Lulu Cheng is the EVP of Corporate Affairs and CCO of Activision Blizzard. She isnt the most professional and has posted console war-esque memes on her twitter before. And has also actively union busted while downplaying the issues that occurened there, but I dont think she would make up a quote and attribute it to Jim Ryan while already leaking what was assumed confidential in a closed door meeting.
If instead of a fun, fictional meme-machine, Senator Armstrong was a real, very online evil girlboss, yes.
Shareholder's best bet for money is the merger. MS will have a vested interest in making COD a pain point for Sony with its player base if the merger falls thru because of it. They have plenty of funds and cause to lock up the marketing and early/exclusive content deal and probably even pay to get it on a game pass day one. They will 1000% make Xbox the best place to play COD if this merger falls thru. If there was no merger Sony gets that deal refreshed in 2024 no questions asked. Making big moves to block folks that block you is also apart of business or sony would never have bought shit like bungie.
The amount of masturbatory revenge fantasies we're going to have to read (already are reading) detailing how MS will do THIS or...THAT if the deal is blocked will be unreal(engine 5).
I'd rather the deal not go through at all and all Acti games stay multiplat than MS willing to "play ball" for just one IP.
I don't think much will happen between AB/Sony (and even less with MS/Sony) if this deal doesn't go through, but Nvidia's a clear example of industry grudge. Their persona non grata at Apple and possibly unwelcome at MS/Sony though.
This, but even if this deal was approved without any sort of remedy regarding COD, MS already has a deal with Nintendo, the game already isnt going to be exclusve to the xbox ecosystem anyways so might as well port to playstation to maximize the amount of money they make. Unless I guess MS holds some petty grudge over Sony for not signing their deal.
