FTC v. Microsoft: all the news from the big Xbox courtroom battle
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“Have you had conversations at Microsoft about skipping PlayStation with Activision titles?” Phil Spencer is asked by the FTC.
“I don’t remember a specific conversation, but it would seem like a normal conversation for us to have,” admits Spencer.
These conversations were part of an evaluation of Activision Blizzard ahead of the proposed acquisition announcement. Microsoft measures the economic and strategic value of an acquisition.
The FTC wants to know whether an asset could have a strategic value that outweighs the economics. So would Microsoft do something like make Activision games exclusive to Xbox as a strategic play, even if the economics might not make sense.
“There isn’t a value on the strategic, its a strategic analysis, it’s more of a commentary on how this asset fits into the strategy that we have, there is no numeric value assigned,” says Spencer.
