We know this all too well, but there’s genuine love between PlayStation and Activision’s flagship franchise, Call of Duty. For several years, PlayStation players have indeed been able to enjoy several advantages through the various opuses, but since the announcement of the takeover of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, some things could change, and despite Phil’s multiple announcements Spencer, CEO of Xbox, Jim Ryan, head of PlayStation, is more worried than ever.
Jimmy Ryan makes his fears known to the British competition authorities
For several months now, we have been witnessing a real war with Call of Duty at its heart. To resituate things a bit, when the announcement of the takeover of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, Sony had worried about the fate of the Call of Duty franchise which made the heyday of PlayStation consoles, and if Phil Spencer announced several times that the titles would continue to appear on the PS4 and PS5 even after the end of the contract, Jimm Ryan does not hear it that way and expressed his concern to UK competition authority.
As you certainly know, before the agreement is official, it must first go through several authorities so that they determine whether or not it would be in the context of this takeover of unfair competition ( to popularize everything). And at the moment, it is therefore the turn of the British authorities to look into this file, and Jym Ryan did not hesitate to explain to them that he was afraid that the Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S versions would benefit from certain advantages over the PS4 and PS5 versions. He has in fact referred to certain technical improvements that the Xbox versions could benefit from vis-à-vis the PS versions, or even exclusive content.
Listening to Sony, it would be unfair competition because he believes that in this way, Xbox would push players to leave on their consoles and not to stay on PlayStation, but we must still admit that his words can make you smile when we think back to all the exclusive modes that PlayStation players have been able to enjoy in relation to the Xbox community, not to mention the beta phases planned exclusively for PlayStation players…
A losing battle for Sony?
But then, what to expect from the different authorities? Well it is quite difficult to answer at the time of writing these lines, even if we clearly believe that the takeover of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft will still take place. If we focus on the various statements, Phil Spencer has nevertheless declared and this on several occasions that the Call of Duty license will continue to appear on PlayStation consoles, even after the end of the contract.
Preventing Sony players from playing Call of Duty would be simply stupid and would give the manufacturer a bad image.
xbox
A legal document filed by the parent company of the developers of the Ark series of games has revealed the colossal sums that Sony and Microsoft would have paid to offer Ark: Survival Evolved on their respective services: PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass.