Adi Robertson

Spencer notes that Microsoft would suffer damage from going back on its word in any case — “I think as we’ve seen even in preparation for this that gamers are an active and vocal group. Us pulling Call of Duty from PlayStation in my view would create irreparable harm for the Xbox brand,” he said. But now he’s also solemnly sworn it under oath.

Phil Spencer is back under Microsoft’s questioning, and he’s trying to dispel allegations that Microsoft would degrade a game like Call of Duty on PlayStation — an argument Sony in particular has made.

A 2021 interview notwithstanding, Spencer tells an FTC attorney that it’s too early to know:

The sanctions for both lawyers involved are in, and they’re pretty embarrassing: a $5,000 fine, plus they have to send a letter to every real judge named in the made-up cases. For what it’s worth, Steven Schwartz says he thought ChatGPT was just a “super search engine.”

Questioning of Pete Hines is done, and we’re on to yet another Xbox executive. It’s quite a day.

Microsoft is spending a lot of time getting Pete Hines to explain why Activision’s Call of Duty isn’t a direct competitor for the Microsoft-owned games Starfield and Redfall. This includes a little more admission that Arkane’s Redfall wasn’t everything Microsoft hoped for — something Phil Spencer acknowledged after launch.

The FTC is arguing that game exclusivity is an anti-competitive move, but Pete Hines is under friendly questioning from Microsoft’s attorneys now, and he’s making the opposite case: that exclusivity lets you streamline a game. The anticipated Xbox exclusive Starfield, he says, wouldn’t be coming out on September 1st (it’s actually September 6th) if it were also coming out on PlayStation:

Poor Redfall — first it got panned on virtually every gaming channel on the internet, now it’s an exhibit in the FTC’s case against Microsoft. The FTC calls it a big-budget AAA game that got locked off PlayStation after Microsoft bought its developer Arkane. Pete Hines admits there “might be some differences of opinion” on whether it meets that standard.

He and an FTC attorney are currently struggling to nail down whether he reports to Microsoft executive Phil Spencer and when “Bethesda” actually refers to its parent company ZeniMax. Less mind-numbingly, the FTC is pushing Hines on a core piece of its argument: that Microsoft buying ZeniMax/Bethesda led to games getting locked down to Xbox.

Matt Booty says his thinking about keeping Xbox content exclusive has changed since the days of “no effing way” in 2019. (I’m not sure if attorneys are bowdlerizing “fucking,” or if that’s literally what he wrote.) His explanation — in response to a question from Judge Corley — is a commentary on the streaming wars: