Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

PlayStation, Xbox bosses criticize Activision following Kotick report

By Otto Kratky November 18, 2021

Following a report claiming that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick knew of sexual misconduct at the company and withheld information on sexual misconduct from the company’s board, the heads of both PlayStation and Xbox are internally reviewing their relationship with the gaming giant.

According to Bloomberg, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan sent to his employees a link to the Wall Street Journal report, which alleges that Kotick had threatened to have an assistant killed in 2006 — a matter that was settled out of court and for which an Activision spokeswoman said Kotick had apologized for. Ryan would go on to say that Activision “has not done enough to address a deep-seated culture of discrimination and harassment.”

PlayStation has also reached out to Activision Blizzard in hopes of learning what steps the company is taking in response to the Wall Street Journal report.

Xbox executive Phil Spencer has also internally said that the company is “evaluating” its relationship with Activision Blizzard. An email obtained by Bloomberg today from Spencer says that Xbox is “evaluating all aspects of our relationship with Activision Blizzard and making ongoing proactive adjustments.”

For Activision Blizzard’s board of directors, the pushback coming from two of the largest companies in gaming only makes it harder to keep Bobby Kotick on board as CEO. The company’s board of directors, from whom he allegedly withheld information regarding sexual misconduct at the company, fell in behind him shortly after the Wall Street Journal report, saying that it “remains confident” in him.

Pressure to oust Kotick is also coming from inside Activision Blizzard, where hundreds of developers have walked out, refusing to return to work until Kotick resigns or is terminated. It is the second time developers at the company have walked out in the past six months.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…

Gaming

Bobby Kotick leaves Activation Blizzard next week amid Xbox shake ups

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

An internal memo from Microsoft confirmed that Bobby Kotick, the controversial CEO of Activision Blizzard, will leave the company on December 29.

Bobby Kotick has been CEO of Activision Blizzard -- the company behind popular game franchises like Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Crash Bandicoot, and Diablo -- since 1991 and is one of the most derided executives in the video game industry. Workplace conditions at companies owned by Activision Blizzard were problematic during his reign, with this all coming to a head in a 2021 lawsuit that exposed lots of misconduct, some of which allegedly applied to Kotick. He's stayed with the company through all that and is now leaving following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Gaming

PlayStation spent 2023 setting up dominoes. But will they fall in 2024?

A PS5 sits on a table.

2023 has already become a strong contender for the best year in gaming ever (at least when it comes to newly released games), but we've yet to see how it'll be remembered for PlayStation long-term. It currently stands as an experimental year filled with massive gambles that we won't see the results of until 2024 at the earliest.

From an outside perspective, 2023 might've seemed like PlayStation was resting on its laurels. With more hit third-party releases than most people could reasonably handle hitting on a near monthly cadence, the average PlayStation fan was likely content with "just" the utterly fantastic Marvel's Spider-Man 2 from the first-party side. In reality, this year Sony has set up a series of dominoes that, depending on how they fall, could very well determine its future -- for better or worse. Even though a few of its efforts are trending in the wrong direction, or at least have the community concerned, there's no turning the ship now.
Heavy on hardware
Sony put out more hardware this year than perhaps any other year in its history. We started off with the PlayStation VR2, got the surprise slim models of the PS5, the PlayStation Portal most recently, and will close out the year with its impressive Adaptive Controller. Of those, PSVR2 is the largest dice roll the company is currently watching play out. VR, in general, still only caters to a niche audience, and for as powerful and cutting-edge as the tech inside Sony's headset really is, that small audience is automatically cut by being tied to the PS5 install base willing to pay another massive entry fee. Despite all the cards stacked against it, Sony could pull an ace from its sleeve to justify the entire experiment: first-party games.

Gaming

Sony’s latest partnership is a big move for PlayStation’s mobile future

A PS5 sits on a table.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) revealed its next big gaming partnership, and it's with a somewhat unexpected company. The game developer and publisher in question is NCSoft, a Korean company best known for its work on MMO series, namely Guild Wars and Lineage.

According to a press release, the two companies have entered into a partnership that enables them to "collaborate in various global business fields, including mobile." We asked Sony if the phrasing of "various global business fields" also applied to console games, but a representative for the company said it doesn't have anything else to share on that front currently.