The trial between Microsoft and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ended this week, and it’s just a matter of time before we find out whether or not the US government will approve the Redmond giant’s merger with Activision Blizzard.
Amidst the trial, we uncovered a wealth of behind-the-scenes information about the video game industry, including the possible release date of The Elder Scrolls 6 and the exclusivity of the Indiana Jones game on Xbox consoles.
During his deposition, Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division, revealed that he had not yet decided whether games like the next The Elder Scrolls would be Xbox exclusives, and that “it was difficult for the company to decide that at the time”, but it seems that that decision has already been taken since 2021.
During Xbox CFO Tim Stuart’s testimony, the FTC drew attention to a conversation that took place in November 2021 between Stuart and Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios.
The two were exchanging messages about a recent monthly business review meeting between Xbox and ZeniMax Media (which owns Bethesda), where Phil Spencer apparently made the decision to make all ZeniMax games exclusive going forward, not just new properties. intellectuals. Stuart was asking Booty about what happened during the meeting.
“Any games going forward?” asked Stuart. “Not just new intellectual properties, but ALL games going forward? Wow.”
Booty confirmed this during their chat conversation, writing: “Phil [Spencer] told them all upcoming Xbox exclusive titles.”
The two then continued to argue about how pulling all of Bethesda’s titles from the PlayStation would cause profit issues in the business model of the deal between Microsoft and ZeniMax. “We will have problems [margem de lucro] on the business model as we took a large number of PS units out of the model,” noted Stuart.
This means that projected earnings from Xbox and ZeniMax after the acquisition factored into the launch of some Bethesda games on PlayStation, before that decision was made by Spencer.
As we can see, the fact that Microsoft is promising with all its might that it will not make Activision Blizzard titles Xbox exclusive may not be so true, considering that the company can change its mind quickly.
For now, we can only wait to find out if the US government will approve the merger.
