Fans hoping to track the progress of Microsoft's beleagured $68bn Activision Blizzard deal are now monitoring flights made by executive private aircraft.

Flights made by a private jet owned by Sony have been used to back up suggestion of a meeting between Sony executives and Microsoft in early February.

Publicly available flight information shows a Sony jet flying from London to Seattle, where Microsoft is headquartered, around a month ago, for the first such visit in over 18 months, before travelling on to LA.

Newscast: How do you feel about Switch in 2023, following the Nintendo Direct? Newscast: How do you feel about Switch in 2023, following the Nintendo Direct?Watch on YouTube

Online plane aficionados have confirmed the private jet used as one registered to Sony and operated by the company to transport its execs around the world, as reported by FOSS Patents, which is tracking progress of Microsoft's deal.

There's no confirmation of what Sony was doing in Seattle at the time - and my first thought was that the company could simply have been visiting its own team at Bungie.

Still, this is indeed the level we have reached in regards to the progress of Microsoft's industry-shaking deal, where people are now tracking executive planes.

HARD EVIDENCE: #Sony executives flew from London to Seattle in a Falcon 8X on February 6, presumably to negotiate #CallofDuty license with #Microsoft https://t.co/8xFsa02K58#ActivisionBlizzard #antitrust #mergers #PlayStation #Xbox
Many thanks to @g_3_r__ $ATVI pic.twitter.com/fAEO67hEms

— Florian Mueller (@Florian4Gamers) February 17, 2023

To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings

It was previously reported that PlayStation boss Jim Ryan flew to Brussels to contest Microsoft's deal to EU regulators in person.

Microsoft is set to make the journey to Brussels next week for a potentially make-or-break meeting with the European Commission over concerns surrounding the deal.

The EU's European Commission is among three top regulators currently set to block the deal unless Microsoft offers concessions, alongside the UK's Competition and Markets Authority and the US Federal Trade Commission.