by
William D’Angelo
, posted 2 days ago / 2,282 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan has told the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), reported by Eurogamer, that it wouldn’t want to share its plans for the PlayStation 6 and other future consoles with Activision Blizzard if Microsoft’s acquisition of the company would be approved.
Ryan said information on the next PlayStation console is “immensely sensitive.”
Sony “simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by a direct competitor having access to that information,” said Ryan. Sony is worried that its game development process would be interrupted as it “could no longer share confidential details about its next console in development.”
While Sony likely won’t officially announce the PS6 until a year or less before it releases, Sony does provide details and development kits to bigger publishers and developers ahead of time. This would allow for Call of Duty and other games to be launch titles for the PS6 and Ryan says the deal could prevent this for Call of Duty.
Ryan added this could mean games like Call of Duty would be more optimized for Xbox during this extra development time.
What is not mentioned is that two first-party PlayStation studios have games that are in development for the Xbox with one of them also releasing on the Nintendo Switch. Sony San Diego Studio now release the annual sports franchise, MLB The Show, on Xbox and Nintendo platforms. Bungie’s recently announced Marathon, is also coming to Xbox Series X|S. Microsoft would need to share development kits and details on its next console if they want these games available on them as soon as possible.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.