Tom Warren

He also argues exclusives are just a normal part of the gaming business now:

“It is an established part of the console business, and Sony and Nintendo are very strong with their exclusive games.”

Sony also has an exclusive marketing deal for Final Fantasy XVI, says Spencer.

The exchange followed questions around Xbox exclusives.

“Is it incorrect or correct to say that Microsoft will always make its games exclusive?” asked Microsoft’s lawyer.

“That’s incorrect,” says Spencer.

“Does that include ZeniMax games?”

“Yes,” says Spencer.

“And Activision games?”

“Yes,” Spencer confirms.

Microsoft argues exclusivity will always be a case-by-case decision, but the FTC fears it will make plenty of Activision games exclusive.

We heard about that email yesterday.

“Both Google and Apple exert control over the largest gaming platform,” says Spencer. “Apple won’t let us put a streaming app in their store, so we can’t bring console games through their storefront.”

Asked why Apple isn’t allowing an Xbox app in the App Store, Spencer says it’s about competition.

“Its competition for their control in the largest gaming platform. These are games that players want to play, we have a delivery mechanism to deliver games, they choose to block it.” He says Apple has “been allowed to do that.”

“In the end for our opportunity, we thought we needed to have something that was even bigger than Zynga was given our very small starting space in the mobile business.”

• The FTC questioned Spencer about the Nintendo Switch, fps, teraflops, and lots more.

• Phil Spencer is asked whether Xbox lost the console wars, to which he responds that the console war is a “social construct” and he doesn’t wanna count the community out, but that Xbox is “in third place.”

• Sony is an aggressive competitor that spends its revenues on doing things to try and reduce Xbox’s survival on the market, says Spencer.

• Spencer says Sony is “actively signing third-party games to skip our platform,” as he is questioned over Microsoft acquiring exclusive content.

• Microsoft has thought about skipping PlayStation for Activision games and even considered making Minecraft Dungeons Xbox exclusive.

• Sony held back PS5 devkits which “put us behind on our development for Minecraft on PS5,” says Spencer.

• An internal email chain between Xbox’s Sarah Bond, Matt Booty, and Phil Spencer reveals how Microsoft planned to talk about the Bethesda acquisition as “making Xbox stronger.”

• Phil Spencer won’t confirm Elder Scrolls VI is an Xbox exclusive, and it sounds like it’s still many, many years away.

• Microsoft won’t degrade Call of Duty on PlayStation, says Spencer.

• Spencer swears under oath that he won’t pull Call of Duty from PlayStation.

“I want us to be bold in our announce of the Bethesda close, focus on Bethesda on Xbox,” Spencer wrote at the time. “I want us to get comfortable with saying... the acquisition of Bethesda is about making Xbox stronger. Our focus with Bethesda will be on the Xbox ecosystem.”

The FTC wants to know if Spencer had any other conversations with Microsoft executives about making Bethesda games exclusive to Xbox. “Exclusivity is a general topic in the console business, so it’s a constant conversation,” says Spencer.

The FTC now wants to know if Microsoft has done any economic analysis of Nintendo in terms of the Activision Blizzard deal. Presumably because creating a version of Call of Duty for Nintendo Switch will be costly. The FTC once again wants to determine that the Switch is separate from its “high performance” console market.

The FTC lawyer then reminds Spencer of the Bethesda roundtable press event. “Do you remember that you said that if you’re an Xbox customer, this is about delivering great exclusive games for you on platforms where Game Pass exists?” asks the FTC. “Yes, I do,” says Spencer.

Xbox exclusive games is another key part of the FTC’s case, where the regulator believes Microsoft will make Activision Blizzard games exclusive to Xbox in a move it deems anti-competitive.