news culture Takeover of the century: PlayStation and Xbox must agree on Call of Duty. It’s hard to ignore a game that weighs $31 billion
While discussions surrounding the acquisition of Activision Blizzard seem to have reached an impasse, voices are increasing emphasizing that Microsoft and Sony must work together in the near future to put an end to this unfortunate episode. They need each other more than ever.
Call of Duty, the #1 problem
While the ensuing months in the Activision Blizzard acquisition lawsuit look similar, tensions between Microsoft and Sony continue to crystallize in Call of Duty. The famed FPS franchise, which weighs in at a whopping $31 billion, is so important to both manufacturers that a possible loss to Sony would pose a significant obstacle to the Japanese company’s progress in the years to come. Although this series is the goal of many gamers, you have to understand that Call of Duty is absolutely gigantic that some people don’t play anything else. It’s a bit like Roblox, FIFA or Fortnite to use a shortcut. And as long as Call of Duty remains at the center of the equation, the animosity between Sony and Microsoft will not abate. But since a few days it seems that some appeasement measures have been taken on the premises of the Redmond company. According to Phil Spencer’s recent testimony during the court hearing, Microsoft would be willing to keep Call of Duty in the PlayStation catalogue.
Sony needs Microsoft and Microsoft needs Sony
The hearing that has just taken place has made it possible to recover information that is generally very difficult to obtain. During these discussions, Phil Spencer reportedly said:
I think as we saw in pre-season, the players are an active and exuberant squad. If we removed Call of Duty from PlayStation I think we would do irreparable damage to the Xbox brand. I would raise my hand and do whatever it takes. My commitment and testimony is that we will continue to ship future versions of Call of Duty on the Sony PlayStation 5.
Some noted that Phil Spencer was only talking about the PlayStation 5 and not the brand as a whole. So we’ll have to wait to find out more, but it’s possible that Sony’s future console will no longer host Call of Duty once the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard is finalized (if that happens one day). It’s still interesting to see Microsoft measuring the impact a lack of Call of Duty on PlayStation would have on its own brand. That’s why observers are saying the two manufacturers need each other, and we hope the appeasement will be followed by some real sign in the coming weeks.
