It’s no secret that Microsoft’s ongoing acquisition of Activision Blizzard has had plenty of back and forth between the two largest platform holders in the video game space. Microsoft wants to ensure that it completes its acquisition of the large publisher, while Sony Interactive Entertainment has been doing what it can to push back on this. At various points of the process, Microsoft has made clear that it wishes to keep future Call of Duty games on PlayStation consoles, and now it claims to have made the deal even sweeter.
Microsoft claims that it had offered Sony a contract to keep Call of Duty multiplatform for 10 years. The news comes from an interview with the New York Times in which the Xbox company says it had offered this deal earlier this month on November 11. On the other side of the fence, it appears that Sony has not commented on this just yet.
Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard is one of the largest deals ever seen in the medium, and it has had to go through a lot of scrutiny before an approval can be confirmed. Specifically, it needs to be approved by 16 different governments around the world. Only two of these have given their blessing thus far, but Microsoft believes that Serbia could follow in the footsteps of Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
Sony will currently still receive new Call of Duty titles up until the release of Call of Duty 2024, which is supposedly being developed by Treyarch. Any Call of Duty titles released after this point will be subject to whatever deals that Microsoft and Sony have ultimately agreed upon should the acquisition go through.
Microsoft has repeatedly claimed that it intends to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation platforms for longer than the current deal it has with Activision Blizzard. Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, said that the first thing he did after the deal was announced was to call Sony and say “we’re going to keep Call of Duty on your platform.” However, Sony has been pushing back on this by suggesting that the deal will still massively favor Microsoft and its Xbox platform.
In response to this, Microsoft has accused Sony of overstating “the importance of Call of Duty to its viability.” Call of Duty is undoubtedly the largest money-making franchise owned by Activision-Blizzard, but it is far from the only game franchise involved in the acquisition. Jim Ryan, the boss of PlayStation, pushed back on the idea that Sony was misleading regulators by overstating the importance of Call of Duty.
