Okay, so here’s the thing. The whole Microsoft and Activision deal? Yeah, it hit this weird legal wall, but then — poof! — it cleared right past it when the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said, “Nah, it’s cool.” The FTC was having a bit of a meltdown over it, maybe the last ones to care, honestly. But the court gave them a nod and said, “Nope, antitrust isn’t really a thing here.”
Right, so about this whole drama — turns out, it’s like one of those twisty stories where Sony somehow ends up grinning at the end. Bloomberg mentioned how a judge, Daniel P. Collins (sounds important, right?), basically laid it out: FTC didn’t have a strong leg to stand on. The whole exclusive games thing? It’s sort of how the industry rolls. Judge Collins pointed out that everyone’s doing it — Sony, Nintendo, you name it. They’ve got way more exclusive stuff than Microsoft ever did. Imagine that, right?
And here’s a kicker — the court was like, yo FTC, you didn’t really convince us that Microsoft would lock down games like Call of Duty from competitors. So just like that, the case fizzled out.
But what’s funny — or maybe not funny, more like ironic or whatever — is that Sony’s likely having a little party over this. Who would’ve thought, huh? Xbox started sharing the love, tossing big exclusives onto PS5, like Gears of War. Microsoft switched lanes and went all “multiplatform” on us. Maybe they thought diversifying would keep the cash coming in. Or, maybe — and who really knows — it was just chaos magic.
