Some pretty troubling remarks from PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan to Activision executives were unearthed yesterday in a Twitter conversation with Tom Warren of The Verge. Activision Blizzard CCO and EVP of Corporate affairs Lulu Cheng Meservey told Warren that Ryan told Activision execs “I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger.”
The remarks apparently came at Brussels back in February. If they are indeed accurate, then it’s a clear demonstration of bad faith on the part of the PlayStation CEO, and stark contradiction to the face Sony has been putting on for regulators.
The CEO of SIE answered that question in Brussels.
In his words:
"I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger.”— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey) March 8, 2023
This comes as some pretty wild claims from Sony were also revealed in the CMA’s most recent filings. In this latest round of responses between Microsoft and Sony, the latter implied that Microsoft would be able to sabotage Call of Duty’s success on PlayStation by purposefully introducing bugs into the PS versions of games.
While it’s probably needless to say at this point, the ongoing drama over Microsoft’s pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard King keeps getting spicier by the day, it seems. Sony’s suggestion that Microsoft would intentionally hamper what would be one of it’s own IPs seems pretty out there. Anyways, be sure to check back in, as we’ll keep you posted on more Activision Blizzard news as it happens.