After the purchase of Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion, Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, posted a message on Twitter talking about the future of the Call of Duty series. I had good calls this week with Sony’s leaders,” he wrote on his personal Twitter account. “I confirmed our intention to honor all existing agreements following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation.” Sony is an important part of our industry,” Spencer added, “and we value our relationship.”
Had good calls this week with leaders at Sony. I confirmed our intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Sony is an important part of our industry, and we value our relationship. — Phil Spencer (@XboxP3)
January 20, 2022
Call of Duty is one of the most important franchises in the history of gaming, with annual releases that are always among the best sellers of the year. That’s why, when Microsoft announced the purchase of Activision Blizzard, millions of PlayStation players around the world began to wonder if in the future they could play Call of Duty on their consoles. In the official statement of the purchase Phil Spencer pledged to “continue to support” Activision Blizzard games found on other platforms, and in a subsequent interview he addressed PlayStation users directly: “I’m just going to tell players who are enjoying Activision Blizzard games on Sony platforms: it is not our intention to take communities off that platform and we remain committed to that.” Sony itself, perhaps in the midst of analyzing future strategy, only responded to the news with a statement saying it expects Microsoft to respect contractual agreements and continue to ensure that Activision’s games are cross-platform.
For its part, Activision confirmed that it does not plan to unsubscribe its games from the PlayStation store, but that commitment applies to games already available, and not necessarily to upcoming releases. In the past Microsoft has already maintained support for games available on PlayStation from studios it acquired after launch. The clearest case is that of Minecraft, which has coexisted for years on Xbox, PlayStation and Switch platforms without problems and was developed by Mojang, a studio that today belongs to Microsoft.The same case occurred with the purchase of Bethesda: Microsoft kept the company’s games in the PlayStation store and respected the temporary exclusivity agreement for Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo signed some time before. However, six months after the operation was confirmed, he announced that Starfield would be an Xbox exclusive.Spencer’s statement this morning also has some rhetorical details to analyze. The executive speaks of “intention” to respect commercial agreements, and “desire” when it comes to keeping the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation, which many read as an element of negotiation to demonstrate the company’s willingness to maintain the multiplatform franchise. The latter may have to do with the difficulty of receiving approval from regulators considering the market volume that Call of Duty represents and how a possible exclusivity would affect competition.
This week an analyst spoke to Games Radar and said that the deal is “not guaranteed,” because it not only has to be approved by the Federal Trade Commission of the United States, but also by its peers in the European Unit, China and all regions in which Activision Blizzard titles are marketed. The issue of market share in the console space, PC space and mobile space must also be addressed. The approval process is likely to be long and not guaranteed,” he explained. That’s why there’s speculation that Spencer might be using Call of Duty as a winning card to negotiate with Sony. And what might Microsoft want? More than one specialist reporter thinks that the Xbox team would be interested in bringing Game Pass to PlayStation 5 and including Call of Duty through the service. If Sony accepts the proposal, Microsoft extends the availability of Game Pass. If Sony rejects it, it remains as the one that refused the possibility of keeping the game.
But while this whole game of thrones is unfolding, the wheels are in motion within Microsoft and Activision.
Phil Spencer has already stated that he would like the studios, today dedicated to the development of Call of Duty exclusively.Experiment with some of Activision’s inactive franchises, including Guitar Hero, Skylanders, and Sierra classics like King’s Quest.
In fact, according to a report by Bloomberg, several high-level Activision employees are reportedly debating abandoning call of Duty’s annual release schedule. While no decisions have been made yet, many developers in the series believe that releasing the games with a slower cadence will go down well with players and help bolster the franchise. The Microsoft and Activision deal is expected to be completed during the next fiscal year, which begins in July this year and ends in June 2023.
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