Sony Isn’t Returning Activision’s Calls, Says Bobby Kotick

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has recently faced a lot of hurdles in its completion. Doubts have always been there about whether it should happen or not, but reports suggest the UK will firmly block it from happening now. Bobby Kotick, who is the Activision CEO, responded to this on the CNBC business segment.

However, this wasn’t his only recent interview as he also talked to Fox Business about the acquisition. Answering a question about the competitors, the Activision CEO said that Sony hasn’t been answering his calls. Kotick said at a time when he wants to talk about future partnerships, the company is dodging him completely.

Bobby Kotick tells Fox Business “Sony won’t return our calls” and “This is the time when we’d normally be talking about future opportunities” 👀 https://t.co/PS0oADfnQR pic.twitter.com/bypU3lCkqT

— Everborn (NYCC ’24 Booth 2039) Saga (@EverbornSaga) February 8, 2023

It has been over 1 year since Microsoft announced it was purchasing Activision Blizzard. As anyone would expect, this deal has faced a lot of resistance from regulators and competitors. The FTC has been trying its best to block the deal even after the split vote in Microsoft’s favor.

European Union is also not a big fan of the acquisition and has already warned Microsoft. But, probably the most formidable opponent has been the UK CMA. According to reports, it is actually very close to blocking the Microsoft-Activision deal from happening.

Sony has played a big part in this as the company told the CMA this deal will give Microsoft a big advantage. It has become a significant opposition to this deal and Microsoft even served Sony a subpoena regarding the FTC trial. Hence, the Japanese company is smack in the middle of this drama and is also fighting the subpoena.

Activision’s CEO talked about the Xbox competitor in a recent interview. While talking to Fox Business, Bobby Kotick said that Sony is not picking up his calls. He said this while answering a question about competitors like Nintendo and Sony.

It’s funny Sony is not on the phone to us. They are not returning our phone calls.”

He went on to say that doing that at a time like this is surprising. Kotic explained that this is a time when he expected to talk about what the future would look like. Most probably hinting at partnerships to let Call of Duty stay on PlayStation.

But, they haven’t been returning Activision’s phone calls according to Kotick. Under the video Everborn Saga tweeted, fans are saying that maybe it is due to the subpoena litigation. So, it would be pretty embarrassing if the Activision CEO isn’t aware of that.

The thing surprising to us is that this is the time where ordinarily we would be talking about the future and new opportunities together for partnership but they just haven’t been returning our phone calls.”

In the interview, Kotick also said that the regulators have little experience in the gaming industry. According to the Activision CEO, the battle right now isn’t between the European and American companies. Rather, it is between the Asian and Western consumers, who are dominating.

It’s pretty clear that Bobby Kotick sees the domination of Asian companies like Tencent as the real competition. So, the European regulators and the US FTC should allow the deal to go through as the competition in Asia is far ahead. We have no idea if that will happen or not, but it will be interesting to see.