Sony won't share PS6 plans with an Xbox-owned Activision Blizzard

PlayStation boss Jim Ryan says that Sony won't share "immensely sensitive" PlayStation 6 information with an Xbox-owned Activision, according to a deposition with the FTC.

An FTC deposition with PlayStation boss Jim Ryan in April says that Sony would not share "immensely sensitive" details about its next console with Activision if it was owned by Xbox.

Sony won't share "immensely sensitive" console details with an Xbox-owned Activision

As shared by Axios' Stephen Totilo on Twitter, a transcript from an FTC deposition with Jim Ryan on April 6 says that Sony won't share "immensely sensitive" details with Activision Blizzard if Microsoft's proposed acquisition is approved.

While we don't learn about new consoles until close to launch, companies share the details with game developers early on so they can optimize their games for the new hardware. This leads to games like Call of Duty becoming launch titles for the platforms, but Jim Ryan says Sony "simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by a direct competitor having access to that information."

Ryan also raised concerns that Activision could have less of an incentive to implement PlayStation features in its games, such as haptic feedback, if Microsoft's acquisition goes through, saying, "that division would not be incentivized to develop games that take advantage of features that PlayStation has or that Xbox does not."

We'll report on any other details that may emerge during Microsoft's battle with the FTC, so stay tuned.

Industry News

Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.