Game company Microsoft has now admitted in a court filing that it has “lost the console” ahead of its legal battle with US antitrust agency the Federal Trade Commission.
Microsoft is currently in court to defend its $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal against the FTC. The latter is currently fighting to block this deal from ever happening with an injunction ahead of its own internal deliberations. If they win, then this will be a big setback for Microsoft.
According to a new report via The Verge, the admission of defeat by Microsoft was part of a heavily redacted court filing intended to supplement the five-day case. It was meant to portray the company as the underdog in the console market.
“Xbox’s console has consistently ranked third (of three) behind PlayStation in sales,” Microsoft wrote in its filing. It added Xbox only has a 16 percent market share, and “trails” with 21 percent of consoles revenues and shares of consoles currently used by gamers.
“Xbox has lost the console wars,” Microsoft continued, “and its rivals are positioned to continue to dominate, including by leveraging exclusive content. Xbox has consistently ranked third in consoles behind PlayStation and Nintendo”.
Microsoft has been doing this type of strategy for a few times already and has been successful many times. Some of them during a battle with other regulators around the world. It seems the company is hoping this would help out in letting them win its current legal battle with the FTC.