Xbox confirms future of Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation
Xbox made groundbreaking news this week when they announced that they were purchasing Activision Blizzard for a whopping $68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard is one of the biggest video game publishers in the world and would now be operating under the Xbox family. Some of the biggest video game franchises that would now be owned by Microsoft include Call of Duty, Diablo, Tony Hawk, Crash Bandicoot, Hearthstone, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Candy Crush, and even many more exciting franchises.
Almost immediately after news about the deal broke, the gaming community began to speculate on what that might mean for the Call of Duty franchise. Would the Call of Duty franchise be on the same level as the Halo franchise and be console exclusive, or would Call of Duty remain a multiplatform video game? These questions worried a lot of gamers, but roughly 24 hours after this massive purchase announcement, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer made an announcement on Twitter with the following statement.
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
Sony fans may feel a bit more relieved in knowing that they will still be able to play Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles. It was nice that a question of this magnitude was answered almost immediately and now Sony can breathe a sigh of relief. In fact, a Sony spokesman released some comments on Xbox’s Activision Blizzard acquisition prior to Phil Spencer making his comments. The Sony spokesman said:
"We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform."
If you really think about what Phil Spencer said on Twitter, it makes sense. The relationship they have with Sony is definitely something of value. If Call of Duty video games are sold on more platforms, they ultimately would be selling more copies which makes there a greater margin of profit on copies sold. However, you can look at it from another point of view too. If they made Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive, it would require gamers to purchase an Xbox console to play the franchise and thus making more people invested into Xbox as a whole. Similar to franchises like Halo (Xbox exclusive), God of War (PlayStation exclusive), and even Uncharted (PlayStation exclusive).
Hot. Xbox Game Pass is a must-have after Activision acquisition. light
Having consoles exclusives are not necessarily a bad thing in the gaming world. Even though it may upset some gamers for not being able to play some of their favorite franchises on a console that they have, it also allows gamers to broaden their horizons a tad bit more and explore great storylines on different platforms.