EPAThe Xbox stand at the German conference Gamescom
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 04:02
Xbox boss Phil Spencer has told Microsoft employees that it was never the intention to reveal a huge amount of company-sensitive information. “We all put a lot of passion and energy into our work and no one wants to sell that work in this way,” writes the CEO of Microsoft’s game console in an internal memo obtained by tech site The Verge.
Yesterday it became clear that a sensational amount of sensitive Xbox documents had been leaked in the lawsuit by the American competition authority FTC against the acquisition of game publisher Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. The documents revealed details about the next generation of Xbox consoles, which should apparently be released in 2028; information that competitors would like to know about.
It also became clear that work has been done on a new version of the existing Xbox Series The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in Fallout 3. Furthermore, e-mails were released showing that Spencer was talking glibly about a possible takeover of the Japanese gaming giant Nintendo, a major competitor.
‘Follow real plans’
In the internal memo in which Spencer responds to the sensitive leak, he suggests that not all leaked plans are no longer equally relevant. “I know this is very disappointing, even though many of the documents are more than a year old and plans have evolved.”
The Xbox boss also emphasizes this via X, the former Twitter. “We’ve seen conversations about old emails and documents. It’s sad to see our team’s work coming out in this way because so much has changed and there’s still so much to be excited about, or in the future. We will announce our real plans when we are ready.”
The court hearing the FTC case has responded to Microsoft’s unplanned revelations. According to the judge, the tech company itself accidentally released the documents by submitting them incorrectly. All documents have now been removed and Microsoft has to submit them again, but game journalists who have seen the documents are writing one article after another about it.
Astronomical amounts
By the way, the Xbox leak is not the only revealing leak in the American lawsuit over the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In June it was accidentally revealed that Xbox competitor Sony paid astronomical sums for its exclusive hit games The Last of Us: Part II in Horizon Forbidden West. Then it was because the documents had been sloppily edited and crossed-out amounts remained legible.
2023-09-20 02:02:32
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