Phil Spencer has renewed his promises that Call of Duty will have 100 % parity across all platforms.
As reported by The Gamer, Phil made this statement in an interview with the official Xbox podcast. This is what he had to say:
“For Call of Duty players on PlayStation, and in the future Nintendo, I want you to feel 100 percent part of the community. I don’t want you to fell like there’s content you’re missing out on, there’s skins you’re missing out on, there’s timing that you’re missing out on. That’s not the goal. The goal is 100 percent parity across all platforms…”
Later, Phil also said that Xbox was not going to be looking for a way to trick gamers to buying their console to play Call of Duty. While our source is skeptical on Phil’s sincerity, that actually reflects a greater misunderstanding of the situation.
Microsoft is obliged to provide 100 % parity for Call of Duty games across platforms. There really is no way that Microsoft can turn back on their word, even if they changed their mind later.
That’s because these are the commitments Microsoft made to gain regulatory approval, not only among the harshest, most high profile regulators in the EU and UK, but in every country, region, and market that has approved the deal.
Of course, as we already know, Microsoft also signed deals with PlayStation and Nintendo for Call of Duty. Although we don’t know the provisions of the contracts, Microsoft made it public that they made these commitments to both companies on those contracts.
So this isn’t a matter of Microsoft being sincere, or litigating the character of the company. These are professional commitments that Microsoft entered into, that they used to convince their peers and regulators to approve the deal and get out of the way of the process.
In the end, Sony themselves signed the deal, indicating that not only were they accepting the terms, but they also accepted Microsoft’s commitment for Call of Duty games.
Many gamers are also convinced that Microsoft will bring Call of Duty to Game Pass as soon as you can. However, Phil once again insists that they won’t be able to do so immediately, any more than they could do with other Activision Blizzard King games. We already know that Call of Duty Modern Warfare III won’t be coming to Game Pass upon its launch later this year.
Phil remains consistent that their plans for Activision and Call of Duty actually revolve around mobile, as they plan to build a third party mobile store for next year.
