Sony accuses Microsoft of ‘obvious harassment’ in latest FTC court filing

You know, I’m not sure the console dads will ever share a stage again (opens in new tab). Mere days after Bobby Kotick accused Sony of “trying to sabotage” Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the pages of the Financial Times, Sony has come out and accused Microsoft of “obvious harassment” (via Axios (opens in new tab)) in a recent filing to the US Federal Trade Commission (opens in new tab) (FTC).

It’s not quite harassment in the way you or I would understand it: Microsoft hasn’t been spamming Sony with abusive texts. But as part of the lengthy and ongoing litigation between the two companies over the Activision acquisition, the Xbox maker has requested access to all sorts of normally-private internal Sony documents to help it make its case. In its filing to the FTC, Sony claimed that one particular request—a “demand for performance reviews for SIE’s leadership”—was so far outside the scope of the dispute that it was tantamount to “obvious harassment” of Sony by Microsoft. Won’t someone think of the Sony executives?