Sony’s Playstation data leaked: court documents were not properly redacted

After an embarrassing mistake, classified information about Sony’s Playstation deals has come to light. The reason for this: an insufficiently redacted court document.

Microsoft must answer to the US Trade Commission, the “Federal Trade Commission” or “FTC” for short, and prove that the planned acquisition of “Activision Blizzard” is not anti-competitive, ie not monopolistic.

As part of this procedure, Sony has provided information about its Playstation business. As is customary in such proceedings, these were uploaded to the public domain by the “FTC”. However, the documents seem to have only been blackened with a felt-tip pen. When scanning the documents, the blackened parts became more legible again through the scanner light. The FTC pulled the documents from the web as soon as they noticed. But by then it was already too late – and as we all know, the internet never forgets.

Playstation vs Xbox

“Activison Blizzard” is a game development studio and produces the “Call of Duty” series, among others. The lawsuit is mainly about the CoD games. Sony fears that if Microsoft acquires “Activison”, the shooting games will only be available exclusively on Microsoft’s Xbox.

According to Sony, this would mean a monopoly for Microsoft and its Xbox game console. The American “FTC” and the British Trade Commission, among others, agree. Data from Sony has also been made available in the ongoing lawsuit. The confidential documents show how much Playstation benefits from the “Call of Duty” franchise.

“Call of Duty” in numbers

One of the leaked documents states – as far as we can decipher it – that in 2021 more than 32 million users played “Call of Duty” in the US alone. There are even 68 million worldwide. According to the document, direct sales are $800 million in the US and $1.5 billion worldwide. Sony Interactive Entertainment also calculates that Call of Duty players spend an average of $13.9 or $15.9 billion – the number is not clear in the document – on Playstation-related services.

In another fully redacted excerpt, deciphered by The Verge’s Sean Hollister, Sony describes the use of Call of Duty players.

The text is apparently intended to show the extent to which Sony and the Playstation depend on the revenue generated by “Call of Duty”.

That’s how much blockbuster games cost

In another part of the leaked documents, Sony discusses how expensive it is to develop the so-called AAA games. AAA-Games, pronounced Triple-A-Games, is a colloquial term for the biggest budget video games. The games are the game equivalent of blockbusters.

The document shows that the Playstation Exclusive game “Horizon Forbidden West”, released in 2022, cost $212 million to produce and employed more than 300 people at its peak. The production of “The Last of Us Part II” – another game exclusively available on the Playstation – apparently even cost $ 220 million and at its peak employed more than 200 game developers.

(ears)