2023-06-29 08:35:00
Sony’s highly confidential information about its dealings with PlayStation has just been mistakenly revealed. As part of the FTC v. Microsoft, Sony provided a document by PlayStation boss Jim Ryan that includes redacted details about the margins Sony shares with publishers, its Call of Duty revenues, and even the cost of developing some of its games.
The issue here is that whoever censored some parts of the documents did so with a black Sharpie pen, which when scanned allows you to see the content behind the ink.
The court scrambled to remove the document, but the damage is done; reporters and Sony competitors have already downloaded all the documents while they were in the public domain. Among other things, the document shows that “Horizon Forbidden West” apparently cost $212 million over five years with 300 employees, and “The Last of Us Part 2” cost $220 million with about 200 employees.
Sony also said that 1 Million PlayStation Players Play Nothing But “Call of Duty”as the following excerpt points out:
“By 2021, more than [14?] million users (by device) spent 30% or more of their time playing Call of Duty, over 6 million users spent more than 70% of their time on Call of Duty, and nearly 1 million users spent 100% of their game time in Call of Duty. In 2021, Call of Duty players spent an average of [116?] hours a year playing Call of Duty. Call of Duty players who spend more than 70% of their time on Call of Duty spend an average of 296 hours on the franchise.”
Sony provided this information in an attempt to show that its revenues would be heavily impacted if Call of Duty was an Xbox exclusive. In several filings with regulators, Sony has stated that it fears Microsoft could make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox or even sabotage PlayStation versions of the game.
She also accidentally revealed how much money Call of Duty is worth for the PlayStation. We already knew that the value was over a billion dollars, but the document suggests that CoD was worth US$ 800 million for PlayStation revenue in the United States alone during 2021 – the estimate is that it is worth US$ 1.5 billion globally. And that’s just the game alone, but when you include accessories, subscriptions and everything else, that jumps to (what looks to our eyes) $15.9 billion a year — or maybe $13.9 billion.
The document also reveals that Sony only has one more Call of Duty game left as part of its exclusive marketing deal with Activision. “[O] last game covered by the contract is a Call of Duty title to be released in late 2023,” reads part of Jim Ryan’s document that was not properly worded.
Sony also says that about half of PS5 owners also own a Nintendo Switch. The FTC and Microsoft have been continually arguing over whether the Switch is a competitor to the Xbox and PS5 during this hearing, and Sony’s data is even clearer evidence of the composition of console ownership in the US.
According to internal SIE research, nearly half of PlayStation 5 owners in the US also own a Nintendo Switch, while less than 20% of PlayStation 5 owners in the US also own an Xbox Series X or S.
Sony isn’t the only one affected by document redaction issues. A confidential Microsoft document revealed all of the company’s Xbox acquisition targets earlier this week, and now that document is gone and replaced with a heavily edited version.
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