“I would love to get rid of the entire sort of exclusives on consoles… I have no love for that world”: Microsoft CEO Makes Surprising Admission During FTC Trial
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was recently on the witness stand at the ongoing trial between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission. During this trial there has been huge debate the the subject of exclusivity and Nadella didn’t hold back with his feelings on the matter with the following statement on the topic;
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“If it was up to me, I would love to get rid of the entire sort of exclusives on consoles, but that’s not up to me to define. Especially as a low share player in the console market that the dominant player there has defined market competition using exclusives, and so that’s that’s the world we live in… I have no love for that world.”
We think that it is pretty obvious that the dominant player that Nadella is referring to is Sony. And given the catalogue of impressive exclusive titles that Sony have in their catalogue – God of War, Spiderman and Horizon Zero Dawn, to name but a few. It’s clear that Nadella feels slightly aggrieved with their operating practices.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella – Where did this statement come from?
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella would get rid of exclusives if he had his way
For those who aren’t aware, Microsoft are currently engaged in an ongoing trial at Federal Court with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), who last December blocked the company’s proposed $68.7billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. Last week, a Federal Court in California issued a temporary restraining order which prevents the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, for now.
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What we know from this week’s Trial is that the FTC seek to impose a preliminary injunction and if successful, would mean that Microsoft would be unable to complete their acquisition of Activision Blizzard whilst the ongoing review of the United States Anti-trust law is underway.
Also in this ongoing Federal Court Trial, there was testimony from Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and when asked about whether Activision had any plans to make Call of Duty exclusive to one platform, he had the following to say;
“No.”
“You would alienate over 100 million monthly active players. Half of them play on phones, but the rest of them play on computer and PlayStation, and you would have a revolt if you were to remove the game from more than one platform. “
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick made his feelings known about the subject of exclusivity at the ongoing FTC Trial
We can see that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick share a similar mindset for their companies and their titles, in that they do not feel having them exclusive to singular platforms is the way forward. And Nadella had this to say about the general philosophy for Microsoft, stating that they should be putting software on more platforms, not fewer. He was quoted as saying;
“That’s the Microsoft I grew up in, I believe in that.”
What do you make of these comments? With the lack of competition exclusives provide, would the overall product actually be better? Or would you just be glad to be able to boot up your Xbox Series X and play God of War? Let us know in the comments!
