Adi Robertson

I can almost feel the EFF’s David Greene gritting his teeth as he graciously explains why a recent court ruling on government censorship and social media addresses a real problem in the most transparently bad-faith manner possible. Even if you don’t know or care what “jawboning” is, stick around for this deadpan gem:

Remember SB 396 in Arkansas, which banned minors from an oddly specific set of web platforms? NetChoice — which also has active suits against Florida, Texas, and California — has sued to block it. You can read the full complaint here.

Microsoft’s attorney is asking Stuart to look at a revenue chart for Minecraft by platform, comparing different devices. Here’s loosely how it breaks down: Xbox is the smallest platform for Minecraft, PlayStation is roughly twice as big, and Nintendo’s platform is twice as big as PlayStation (or four times as big as Xbox.)

Carlton has called putting Call of Duty on Game Pass a “prime” motivation of the merger, and he’s said Sony can avoid any ill effects by signing a deal with Microsoft. (Sony, very publicly, has not signed the offer.) He’s also claimed Sony is more motivated by blocking the merger than actually getting a good deal.

The early questioning of Microsoft’s expert involves jabs about how much Carlton’s getting paid ($2,000 an hour), which “percent of the academic sources you rely upon are written by you” (30 percent), and the number of federal cases (five) where at least some of his testimony as an expert witness has been excluded. This line of questioning isn’t unusual for expert witnesses — we saw it in the Epic v. Apple trial, for instance.

Carlton is here to contest the FTC’s claims about competition and the Microsoft acquisition. An FTC attorney is questioning him, asking him to lay out the evidence that’s gone into his expert opinion.

Microsoft’s CEO is the most powerful figure testifying during this trial, and one of the few executives who’s not focused primarily on games. His name hasn’t appeared that much in the Xbox vs. PlayStation drama so far, but he’s in a position to get questioned about Microsoft’s role as a potential “Big Tech” monopolist, not just a gaming one.

Microsoft’s witnesses have been reiterating that cloud gaming is a feature for Xbox, not a full present-day service. The FTC is using Fisher’s recorded testimony to rebut that idea. Here’s Fisher discussing cloud gaming as a category:

So says Nvidia’s Jeff Fisher, unsurprisingly! But enough of the PC vs. consoles wars. The FTC’s attorney is questioning Fisher about Nvidia’s previous discussions with the CMA, particularly the future of cloud gaming and its streaming service GeForce Now.