Microsoft and Activision Blizzard respond to FTC antitrust allegations

Microsoft has filed a for­mal response to the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion’s antitrust com­plaint seek­ing to block its $68.7 bil­lion acqui­si­tion of Activi­sion Bliz­zard. Microsoft oppos­es the agen­cy’s alle­ga­tions that the acqui­si­tion will deter com­pe­ti­tion in the gam­ing industry.

The com­pa­ny claimed that it would ben­e­fit consumers.

“Because the deal will allow con­sumers to play Activi­sion’s games on new plat­forms and access them in new and more afford­able ways, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion has warned that the deal will make con­sumers’ lives worse,” Microsoft said in a state­ment. We can­not meet the bur­den of prov­ing that.”

The FTC said ear­li­er this month that if the deal goes through, it will “allow Microsoft to elim­i­nate a com­peti­tor in its Xbox video game con­sole and its fast-grow­ing cloud-based games and con­tent dis­tri­b­u­tion business.”

The agency not­ed that Microsoft has ded­i­cat­ed some of Bethes­da’s titles (which par­ent com­pa­ny Zen­i­Max acquired last year) to its platform.

Microsoft con­firmed in its fil­ing that it plans to sell three Bethes­da titles exclu­sive­ly on Xbox and PC.

The names of those games weren’t dis­closed, but Starfield and Red­fall are only avail­able on Xbox, PC, and Xbox Cloud Gam­ing, and the FTC claims in its com­plaint that Microsoft plans to sell Elder Scrolls VI exclu­sive­ly as well.