During the acquisition trial of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, an internal email was released and it revealed an interesting business strategy for the Xbox maker.
The rivalry between Microsoft and Sony is legendary and has gone on for many years. Especially in recent times, with more and more exclusive games, the debate surrounding them has become very emotionally charged. Now an email leaked from 2019 and in it, Microsoft shows what they think of Sony.
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"Spend Sony Out Of Business": Microsoft's Proposed Strategy
Many of us are following the case of Microsoft's possible acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Well in those proceedings an internal email from Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty to Microsoft CFO Tim Stuart was published, and it doesn't paint a good picture of the company.
In it, Booty essentially proposes to acquire more and more studios in an attempt to push Sony out of the market:
We (Microsoft) are in a very unique position to go spend Sony out of business. If we think that video game content matters in 10 years, we might look back and say, 'Totally would have been worth it to lose $2B or $3B in 2020 to avoid a situation where Tencent, Google, Amazon, or even Sony have become the Disney of games and own most of the valuable content.
So the strategy would have been to acquire more studios and prevent a different company from building a Disney-esque monopoly by becoming said monopoly. Yeah, do only I see the irony in this statement?
Apparently, this business strategy has been abandoned and was only ever an idea. That is what Microsoft now claims, but it is important to mention that they have bought multiple studios, for example Bethesda, and seem to be pushing those towards making exclusives.
No matter if this was only an idea or a plan, it is interesting that these thoughts are floating around Microsoft and make all the recent statements towards cooperation with Sony look a bit different.
We'll keep a close eye on the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Let's wait for more revelations!