Replying to the FTC's lawsuit, Microsoft bizarrely claims not to know when Call of Duty was first released or have details on Activision's budget and resources
But now that gamers and regulators are worrying Microsoft might keep Call of Duty from appearing on Sony's PlayStation …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's FTC defense has been escalating for weeks: after its December rebuttal argued the deal wouldn't hurt competition and that it isn't even the top game developer, the company followed with a 10-year pledge to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo Switch and a matching decade-long offer to Sony. This new reply extends that playbook into stranger territory — pleading ignorance about when Call of Duty first shipped and what Activision spends on it.
The feigned amnesia matters because it sits awkwardly against Microsoft's own lobbying: president Brad Smith had already been publicly defending a 10-year Call of Duty commitment to Sony as proof the franchise would stay multiplatform. A company simultaneously courting regulators with the franchise's reach and telling the FTC it barely knows the franchise is handing opponents an easy contradiction.
First-order effects
- The FTC now has to litigate around Microsoft's claimed ignorance — if Call of Duty's history and Activision's budgets are genuinely unknown to the acquirer, discovery becomes the battleground for establishing what the deal actually buys.
- Sony gains fresh ammunition: Microsoft's own 10-year offers treat Call of Duty as valuable enough to guarantee for a decade, undercutting the same filing's suggestion the franchise is too obscure to matter.
Second-order effects
- The UK CMA, already told by Microsoft that ten years is long enough for Sony to build Call of Duty alternatives, gets a parallel data point showing Microsoft argues the opposite of whatever serves each regulator — complicating coordinated approval across jurisdictions.
- Nintendo's position sharpens: its first-ever Switch Call of Duty deal exists only pending FTC approval, so every filing that diminishes the franchise's importance also weakens the value of the concession Microsoft is trading for clearance.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, major merger defenses will keep leaning on strategic self-deprecation — acquirers arguing their own weakness and the target's insignificance — forcing regulators to rely on discovery rather than company representations to size competitive harm.
The trend: Antitrust fights over gaming consolidation are increasingly decided in dueling filings where the acquirer minimizes its own strength, with Microsoft's console-share admissions and Call of Duty amnesia as the template.