Of course he doesn't like it.
In his world exclusivity is for japanese companies, not XBOX or PC.
But he can't call it anticompetitive because exclusivity is all he has to peddle and calling it anticompetitive is inviting the FTC, CMA, and EU to come after him.
His biggest problem, though, is that even with Activision on their Side, XBOX would only rise to fourth in global gaming, behind Tencent, Nintendo, and Sony.
And that would be a much easier anti-trust case, given Sony's practices.
If the FTC weren't run by ideologues, they would've gone after Sony *before* MS went after Activision. Then they'd have a leg to stand on. But going after MS/Activision now is carrying water for Sony. Bad optics, worse economics.
The FTC might have had a case if MS were executing a hostile takeover of a healthy, well regarded company. But that's not Activision, which had so many problems it put *itself* up for sale when its stock was some 35% off peak and looking to drop further. The whole saga is well documented here and elsewhere.
What the judge is going to see when Kotick testifies is that MS is coming in as an off-white knight, paying full value (though not a significant premium) for a distressed property that was not going to see that stock valuation for years, if ever again.
As bad as a lost would be for MS ($3B worth of cash and a lost year in M&A) it would be devastating for Activision and its stockholders. And worst still for consumers if the FTC blocks the growth of game pass.
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