The development of so-called blockbuster games devours many millions of US dollars, that is well known. But documents submitted to the court reveal exactly how much Sony is charging for this. Their details were actually blacked out for reasons of secrecy, but could still be deciphered after scanning. According to this, games like “Horizon Forbidden West” and “The Last of Us Part II” each cost over 200 million dollars.
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Sony has submitted the documents in the US antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard in order to underline the importance of individual titles for the competition. Sony fears that Microsoft could release important games exclusively for PC and Xbox consoles, thereby turning the console market in its favor. However, Microsoft has repeatedly assured Sony that it will continue to offer “Call of Duty” titles on the Playstation for years to come.
Call of Duty as Sony’s sales driver
The court documents demonstrate the importance of Call of Duty to Sony. The series generated 800 million dollars in sales on the Playstation in the USA alone. Globally it should be $1.5 billion that year, but that’s not easy to decipher. According to this, more than 6 million players have spent more than 70 percent of their time on the Playstation with Call of Duty and around one million Playstation gamers play this title exclusively.
The development of new titles for game consoles is also expensive, like the from The Verge viewed court documents show. For example, “Horizon Forbidden West” cost $212 million and employed 300 people over five years. “The Last of Us Part II” was even more expensive at $220 million and required 200 full-time employees. These games have sold over 8 and 10 million copies, respectively.
Many PS5 owners also have a Switch
It is also noteworthy that almost half of all Playstation 5 owners also own a Nintendo Switch game console. That would show Sony’s internal studies. However, only 20 percent of PS5 owners would also own an Xbox Series X or S from Microsoft, according to the documents that have since been withdrawn by the court.
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The FTC procedure has recently produced some interesting details of the industry through documents submitted by those involved. According to a Microsoft presentation from last year, Microsoft wants to move Windows 11 completely to the cloud. Other court documents revealed that Microsoft wasn’t just targeting Bethesda and Activision for Xbox in 2020. Sega and Bungie were also among takeover targets. It is not known why Microsoft ultimately decided against the purchase.
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