In The Morning newsletter, German Lopez discusses the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) concerns about Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. Despite what FTC chairwoman Lina Khan and the Neo-Brandeisian Federal Trade Commission (FTC) argue, the possibility of bundling presented by this merger is in no way new to the video- game industry, nor is it worrisome.

Lopez cites the FTC’s claim that the merger would grant Microsoft “too big of an advantage over Sony,” potentially through the avenue of making the Call of Duty video-game franchise (owned by Activison) exclusive to Xbox consoles (owned by Microsoft). The reality is that Microsoft and Sony have been bundling their consoles with exclusive video games for decades, before their consoles had numbers and letters after their names: Microsoft’s Xbox has Halo, Gears of War, Forza, and Microsoft Flight Simulator and Sony’s PlayStation has The Last of Us, Marvel’s Spider-Man, God of War, Uncharted, and Infamous.

Anybody who has played video games since the turn of the millennium is familiar with this setup. Apparently, Lina Khan must be partial to Nintendo — virtually all of whose games are exclusive to its consoles. Exclusive bundling allows console makers to sell their hardware as loss leaders; i.e., for $200 less than the cost of production, according to Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, while still remaining profitable overall.

Lopez highlights the importance of Call of Duty to the FTC’s suit, particularly its concern that Microsoft would make it exclusive to its Xbox consoles (which Microsoft has promised not to do for a decade). However, as any gamer worth his (yes, his) salt will tell you, the last worthwhile title from that franchise was Black Ops. Data from Statista back up my claim: Lifetime sales of the series have plateaued from 2014 to 2022, with only 25 million unit sales generated between 2021 and 2022 compared with 100 million from 2019 to 2021. For comparison, the Sony exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man — of which there are two additional installments — grossed 33 million unit sales from 2020 to 2022, according to Statista data. And this is merely one of the PlayStation’s beloved exclusive titles.

Another piece of evidence in Microsoft’s favor: As Mr. Lopez helpfully notes in his newsletter, Sony’s video-game revenues are $16.5 billion, $4.2 billion more than Microsoft’s $12.3 billion. Adding Activision’s game revenues of $6.9 billion to Microsoft’s would actually reduce the disparity in revenue between the two console juggernauts by $1.5 billion to a difference of $2.7 billion, thereby increasing competition between the two firms.

The real travesty here is not one perpetrated by corporations against consumers but by ideologically motivated bureaucrats against both the consumer and the taxpayer.