11 US Congressmen ask Biden Admin to pressure Japan over allowing Sony to buy console exclusivity deals

[Machiavellian]

shikamaru317 said:

Machiavellian said:

The case isn't being made about Japanese people choosing which system to buy, its about developers option to choose MS or include MS and if their are some coercion done on Sony part to limit that.  Who knows if its true but it would be interesting to see if there is.  Not sure how evidence would be found unless a few studios throw out some anon.  Anyway, at the end of the day, it could be MS looking at a longer game who knows.

Microsoft already claimed at one point to regulators during the ABK battle that they have evidence that Sony paid to keep FF7 Remake off of Xbox. The game was originally supposed to be a 1 year timed exclusive according to advertising for the game, but 1 year came and went and still no Xbox port, and now it has almost been 2 years since the original timed exclusive period would have expired and still no Xbox port.

To be fair, I would not consider that enough evidence to make any real push in Japan.  MS would need something like a agreement that if Japan studios choose only sony or Nintendo they get benefits like reduce cost to publish on PS and other perks.  That would be the smoking gun MS would seek to get as then it would show that Sony make wide ranging deals to lock out MS from competing in Japan.