Their filing doesn't suggest anything significant in capital assets, but you can read it yourself. It looks like Activision-Blizzard printed this on a HP LaserJet 4, then scanned it at 150dpi on a scanner from 1998.
It's interesting that Microsoft continue to take the
no incentive position. Most will recall that Microsoft said there was
no incentive to deprive rival platforms of games during their acquisition of Zenimax (and the EU did not force Microsoft to commit to that), later doubled-down by confirmed Microsoft
wouldn't force studios to be platform exclusive, before realising that there is actually a massive incentive to make Redfall, Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI console exclusive to Xbox and did just that.
When are people going to stop believing what megacorp execs say? There is zero penalty for being untruthful in public comms. Nobody cares.
They never said titles wouldn't be exclusive, they just said they wouldn't prevent Bethesda from releasing on PlayStation.
Keep in mind that included in their statement in one of your links.
What we want is we want that content, in the long run, to be either first or better or best or pick your differentiated experience, on our platforms. We will want Bethesda content to show up the best as—on our platforms. If you think about something like Game Pass, if it shows up best in Game Pass, that's what we want to see, and we want to drive our Game Pass subscriber base through that Bethesda pipeline.
Which means they have said they either want the best version or they want timed console exclusivity (getting the title first) or DLC exclusivity (differentiated experience). As well, WRT permanent exclusivity, there is certainly a relatively huge difference between "won't prevent Bethesda from releasing on PlayStation" and "all Bethesda titles will release on PlayStation". The first case means it's still possible for a title to appear (or not) on PS while the second guarantees that a title will appear on PS.
So, Microsoft "doubled down" on wanting either timed exclusivity, best version and/or exclusive DLC while allowing Bethesda to choose which platforms they would release on. Granted that last is likely with consultation from MS, but for all we know, it could be in writing that Bethesda has final say on what platforms their titles will release on as they still operate semi-autonomously from MS.
Regardless, in general, no publisher that is releasing a timed exclusive on any platform is going to at the same time reveal that there are plans to release the title on other unannounced platforms. So, it's a bit early to say that Redfall, Starfield and ES VI aren't coming to PlayStation. They may or they may not. If those titles haven't appeared on PS a year after they release on PC and Xbox then it might be safe to say it's not coming to PS, ever.
But as for right now? We do know that Redfall is at the very least going to be a timed exclusive, what we don't know is whether it will or won't appear on PlayStation after X amount of time. As well, consider that Redfall has been delayed (On May 12, 2022, it was announced that the release was delayed to the first half of 2023) it would stand to reason that Arkane/Bethesda/MS may have decided to focus all efforts on Xbox and PC and then potentially continue work on a PS version after those releases are out the door and any needed post-release patches and fixes have been worked on. IE - even if Arkane had been working on a PS edition, it would make sense to focus efforts on the PC and Xbox versions once they knew the title was going to be delayed in order to get them out the door sooner.
NOTE: I'm not saying there is or will be a PS version of the game, only that it is certainly far too soon to declare that there won't be one or that there isn't still plans for one.
As well, Arkane/Bethesda never announced that Redfall was coming to PS ever, so we have no idea whether there was ever a plan for a PS version. It's entirely possible, albeit unlikely, that MS contracted with them for an Xbox exclusive title (timed or otherwise) prior to the acquisition.
If we take a look at their largest studio acquisition prior to Bethesda, Mojang, they certainly didn't limit the platforms Mojang were allowed to release Minecraft on ... likely because it made no financial sense to do so considering how much they paid for Mojang.
Regards,
SB