The FTC is increasingly becoming Microsoft’s biggest roadblock in its attempt to purchase Activision Blizzard King, as it’s already been made clear that it could be the reason Microsoft abandons the deal all together.
It seems that part of what’s behind the FTC’s fervor is that it doesn’t believe Microsoft will actually follow through with keeping Activision Blizzard titles on all platforms, and not make them exclusive like it did following its Zenimax acquisition.
Part of this is indicated with the FTC calling Bethesda’s Pete Hines as a witness, to ask specifically about the Zenimax deal.
It’s been reported previously that Starfield and other Bethesda titles weren’t in fact meant to be Xbox console exclusives before the deal, but that changed once Microsoft acquired Zenimax.
As this case evolves, it’ll be interesting to see what ends up becoming public about the Zenimax deal. There’s also a parallel lawsuit which alleges that Microsoft’s intent behind purchasing Activision Blizzard is to try and eliminate PlayStation from the competition.
Source – [PSLifeStyle via Axios]
