As Microsoft and the US Federal Trade Commission get ready to battle it out in court today over Microsoft"s plans to acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, the head of Sony"s PlayStation division says it won"t offer info on future PlayStation consoles if that deal goes through as planned.
The remarks were given by Sony PlayStation head Jim Ryan in testimony he gave to the FTC in April, but which was first revealed this week by Axios" Stephen Totilo in a Twitter post.
When asked why Sony could not give out info about future consoles to Activision Blizzard if Microsoft buys the game publisher, Ryan states, "We simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by a direct competitor having access to that information."
There was also a line of questioning from the FTC to Ryan about what happened after Microsoft acquired Mojang, which had released versions of Minecraft to PlayStation consoles prior to the purchase and continues to do so. Unfortunately, most of that discussion is redacted, but Ryan does agree there was concern about that situation as well, but there"s no word on how it was handled.
Sony has previously stated that games like Activision"s Call of Duty could be intentionally crippled on PlayStation consoles by Microsoft if it were to acquire Activision Blizzard. That company"s CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in response that he felt this was "obviously disappointing behavior" from Sony, but added that this would not keep the developer and publisher from making "the best games possible" for PlayStation consoles.
The FTC will start arguing in court today for a preliminary injunction to halt Microsoft"s purchase of Activision Blizzard before the deal can officially close on July 18. A long list of witnesses will be called upon during the hearing over the next few days, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.