Again, did anyone actually claim that AB doesn't have a devkit? Or is this just based on Kotick saying he isn't familiar with the detailed specifications?
No one has explicitly claimed that AB doesn't have a devkit. But Kotick doesn't seem to have said that
he wasn't familiar with the specs but that Activision "would consider it once we had the specs."
The FTC, in this line of questioning, is trying to establish two things. One, that this merger would make Kotick, personally, half a billion dollars, and his analysis of what would be good for AB shareholders cannot be trusted. Two, that MS doesn't want
CoD for it's revenue stream, they want
CoD because of how it can be used as a bludgeon against Sony.
Key to establishing both of these is to demonstrate that Kotick is now supporting business plans under this merger that he was opposed to
before the merger. If Kotick is making a 180 on how profitable
CoD on cloud or Switch would be, then Kotick's analysis is untrustworthy. And if Activision has reason to believe
CoD on these platforms would not increase shareholder value, then that supports MS wanting Activision for something other than its revenue.
As rich as MS is, they still have limited cash. If MS spends 100 million to bring CoD to Switch/Cloud, that's 100 million it's
not spending on new games. And if Activision has analysis saying that investing in Switch/Cloud is
less profitable than investing that same cash in new games, then MS must want it for some reason other than profitability - namely that it can be used as cudgel against Sony.
Kotick's defense on the cloud question is "partners can have a difference of philosophical opinion." That he, personally, thinks that GamePass would not be worth the cash investment for Activision, but that it's a sufficiently controversial question that supporting the MS merger, even as MS intends to put CoD on GamePass, doesn't actually represent a 180 from him.
His defense on the Nintendo question is that Activision would, in fact, consider
CoD on [redacted], and that he doesn't have analysis saying it would be a bad investment, because they never did that analysis. Why did they not do the analysis, if you absolutely would consider it, the FTC reasonably asks. "I think we would consider it once we had the specs."
Weirdly, this has created a situation where if AB has a devkit, they're pretty fucked. If they've got a devkit, and didn't bother to analyze
CoD at all, then likely AB has decided that Nintendo's platform isn't profitable regardless of the install base or the porting costs. If they have a devkit and they
did analyze the feasibility of
CoD and then lied about it, the FTC is reasonably going to ask why, and if it conflicts with MS's public statements on the matter.
To be clear, the FTC knows if AB has a devkit, via discovery. They would have heard it from AB, and AB would be
heavily motivated to be honest about, not just because, you know, lots of people going to jail who are
not executives, but also because the FTC, as well as the EU and the UK's regulatory body have taken depositions from Nintendo. So even if AB doesn't say they've got a devkit, Nintendo would have told any number of regulatory bodies. This isn't a thing that AB can hide.
So, to sum up, while Kotick hasn't explicitly denied that AB has a devkit, that is, in context, the only way to read his denial in the line of questioning, and it represents a central enough pillar that there is little chance that Kotick has fudged things.
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