<story><title>Email proves Microsoft&apos;s Activision bid is designed to eliminate Playstation</title><url>https://www.axios.com/2023/06/20/exhibit-k-microsoft-activision</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mcpackieh</author><text>Spoilers: &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;The contents of the message are redacted, but the plaintiffs say [...]&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The email may well prove that Microsoft has this plan, I certainly wouldn&amp;#x27;t put it past Microsoft.  It is in the established nature of Microsoft to behave in such anti-competitive ways, the shoe fits.  But when the plantiff is using circumstantial evidence to deduce what the email must have contained, I think it&amp;#x27;s quite a stretch to say the email &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;proves&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; anything.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mdasen</author><text>The email is also from 2019. It might still be worthwhile evidence, but it wouldn&amp;#x27;t really pertain to the Activision deal in particular.&lt;p&gt;If someone at Microsoft had sent an email a month before the Activision deal saying, &amp;quot;we want to crush the next-gen Playstation,&amp;quot; that could be evidence that the Activision deal is part of a plan to monopolize the market, but it could also simply be somewhat random nonsense puffery talk like when someone says &amp;quot;our graphics blow away the competition!&amp;quot; Given that it was sent back in 2019, the distance in time from the Activision deal makes it potentially less relevant.&lt;p&gt;The allegation is that the email is &amp;quot;uncontroverted evidence that Microsoft had the intention to put its main competition, the Sony PlayStation, out of the market.&amp;quot; What I want to know is whether the email is a somewhat innocuous, &amp;quot;we want to relegate the PlayStation to the status of an also-ran while we become the premier gaming console&amp;quot; or something more serious like &amp;quot;our strategy to drive Sony out of the market is by buying up independent publishers and then making their games platform-exclusives to the Xbox.&amp;quot; For the first one, I&amp;#x27;m sure I could dredge up communications at any company that are similar. For the second, it shows a clear danger to competition and the market.</text></comment>
<story><title>Email proves Microsoft&apos;s Activision bid is designed to eliminate Playstation</title><url>https://www.axios.com/2023/06/20/exhibit-k-microsoft-activision</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mcpackieh</author><text>Spoilers: &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;The contents of the message are redacted, but the plaintiffs say [...]&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The email may well prove that Microsoft has this plan, I certainly wouldn&amp;#x27;t put it past Microsoft.  It is in the established nature of Microsoft to behave in such anti-competitive ways, the shoe fits.  But when the plantiff is using circumstantial evidence to deduce what the email must have contained, I think it&amp;#x27;s quite a stretch to say the email &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;proves&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; anything.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>flutas</author><text>&amp;gt; But when the plantiff is using circumstantial evidence to deduce what the email must have contained&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not what&amp;#x27;s happening. It&amp;#x27;s sealed to the public, not the lawyers.&lt;p&gt;The article even mentions this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The passage appears to be from Exhibit K, a sealed document that the gamers’ lawyers and Microsoft’s attorneys have been arguing over.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In legal documents, Microsoft characterized the email as an “internal exchange” that should remain sealed; a Microsoft rep declined to comment further.</text></comment>