The noise "in the street" is that the FTC is about to announce if they will let Microsoft buy Activision Blizzard and become the biggest buyout of a gaming company in its history (and another historic buy for Microsoft in general) or if they will legally challenge the purchase.

While FTC is the USA's front, Microsoft needs to convince regulators around the world, but particularly Sony chose the Brazilian market to engage why Microsoft shouldn't buy a conglomerate of many gaming studios, particularly the makers of Call Of Duty.

TLDR, Sony used Call Of Duty as an example of the leverage that Microsoft will win on having gamers and consumers opting for the Xbox platform the day they decide that Sony's current agreements with Activision expire and opt to not renegotiate.

This evidently provoked the anger of many gaming studios and publishers as marking Call Of Duty "as a unique game in his class" Sony devalued all other FPS and also themselves so unnecessarily.

But it is Microsoft's turn…

The Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) confirmed that Microsoft has responded to Sony and it wasn't a nice response for Sony.

Microsoft officially replied:

"Considering that exclusivity strategies have been at the core of Sony’s strategy to strengthen its presence in the games industry, and that Sony is a leader in the distribution of digital games, Sony’s concern with possible exclusivity of Activision‘s content is incoherent, to say the least.

It only reveals, once again, a fear about an innovative business model that offers high-quality content at low costs to gamers, threatening a leadership that has been forged from a device-centric and exclusivity-focused strategy over the years."

Also, Microsoft has accused Sony of paying developers for “blocking rights” to stop their content appearing on Xbox Game Pass and if you ask me a direct example, while not directly against Game Pass, but the lack of Spider-man in non-Playstation versions of Marvel's Avengers a BIG questionable move despite you explain to me what paying rights can justify that.

To be fair, Sony have been investing interestingly on Epic Games as many Playstation one exclusives began to appear in major PC game distribution, Epic Games Store as the star, so probably Sony is not doing a great job by "worrying" now so close on a official decision and in my opinion, should have raised flags since November 2021.

Via VGC