Microsoft

Microsoft says it has no idea when Call of Duty first released during FTC trial hearings

Microsoft’s answer to the FTC during the trials’ first official hearings claims that the tech company lacks knowledge about a wide variety of information about Call of Duty.

Update: Jan 3rd, 2023 17:01 CET

Well, it seems like we’ll keep getting some juicy tidbits of information about Activision Blizzard’s acquisition by Microsoft, since the unbelievable news just keep coming. It’s been over a year since the company behind Xbox officially announced their offer of almost 70 billion dollars for the purchase of the house of Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, something the made Playstation (and fans in general) worry about the future of the industry, since some of the biggest franchises ever was part of the deal.

However, Microsoft continues to diminish the importance of Call of Duty to convince regulator organizations that the deal should go through. This has caused the FTC to intervene, since they seem to understand the franchise’s relevance and influence on the video game market… but they’ve claimed Microsoft denies all of it. Or at least, that's how it looks like from the company’s recent answers during their hearings.

In the transcript found below, the FTC claims that “Activision and industry participants recognize Call of Duty as Activision’s ‘key product franchise.’ Call of Duty was originally launched in 2003, and Activision releases new titles for the franchise on an annual basis. Activision allocates substantial resources to the franchise. As many as [redacted] primary development studios are devoted to it at any one time and its budget is significantly larger than other AAA titles.”

The FTC claimed Call of Duty is a popular, profitable, and successful video game franchise. Microsoft's response is that it has no knowledge of Call of Duty revenues and demands all sourcing. Extremely nasty and petty. pic.twitter.com/ISZFv7bs9K
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 23, 2022

Microsoft’s surprising answer

To this, Microsoft’s lawyers responded quickly, but their claims are hard to believe:

“Microsoft avers that it lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of allegations concerning industry perceptions of Call of Duty and Call of Duty’s original release date; or as to the truth of the allegations concerning Call of Duty’s launch and typical release schedule and the resources and budget Activision allocates to Call of duty, including the number of studios that work on Call of Duty.”

It seems this fight is far from over. Microsoft recently offered PlayStation a guarantee of having Call of Duty on their consoles for ten years, even including an offer to put it up on PS Plus, but the company has not responded publicly as of this moment.

Source | The Verge