Microsoft accuses the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of violating its Fifth Amendment due process rights in blocking its attempt to acquire Activision-Blizzard, one of the largest game development and publishing companies in the world. Microsoft added that the FTC had violated Microsoft’s right to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.
Microsoft filed a response on Thursday in an antitrust lawsuit brought by US regulators seeking to stop the software manufacturer from buying video game publisher Activision Blizzard, saying that the agreement would not hurt competition.
The Federal Trade Commission filed the suit earlier this month seeking to block its attempt to acquire Activision-Blizzard, alleging the $69 billion deal, the largest in video-game history they think it would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors in its Xbox gaming console, Microsofts subscription-gaming business, and its cloud-gaming operations. In defending itself from the FTC’s suit, Microsoft’s legal counsel has compiled a lengthy document outlining Microsoft’s issues with the suit.
In its complaint, released today, the FTC pointed out Microsoft Corp’s track record of buying up and using valuable game content to stifle competition with competing consoles, including its purchase of ZeniMax, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, a prominent game developer. The suit argues that, by limiting access to certain games, Activision Blizzard’s purchase of Microsoft would suppress competition. Microsoft’s response further claims that Microsoft’s success in the cloud and subscription sectors generating revenue of several billion dollars, built upon the network of studios in Xbox and relationships with other video game publishers would not affect competitors developing their own services.
Acquiring it would put Microsoft in the position to make the Call of Duty series Microsofts exclusive, but the company has reiterated repeatedly it has no plans to do so. The organization has nonetheless reiterated multiple times that Microsoft has no plans to pursue making COD and Xbox only. It is unclear at this point if any takeover would happen, and if a retraction would make a difference in the FTC’s intention to block it.
It also rebutted claims the agreement will hinder growth in any industry within the gaming industry, with Microsoft saying that the FTC has no supporting evidence that suggests any competitive harm would occur once the agreement is closed. After offering tons of concessions to affected parties, Microsoft is now taking on the FTC and sweeping aside its excessively speculative claims in the complaint, adding that they are in violation of the Constitution. This is especially the case since Microsoft Corp. has denied the actions charged in the U.S. complaint.
If opening an increasingly large marketplace back up to competition is admittedly difficult after a firm has achieved monopoly status, the Government has failed to demonstrate how a future ban on infringing practices that contributed to Microsofts attaining its monopoly status would work to restore the marketplace to the place that it would be if it did not engage in anticompetitive practices. Now that Microsoft has gutted its complaint by Microsofts robust responses, the FTC’s position has likely suffered a deeper puncture, diminishing its chances of winning this case. After Seeing this, Microsoft said the FTC was violating Article Two of the U.S. Constitution and the FTCs suit was violating Article Three of the U.S. Constitution (that is, the one that sets up the organizing framework of the U.S. legal system).
The Federal Trade Commissions suit says Microsoft promised the European Commission that Microsoft had no incentive to stop people playing games from ZeniMax, the gaming publisher that Microsoft acquired in 2021, on non-Xbox consoles, but once the EU Commission approved the ZeniMax deal, the company said it was going to make certain ZeniMax games exclusive.
