Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said that Sony is "trying to sabotage" Microsoft's proposed $69 billion takeover.
In an interview with Financial Times, Kotick said that Sony's leadership, including Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan, have "stopped talking" with both Activision and Microsoft.
He said that, "the whole idea that we are not going to support a PlayStation or that Microsoft would not support the PlayStation, it is absurd."
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"I think this is all Sony just trying to sabotage the transaction,” said Kotick.
Despite this, the Activision Blizzard CEO appears confident that the acquisition will go through.
Speaking with the CNBC, Kotick also remarked on the scrutiny from the FTC, EU and the CMA over the deal. He said that, "Whether it’s the FTC or the CMA or the EU, they don’t know our industry, so they’re trying to come up to speed and understand the industry better."
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Kotick said that the authorities are "confused where competition is today," and Japanese companies like Sony and Nintendo, "have these huge libraries of intellectual properties. Sony studios goes back 80 years, Nintendo has the very best characters that exist in video games."
"We’ve struggled to enter the Japanese market, we can’t enter the Chinese market without a joint venture partner, so the competition isn’t actually European companies, American companies, it’s really those companies in Japan and China," Kotick added.
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