Goddamn Activision-Blizzard's response is spicy, they sound pissed and they make reference to Sony a few times.
Activision Blizzard said in its filing that the FTC "invented highly gerrymandered relevant product markets — including a 'high-performance console' market limited to Xbox and PlayStation consoles, as well as individual markets for multi-game subscriptions and cloud gaming — in an attempt to support its conclusory theories of harm."
The FTC's wildest supposition is that Activision content would be available on subscription and cloud gaming services if not for the merger. The FTC alleges that the Transaction would harm Xbox's competitors for multi-game subscription and cloud gaming services because Activision might otherwise one day make its content available to those companies. These allegations are not only facially speculative and conclusory, they are entirely divorced from the facts. Activision's aversion to multi-game subscriptions and cloud gaming is widely known in the industry and is supported by ample testimony and evidence in the investigative record in this case. The only plausible "but for" scenario here is that Activision's new releases would not be available on subscription or cloud gaming services at all absent the Transaction, meaning that Xbox's plans to bring Activision games to subscription and cloud can only be viewed as output enhancing and overwhelmingly procompetitive. A theory premised on the notion that Xbox can withhold from its competitors something they never would have had access to in the first place reeks of desperation and is destined for failure.
The FTC's disregard for these benefits to consumers and focus on supposed harms to Xbox's deep-pocketed competitors betrays a fundamental disconnect between the FTC's theories and the antitrust laws' underlying purpose, which is to protect competition, not competitors. The FTC is asking this Court to protect the world's largest gaming companies from further competition from Xbox, and thereby turning antitrust on its head. Blinded by ideological skepticism of high- value technology deals and by complaints from competitors, the FTC has not only lost sight of the realities of the intensely competitive gaming industry, but also the guiding principles of our nation's antitrust laws.
In particular, China-based gaming companies have been aggressively expanding in the U.S. by investing in U.S. gaming companies (e.g., Tencent's 40% stake in Epic Games, developer of Fortnite) and funding start-up gaming studios, all while enjoying protected access to the largest revenue opportunity in gaming at home in China. If Xbox were to cut off any of its platform competitors from Call of Duty, gamers using those platforms would simply move to alternative games instead. What's more, Sony has many high-quality existing games and an unrivaled war chest of intellectual property spanning movies, television, and music, upon which it can draw to develop even more games and franchises. If Xbox were to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation, Sony has more than enough weapons in its arsenal to continue to compete effectively.
(i) Xbox lacks the ability, let alone the incentive, to foreclose its competitors from Call of Duty. The FTC's conclusory allegations to the contrary ignore all available real- world evidence, resting instead on a purely hypothetical "but for" world that has no basis in reality;
(ii) The FTC's theory assumes that a gaming platform cannot succeed without Call of Duty. The notion that a single game or franchise is the key to the continued competitive vigor of the highly dynamic video game industry is facially absurd and contradicted by the plain facts; and
(iii) The FTC's alleged relevant markets are made up for this litigation and are entirely nonsensical.
Giving consumers high-quality content in more ways and at lower prices is what the antitrust laws are supposed to promote, not prevent.
20221222_9412_Resp_Activisions_Answer_PUBLIC.pdf
Microsoft also accused FTC of violating the U.S. Constitution multiple times, this is going to get nasty if it makes it to court.
Activision-Blizzard has no reason to hold back in tone, they're just dropping some truth bombs on FTC with a fuck you attitude, Lol.
