mojang years ago and provoked problems in development of PS5 version of Minecraft and almost prompted to have Minecraft Dungeons a Xbox/PC exclusive due Sony being irrationally reluctant on handing Playstation 5 dev kits.

But regardless of that, Sony has now for the record acknowledged their rejection on handling things for Playstation6 development if Activision Blizzard becomes property of Microsoft, pretty much meaning that in the future, games like Minecraft at best, cannot have a parallel development than its PC and Xbox counterpart. 

FTC trying to undermine Nintendo as a gaming competitor

By metrics, Nintendo is indeed the second place in the whole gaming industry in front of Xbox and behind Playstation, but for the FTC, it is important that Nintenod is OUT OF THE EQUATION just to damage the case for Microsoft as it is appear that FTC wanted market definition that disallow Nintendo to be counted for.

To me it is disingenuous that FTC doesn’t count Nintendo just on mere different on the approach that Nintendo use to offer its products in respective of Sony and Microsoft and insisting that just because some games like Call Of Duty WILL DO PERFORM DIFFERENTLY IN CONTEXT that DOESN’T AFFECT playability, Nintendo should not be part of the market benchmarking

Bethesda purchase was to avoid Playstation hoarding more exclusive

Via questioning by the FTC, Phil Spencer explained how exclusivity had been another major factor in the deal, saying that Microsoft had to ‘secure content to remain viable in the business’.

This included major games being annoucned and at the time Bethesda confirmed Starfield as its newest IP in more than 2 decades, it was obvious that it cannot be allowed to be yet another Playstation exclusive and one of the reason to the subsequent purchase of Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax. 

The Elder Scrolls VI is still away 5 years in development while Xbox exclusivity not final decision

Pressed directly with the next main entry of The Elder Scrolls with The Elder Scrolls VI,  Phil Spencer confirmed that development was still "five-plus years away" and if the game is an Xbox/PC exclusive, he did not deny that a conversation already went through but, no final decision has been made because the focus is the very existence of the game itself.

Both SIE Jim Ryan and Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida initial reaction to the purchase announcement

Early days of the hearing, it was revealed that Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan did not have or show any initial issues when he was first told that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard reached an buyout agreement, but also, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida originally didn't have any issue as Phil Spencer called himself the day it was announce the transaction.

Also, Jim Ryan did say internally that he understood that buying Activision Blizzard was NOT about Call Of Duty in reality.

Zynga was actually Microsoft’s original target

Xbox wants a better footprint on the mobile gaming world and has reiterated since day one that the reason for buying Activision Blizzard was actually King and other studios dealing with mobile games.

While the FTC tried to make it incompatible buying a WHOLE CONGLOMERATE just for that, Phil Spencer backfired that it is part of business to hold presence within a niche while focusing on a little explored market by both Sony and Microsoft.

But before inking an agreement with Activision, Microsoft had targeted mobile gaming studio Zynga for a purchase, only to have been beaten with not much struggle against Take-Two Interactive  

Phil Spencer backfired a FTC question that it was actually a common sense in mergers

A common-sense info that the FTC should know, but their lawyer asked if Microsoft needs to pay the agreed fee to Activision Blizzard shareholders right away. Spencer replied: “No, when you acquire something it’s not a payment. It’s really a transfer of cash into an asset called Activision that you believe retains the value that you have acquired. It’s incorrect financially.”

Google Stadia brought NEUTRAL (NOTHING)

While it was not a surprise, FTC called Dov Zimring, Google’s former Stadia product lead as witness and this is what Zimring said when asked to describe what Stadia was: “To our knowledge we had the best technology in the market. We had performance capabilities that didn’t exist in the [cloud] market like 4K.”

“We had prototyped on Windows early on... the mission we had established at the very beginning was to enable revolutionary experiences... we saw Windows as limiting to innovate in that regard because we didn’t have control over the operating system.”

Zimring acknowledged that Stadia SDK was Linux-based due operating cost saving, including the closure of Stadia Games & Entertainment with the sudden stop of investment for AAA games was due wrong projected numbers.

Originally, Google was willing to spend five years building AAA games for Stadia.

Honestly, I don't see why FTC wanted Google to make a statement as this was useless even to be used against itself.

FTC weird and annoying insistence of a Playstation receiving Call Of Duty pledge

In the most weird thing, even for the judge to allow, it is a weird three moments where FTC wanted Phil Spencer to pledge that Call Of Duty was not disappearing from the Playstation Store.

By the second time forcing Spencer to pledge, he did acknowledge that beyond the 10 year mark (of the proposed agreement of Call Of Duty availability also offered to Nintendo and other Cloud Gaming brands), things cannot be assured as it will depend on the state of the gaming market itself by that time.

When FTC tried for a 3rd time, was plain stopped by the judge and wrapped things up.

Judge: "I don’t need that, I’m going to cut off your questioning."

Sony should feel the ease if the preliminary injunction gets rejected as Phil Spencer testified under oath that Call Of Duty will be available for Playstation and will not have degraded quality, but I agree that it was weird the FTC trying to leverage things for Sony when it was Sony who is the imprudent part.

Observers, lawmakers and lawyers o both in the USA and UK cannot fandom or understand that respectively, FTC and CMA are in the need to “defend” Sony when in the USA have been called out of being actually an monopolistic company and direct responsible of Xbox lacking at the Japanese market and both entities defending the “USA/UK Is Open To Business” when they are actually making an example of how restrictive doing business can get.

FTC have been notoriously anti big mergers as part of the formula since the Biden Administration took over.

To me the FTC 's legal team against Microsoft are either OBLIVIOUS on how the gaming industry and mainly about Nintendo current state, either by ignorance or they are prorating conveniently as ignorant just to make a case against the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

Heads will roll on both FTC and CMA regardless of the outcome and whether Microsoft can buy Activision Blizzard or not.