Microsoft’s record takeover bid for video games giant Activision Blizzard has gone before a US federal court.
The Windows and Xbox maker wants to buy the company best known for the Call Of Duty, Warcraft, and Diablo franchises for $69bn (£54.2bn). It would be the largest tech acquisition ever.
But the UK competitions watchdog blocked it in April over concerns it would hurt competition in cloud gaming, and America’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said it would give Microsoft‘s platforms an unfair edge over rival PlayStation as they would secure exclusive access to Activision’s popular games.
Microsoft now has a five-day legal hearing to make its arguments to the FTC – and the case has already brought everything from Indiana Jones to sci-fi role-playing games into the focus of a courtroom.
Here are the key moments from day one – and what’s to come later.
Call Of Duty ‘could have skipped Xbox’
Call Of Duty, the long-running military shooter franchise, is one of the biggest prizes at stake for Microsoft if the acquisition goes through. The most recent entry in the series raked in $1bn in just 10 days.
But Microsoft’s Sarah Bond told the hearing on Thusday that the latest Xboxes risked missing out on the series, as Activision wanted a fresh deal that gave it a greater share of revenue earned by Xbox versions of the games.
She said: “It was clear Call Of Duty would be on PS5. That would not have been good if it was not also on Xbox.”
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Microsoft vows that under its ownership, Call Of Duty would remain on PlayStation, where the series sells most, but Sony claims its platform would eventually lose out.
Microsoft thinks new consoles are five years away
Gamersface a long wait for the next generation of consoles, if Microsoft’s prediction is correct.
In court documents, the company says it doesn’t expect the next Xbox or PS6 until 2028. This came up because Microsoft says it has offered Sony a 10-year deal for Call Of Duty, meaning it would appear on its next console.
A 2028 release would mean eight years after the launch of the current systems, the PS5 and Xbox Series X and S, which both released during the pandemic in late 2020.
Supply chain issues meant they have been hard to find until relatively recently, and demand remains strong.
Indiana Jones and the exclusivity deal
Never mind his new film, Indiana Jones is now making headlines thanks to video game deal-making.
An Indy game has been in the works at developer MachineGames for several years now. The team is part of the Bethesda Softworks company, which was bought by Microsoft for $7.5bn in 2020.
Speaking on Thursday, Bethesda’s Pete Hines revealed the game is Xbox and PC exclusive, even though the initial agreement with franchise owner Disney (before Microsoft’s acquisition) would have seen it release elsewhere.
But Hines also spoke to the benefits of being able to concentrate on fewer consoles, saying Bethesda’s upcoming science-fiction epic Starfield, one of the most anticipated of 2023, would not be releasing as soon as September if a PS5 version had also been made.
PlayStation and Xbox bosses up next
Friday will see PlayStation chief Jim Ryan and his Xbox counterpart Phil Spencer go head-to-head (no, not in a Zuckerberg vs Musk-style cage fight).
Spencer will be giving evidence live at the hearing, while Ryan will appear in a pre-recorded video.
It means he won’t face potentially awkward questions about an email revealed at Thursday’s hearing, in which he seemed to contradict his public stance by saying he’s “pretty sure” Call Of Duty will remain on PlayStation.
Still to come between now and the trial’s final day next week are the likes of Activision Blizzard and Microsoft chiefs Bobby Kotick and Satya Nadella.
Zayn Malik paid tribute to former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne as he kicked off his solo tour.
Payne died last month of multiple traumas and “internal and external haemorrhage” after falling from a third-floor balcony in Buenos Aires, according to a post-mortem.
Images from Leeds’s O2 Academy on Saturday showed Malik – who delayed his Stairway To The Sky tour due to Payne’s funeral on Wednesday – shared a tribute.
A message was displayed with a heart on a large blue screen behind the singer reading: “Liam Payne 1993-2024. Love you bro.”
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Rapper Ye – formerly known as Kanye West – has been accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit that alleges he strangled a model on the set of a music video.
Warning: This story contains details that readers may find distressing
The lawsuit alleges the musician shoved his fingers in the claimant’s mouth at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City in 2010, in what it refers to as “pornographic gagging”, Sky News’ US partner network NBC News reported.
The model who brought the case – which was filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York – was a background actor for another musician’s music video that Ye was guest-starring in, NBC said, citing the lawsuit.
She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the 47-year-old.
A representative for Ye was approached for comment by NBC News on Saturday.
The New York City Police Department said it took “sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a police report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors”.
The lawsuit alleges that a few hours into the shoot, the rapper arrived on set, took over control and ordered “female background actors/models, including the claimant, to line up in the hallway”.
The rapper is then believed to have “evaluated their appearances, pointed to two of the women, and then commanded them to follow him”.
The lawsuit adds the claimant, who was said to be wearing “revealing lingerie”, was uncomfortable but went with Ye to a suite which had a sofa and a camera.
When in the room, Ye is said to have ordered the production team to start playing the music, to which he did not know his lyrics and instead rambled, “rawr, rawr, rawr”.
The lawsuit claims: “Defendant West then pulled two chairs near the camera, positioned them across from each other, and instructed the claimant to sit in the chair in front of the camera.”
While stood over the model, the lawsuit clams Ye strangled her with both hands, according to NBC.
It claims he went on to “emulate forced oral sex” with his hands, with the rapper allegedly screaming: “This is art. This is f****** art. I am like Picasso.”
Universal Music Group is also named in the lawsuit as a defendant and is accused of failing to investigate the incident.
The corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment by NBC.
Jesse S Weinstein, a lawyer representing the claimant, said the woman “displayed great courage to speak out against some of the most powerful men and entities within the entertainment industry”.
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
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The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
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Bill Nighy ‘proud’ of new film on IVF breakthrough
“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November