The conflict between both Xbox and PlayStation over Microsoft’s intent to buy out Activision Blizzard King, continues to escalate. Beginning with the Brazilian governing body that released the thoughts of impacted parties (such as PlayStation) with relation to their thoughts on the proposed transaction, the war of words has gradually gotten uglier, and even more public. Today, the line in the sand between the two companies has suddenly been stepped over in a significant way, with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO, Jim Ryan referring to Microsoft’s proposal for keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles as “inadequate on many levels”.
Just last week, Microsoft further clarified its plans relating to the Call of Duty IP, expressing it’s intent to keep providing the franchise to PlayStation gamers for “several more years” beyond the transaction being completed. The message from Xbox head, Phil Spencer to The Verge read
“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 the current Sony contract, an offer that goes well beyond typical gaming industry agreements,”
Jason Schreier at Bloomberg reported earlier in the year in a more specific fashion that those “several more years” was in fact three more years beyond the transaction being completed.
Now Jim Ryan has responded, and he’s done so in a way that isn’t typical in this industry, with an aggression rarely seen in this space. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Ryan expressed his dissatisfaction with what Xbox plans to do with Call Of Duty,
“I hadn’t intended to comment on what I understood to be a private business discussion, but I feel the need to set the record straight because Phil Spencer brought this into the public forum… Microsoft has only offered for Call of Duty to remain on PlayStation for three years after the current agreement between Activision and Sony ends. After almost 20 years of Call of Duty on PlayStation, their proposal was inadequate on many levels and failed to take account of the impact on our gamers. We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality Call of Duty experience, and Microsoft’s proposal undermines this principle.”
The timing of the comments are of course interesting considering recent developments in the approval of the transaction in the UK with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) flagging the transaction
“PlayStation currently has a larger share of the console gaming market than Xbox, but the CMA considers that Call of Duty is sufficiently important that losing access to it (or losing access on competitive terms) could significantly impact Sony’s revenues and user base. This impact is likely to be felt especially at the launch of the next generation of consoles, where gamers make fresh decisions about which console to buy. The CMA believes that the Merger could, therefore, significantly weaken Microsoft’s closest rival, to the detriment of overall competition in console gaming.”
Microsoft/Xbox have until tomorrow, September 8, 2022, to submit a proposal addressing the concerns expressed by the CMA, and if their proposal isn’t considered adequate, the deal will be referred for further investigation. It’s likely that the war of words may continue to escalate for quite a while yet.
