PlayStation's Jim Ryan met with regulators to discuss Activision deal

Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan reportedly met with European regulators in Brussels to discuss the ramifications of Microsoft's mega-billion merger with Activision-Blizzard.

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Sony's Jim Ryan is believed to have met directly with European Commission regulators that are currently overseeing the approval of gaming's biggest merger. Ryan has publicly voiced his opposition to Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion, with Call of Duty's exclusivity at heart of Ryan's arguments.

Ryan has publicly confirmed that Microsoft had plans to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation 3 years after Activision's current contracts had ended. This has likely been noticed and recorded by regulators as a key point to consider; the UK's Commission for Markets Authority (CMA) had also stated concerns about exclusivity.

It's unknown exactly what Ryan and his legal representation told regulators, but the CEO likely came prepared with lots of data and figures that won't be publicly released. We expect Ryan brought up how integral Call of Duty has been for the PlayStation brand, which is something we outlined here, and how massive the franchise really is.

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Call of Duty has made over $30 billion to date and is set to expand to unprecedented levels with the release of Modern Warfare 2 and the upcoming Warzone 2.

Another further argument that Sony could make is focusing on Microsoft's pioneering efforts in cloud gaming. Microsoft has used its Xbox Game Pass framework to help push its cloud gaming initiative as an additive bonus to the value-oriented subscription, but one point is that Microsoft streams to mobiles, whereas Sony doesn't. Microsoft is set to significantly capitalize on the Activision-Blizzard buyout on all fronts--many of which that Sony has yet to really compete in like mobile gaming and live service titles.

It's been reported that Google has also voiced its concerns about the Activision-Blizzard merger. We've outlined how Google could actually make a compelling case against Microsoft's buyout offer in this article.

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• Call of Duty will eventually be kept off PlayStation, Jim Ryan says