Official documents reveal that Sony fears Microsoft and its Game Pass to the point of throwing money at it.
As Microsoft seeks to validate its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, documents have surfaced on the Brazilian CADE website, which is always transparent in these matters.
These papers include the words of Sony which is strongly opposed to the Acti-Crosoft union, and especially to the Game Pass considered “unstoppable” by the Japanese firm. There is an argument from Microsoft that tries to defend its position, as well as a few lines on the measures deployed by Sony to “compete”. If PlayStation Plus is mentioned as a direct response to Game Pass, it is also pointed out that Sony would use… different methods to hinder the evolution of Microsoft’s service.
Business is business
The American brand states that the expansion of Game Pass has been largely hindered by Sony which does not hesitate to pay “blocking fees” to developers to prevent certain third-party games from going to Xbox.
Microsoft’s ability to continue expanding Game Pass has been hampered by Sony’s desire to curb that growth. Sony pays “blocking fees” to prevent developers from adding content and games to Game Pass and other competing subscription services.
Two other points about Sony’s “competitive strategies” are also mentioned in the documents, but reserved for the record, so we can’t see what exactly they are about.
Still, such actions do show that Sony is not sure what to do to fight Xbox Game Pass which is now well established. The firm has rolled out its new PlayStation Plus offer, but still doesn’t want to make it hyper attractive by housing its big day one exclusivessomething that Microsoft has been doing since the beginning.
Instead, Sony prefers to develop on PC and still relies on the power of its exclusivities to sell consoles and more globally, its brand. The problem, as the firm itself points out in its previous intervention, is that the exclusives don’t bring in enough money and Sony is forced to rely on third-party software to replenish the coffers. This is why the Japanese giant is trying to prevent Microsoft from getting its hands on one of the most lucrative licenses in history: Call of Duty. And to prevent this, obviously, all means are good.
