PlayStation Plus free games blocked by Xbox, new documents find

Who knew that court battles could be so exciting? Microsoft is currently in court against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to fight for its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard to go ahead, and the trial has aired pretty much all of the games industry drama that you could possibly imagine.

In the last few days, we've found out that the Xbox Series X/S nearly missed out on Call of Duty releases altogether, that Microsoft seriously considered trying to acquire Sega, and that DayZ 2 was (and might still be) in development at Bohemia Interactive. And that barely scratches the surface of everything that’s been uncovered.

Next month, PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to claim Alan Wake Remastered as part of their subscription. Take a look at the trailer below.

Now, according to Gaming Route, badly redacted court documents submitted by Sony have revealed that Microsoft signed exclusivity deals to guarantee certain titles coming to Xbox Game Pass as day one releases. Furthermore, it’s claimed that these deals aimed to stop the games in question from releasing on rival subscription services. While it apparently wasn’t directly named, PlayStation Plus is certainly the best example of a rival for Xbox Game Pass, which strongly implies that Sony’s subscription service could have missed out on certain games in the past.

The documents reportedly didn’t name any specific games that have been affected by the alleged deals, so we have no idea what titles PS Plus subscribers could have missed out on. Last year though, during another investigation into Microsoft’s proposed buyout of Activision, Microsoft claimed that Sony pays for “blocking rights to prevent developers from adding content to Game Pass and other competing subscription services”, so if the statements from both Microsoft and Sony are true, then the two rival companies are apparently both engaged in very similar practices.