It appears that Sony's blockade of Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard will not go unnoticed, after some members of the US Congress began attacking it and accusing it of exercising a monopoly in the Japanese market.

In a report published by the American newspaper Politico, the Democratic senator Maria Cantwell I mentioned this during a Senate Finance Committee hearing last Thursday. While the U.S. Trade Representative called Catherine Tay Bring the issue to Japan through joint trade negotiations.

Cantwell's position was supported by two letters, the first from four Republican members of Congress and the other from six Democrats. Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called for necessary action to hold Sony accountable.

The accusation leveled at Sony is that it has exclusive agreements with third-party publishers that are set up to ensure that the Xbox never has a chance to reach gamers in Japan.

According to Cantwell's statements, I have obtained information from reliable sources that Sony controls 98% of the Japanese market. While obtaining facilities from the Japanese government to strike exclusive deals with local publishers, her statement stated the following:

We know that Sony, which holds 98% of the market, pays third-party game publishers not to make their content available on Xbox platforms and systematically negotiates exclusivity deals that keep Japan's most popular games off the Xbox.

Sony has secured several distinct titles from third-party developers and publishers for exclusive release on PlayStation platforms in recent years, some of which came from Japanese publishers. One of the most prominent examples of this is the company's relationship with Square Enix, which saw Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy XVI released exclusively on PlayStation platforms and away from Xbox platforms.

So far, we don't know whether Microsoft will use these documents against Sony to approve the acquisition of Activision.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Accion that Sony's anti-competitive positions need to be addressed and discussed, and that further investigations are welcome to ensure a level playing field in the video game industry.

Recently, the British Competition Market Monitoring Authority began to backtrack on its stance against the acquisition deal, stating that the deal does not pose any threat or imbalance in the competitive balance in the local market.

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