Several US congressmen are accusing Sony of adopting anti-competitive policies in Japan to hurt Xbox’s growth in the country.
Politico reports that Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell made the allegations during the last Senate Finance Committee meeting.
Cantwell’s accusations were bolstered by two letters, four from Republican candidates and six from Democrats, demanding immediate action from US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Cantwell says Sony makes exclusivity deals with Japanese companies to ensure the Xbox doesn’t get a foothold in Japan. She said that the PlayStation owner dominates 98% of the console market in the country, with the local government allowing the company to adopt these anti-competitive practices.
The Republican letter says that Sony makes the deals to stop games from being available on Xboxsecuring exclusive deals with popular developers in Japan.
The charges say that by failing to act against anti-competitive practices, Japan would be putting an American company at a disadvantage in the marketbringing real impacts to Microsoft.
Over the years, Sony has secured exclusive deals for many games on the PlayStation. One of the biggest examples is the partnership with Square Enix, excluding Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy XVI from Xbox consoles, in addition to Capcom’s Street Fighter V, which was released only on PlayStation and PC in 2016.