Since the announcement of the possible takeover of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, questions have been numerous as the manufacturer still has doubts about the licenses brought to exclusivity. Like any good concerned litigant, Sony is recalling its rights today.
While we wait to find out who from Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot and StarCraft will be donning their exclusive costume in a few years, Sony intends well to not to become the turkey of farce.
The little lines
Finally, if the acquisition of Activision Blizzard for the modest sum of $68.7 billion by the summer of 2023 is confirmed by the relevant authorities, the PlayStation console maker could be forced to abandon some series or episodes that Microsoft considered strategic considered enough not to be subject to systematic porting.
For practical reasons, Sony has therefore just clarified its considerations in a press release published in the Wall Street Journal, which lays the groundwork for future discussions:
We expect Microsoft to honor contractual agreements and continue to ensure that Activision games are cross-platform.
This reaction obviously needs to be compared with more recent information Bloomberg which some tension hangs over the licenses of Activision Blizzard. If contracts binding future games in development at Activision Blizzard were obviously already the subject of agreements to release on PS4 or PS5, what happens to future iterations? Deals signed in the past will eventually expire, and Sony now intends to engage in future negotiations.
Call of the Dollars
This concern about possible exclusives is obviously reminiscent of the same Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda via Zenimax last year. At the time, the manufacturer had made clear its intention to honor pre-surgery contracts, not to mention a new “after” schedule:
We have no long term intention of simply removing all Bethesda content from the Sony or Nintendo platforms. But what we want is for the content to be first or better on our platforms in the long run.
Will this strategy be applied to the Activision Blizzard catalog as well? Given the Call of Duty series’ recurring presence in the United States bestseller rankings, it’s pretty hard to imagine that the new owner could suddenly find such a financial fortune. But the idea of seeing each new episode land on Game Pass as soon as it’s released (see a few days before?) would no doubt make it even more appealing to some players.
For its part, Activision Blizzard already provides a response element via the FAQ published online to inform the group’s shareholders about the company’s plans and ensure some form of sustainability of the achievements:
As with Microsoft’s acquisition of Minecraft, we have no intention of removing content from platforms on which it exists today.
