A major argument made by Sony Group Corp (NYSE:SONY) and PlayStation against Xbox’s planned $68.7 billion acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard is about to be put to the test.
Starfield — perhaps the biggest video game release of 2023 — will come out on September 6, exclusively on Xbox. The game, billed as Skyrim but set in space, is made by Bethesda, a studio bought by Xbox owner Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in 2020 for a comparatively cheap $7.5 billion.
Interestingly, Microsoft bought Bethesda in part to beat Sony to the punch, fearing that Bethesda games would become PlayStation exclusives.
Three years later, Microsoft’s ownership of Bethesda has become an argument for Sony as to why the Activision deal should be blocked by the Federal Trade Commission.
“When we acquired [Bethesda parent] ZeniMax one of the impetus for that is that Sony had done a deal for Deathloop and Ghostwire to pay Bethesda to not ship those games on Xbox,” Xbox brand head Phil Spencer said during an FTC v Microsoft hearing.
“So the discussion about Starfield when we heard that Starfield was potentially also going to end up skipping Xbox, we can’t be in a position as a third-place console where we fall further behind on our content ownership so we’ve had to secure content to remain viable in the business.”
Xbox has lagged behind both PlayStation and Nintendo in terms of sales in recent years. Buying up studios, and thus gaining exclusive to titles like Starfield and the currently in development Elder Scrolls VI, has been Microsoft’s strategy to make up the difference.
Sony has argued that these moves suggest that Microsoft is going to restrict Activision’s crown jewel franchise Call of Duty to Xbox as well.
Microsoft has offered Sony a ten-year deal to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, which console chief Jim Ryan has called “insufficient.”
If Starfield is everything Microsoft hopes it will be, gamers will get a glimpse into the next stage of the console wars.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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