FTC v. Microsoft: all the news from the big Xbox courtroom battle
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It’s up to the FTC to argue their case here and it’s mainly been a single Microsoft lawyer arguing against a number of FTC lawyers.
Both sides have now moved onto legal arguments and citing previous cases. Microsoft argues that it’s all about Call of Duty at the core and Microsoft’s deals completely address the concerns.
Microsoft’s lawyer points to Final Fantasy VI and how Microsoft “just lost part of that game,” or Minecraft where Sony held back devkits:
If they can’t figure out what the harm is, so they’re turning to you or us and saying you should figure it out because it’s ‘too hard for us’
Microsoft’s lawyer argues that game exclusives are happening all the time:
No witness said there was going to be partial foreclosure. No one said that no one had any examples of it. And if it’s the partial exclusivity, as you said, and as Mr. Nadella said I thought the best. That’s the world we live in because Sony’s the market leader, and that’s what they do. There are partial, if that’s what they want to call partial foreclosures, that’s happening all the time with these partial exclusivity timed exclusivity arrangements, and that is part of competition is not part of anti competitive behavior.
The FTC points to evidence from Jim Ryan’s testimony about partial foreclosure and “the harms, for example to Sony, in terms of optimization,” but Judge Corley wants to know where the harm is. “It’s not the harm to Sony, it’s the harm to consumers.”
