Last week, as part of a press release intended to allay the fears of competition regulators, Phil Spencer confirmed again that Microsoft does not intend to deprive the competing ecosystem of the Call of Duty franchise, major source of income if ever there was one, even comparing its situation to that of Minecraft, whose cross-platform status has never been in question since the acquisition of Mojang by Microsoft in September 2014.
However, the words of Phil Spencer relayed by The Verge now point out that the promise to continue developing Call of Duty on PlayStation does indeed have an expiration date, which Microsoft will be entitled to decide when it sees fit.
“In January, we provided a signed agreement to Sony to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond Sony’s current contract, an offer that goes well beyond beyond typical gaming industry agreements“, explains Phil Spencer, still without reporting on the situation regarding other Activision Blizzard games. The only guarantee on this side, Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 will be available on all platforms.
Microsoft’s ambiguity regarding the future of Activision Blizzard games on competing ecosystems points to its acquisition of Bethesda Studios in 2020. Despite statements from Phil Spencer explaining at the time that the motive for the acquisition “was not intended to take the games away from other platforms“, there is no longer any question of releasing Starfield and Redfall on PlayStation.
An ambiguity that should not be found in the case of Bungie games. Acquired this year by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Pete Parsons’ studio continues to evolve as an independent subsidiary and all its projects are intended to remain cross-platform, as mentioned explicitly in the very first lines of the press release published on January 31 by Sony Interactive Entertainment .
The Call of Duty franchise had exceeded 400 million games sold in the spring of 2021. Now accompanied by free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone, which will itself be available on mobile, the franchise monopolizes more than 3,000 developers. Faced with regulators, Sony representatives try to explain that a franchise of this importance would tip the scales too strongly to one side if it became exclusive and that it would be impossible to create a competitor. For their part, Microsoft lawyers assure that it is in their interest to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for economic reasons.
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