Microsoft suggests that Sony pay for games so they don’t go to Pass

In a document sent to Economic Defense Administrative Council (CADE)Microsoft’s lawyers are hinting that Sony will pay for certain games in order not to enter Xbox Game Pass, the US company’s game subscription service.

The comments are part of the company’s defense response to the Japanese publisher. The latter publicly claimed to the Brazilian government that acquiring the Call of Duty franchise (belonging to Activision Blizzard, which was bought for $70 billion by the American giant) would be anti-competitive in the gaming market.

“Given that exclusivity strategies have been at the core of Sony’s strengthening of the company’s presence in the games industry, as it is a leader in digital game distribution, its interest in eventual exclusivity for Activision content is incoherent — for example, at least,” Microsoft’s lawyers say in the document. CADE.

“It only reveals, once again, the fear of an innovative business model that delivers high-quality content at a low cost to players, threatening the leadership that has been forged from a device-centric and exclusivity-focused strategy over the years,” it continues.

Finally, Microsoft’s lawyers also hint that “Sony is paying for ‘blocking rights’ to prevent developers from adding content to Game Pass and other competing subscription services.”

The pay-to-avoid mechanism to the content console is really nothing new. Using Call of Duty itself as an example, Xbox was temporarily exclusive to game DLCs until 2014. In recent years, Activision has released shooter game modes primarily on PlayStation – in Black Ops Cold War, Zombie Annihilation appeared earlier on the Sony platform.

Microsoft doesn’t want to remove popular games from PlayStation

In early June, Matt Booty, president of Xbox Game Studios, clarified that Activision Blizzard and Bethesda’s franchises should not be completely withdrawn from the game. PS4 he is from PS5. According to him, some games will end exclusively for the Microsoft console, but the big names should stay on the Sony platform, in order to “preserve the community”. Read it all here!