Millie Amand, an entertainment media data analyst, recently claimed via a tweet that Sony actually had a planned showcase for October 20, but it is delaying all showcase plans to avoid drawing attention to upcoming exclusive titles to PlayStation 5, as the company believes revealing any new exclusive title could add more weight to Microsoft's recent response to UK's CMA.As the analyst claims, Sony was supposed to announce a PlayStation showcase for October 20 earlier this month on October 11, but an official statement by the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority regarding the existence of a real threat to open competition in console gaming as a result of Activision-Blizzard's acquisition by Microsoft convinced Sony to delay its plans to showcase any new exclusive titles.
Actually, Microsoft responded to CMA's concerns by mentioning the fact that Sony is exaggerating the importance of Call of Duty, and the current stance of Sony in the console gaming market is much higher than that of Xbox. Microsoft claimed that even after the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard they will still remain behind PlayStation and Nintendo in the console gaming market.
Currently, UK's CMA has decided to start the second phase of investigation on Microsoft's proposed deal with Activision-Blizzard, and Sony does seem to do whatever it can to get the deal rejected by the regulatory.
As reported earlier, Sony Interactive Entertainment's CEO Jim Ryan apparently flew to Brussels earlier in September 2022 to have an in-person meeting with the headquarters of EU regulation of competition to discuss his concerns about Microsoft's possible acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.
Microsoft needs at least 20 approvals from different completion regulators around the world, of which the company has already earned two from Saudi Arabia and Brazil. It remains unknown how UK and EU will approach the deal in the end, but it does seem to be one of the toughest deals for Microsoft in history.
Microsoft has promised to keep Call of Duty accessible for PlayStation users for several years beyond the internal contract between Sony and Activision, however, all Activision-Blizzard games are expected to appear on Game Pass once the deal goes through.