So conflict of interest is dependent on the circumstance, the actual content being discussed/decided/judged and the people involved across the board. That this particular conflict was very clearly addressed at the start and neither party, especially the prosecution, chose to object and ask for a new judge says how little it is as an impact.
I work for local government here in Australia, and a small rural LGA to boot. Our conflicts of interest are even harder to manage because of the small population and likelihood your family member or personal business has in some way a connection to the decision being made by Council. It is up to the Mayor, CEO, Councillors or managers to recuse themself from the discussion if they deem it is impactful enough to gaining a fair judgement. There actually does come a point where one can use fair judgement while having a conflict of interest and still be balanced to the result.
This judge can, and should still be presiding if everything has been followed by the law. That others outside of the judicial system think differently is on them, but the option was provided and no one took it. Now it is up to the judge to showcase fair reasoning on their decision that is backed by evidence provided, which is how conflicts of interest are resolved in such systems through provision of backed evidence.
Call of Duty is one of the biggest names in gaming, so many years running.
They *will* take it exclusive, the same way they did Bethesda. The ol' "I am altering the deal" Vader switcheroo.
I hate it, but the dirty laundry aired out in this trial from Microsoft's corner shows what they plan to do for all those IPs.
The evidence is in what they did with Bethesda and the various other things shown in court.
People say it's scaremongering when I say it'll start an acquisition war, but I strongly believe it will.
It would be illogical for Microsoft to remove CoD from PlayStation, as that is literal bags of money being pissed away just to win maybe some extra few million consoles. That is a hard bet to play, and would need significant evidence showing such a hit would not bring down their potential value. I feel that is why Minecraft and the subsequent spin-offs are all multi-platform, because it is such a huge title that makes killer money no matter the platform.
Plus CMA, EC and others have stated the console portion is not a concern, it is cloud.