Microsoft just published a new response to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK governmental entity currently deliberating on whether the company’s acquisition ofActivision-Blizzardshould go through, and in said response, Microsoft stated that it did not believe the 10-yearCall of Dutydeal offered toPlayStationshould be extended, as that was enough time it to “develop alternatives to CoD.”
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As part of its attempt to appease regulators, like the CMA, Microsoft has offered 10-year Call of Duty deals to multiple entities likeNintendo, NVidia (cloud streaming),Steam, and of course PlayStation’s parent company, Sony. These deals assure that mainline Call of Duty games will be available on said platforms and won’t be exclusive toXboxfor at least ten years, were the acquisition to go through.
Sony is one of the few entities that hasn’t accepted this deal,theorizingthat Microsoft could ship Call of Duty games with “bugs and errors” on PlayStation but not on Xbox. As transcribed byVGC, Microsoft continues to purport that the 10-year deal is more than fair for PlayStation, given that, “as a leading publisher and console platform,” it would have sufficient opportunity to create a Call of Duty competitor.
Microsoft goes on to explain that the 10-year deal would extend into the next-console generation, the one beyond thePlayStation 5andXbox Series X|Sconsoles. It also mentions that the ten-year deal would continue to have an effect even after ten years, for Call of Duty games shipped on PlayStation in the tenth year of the deal “would be playable for the lifetime of that console and beyond…”
Finally, Microsoft states that, though it is willing to continue constructively discussing the matter with the CMA, it believes “there is no basis for extending the remedy beyond the period proposed…”
Xbox head Phil Spencer had previously spoken as though the plan was to have Call of Duty on PlayStation indefinitely and that the 10-year deal was simply a reasonably lengthy guarantee for PlayStation and other parties.
He’dstated, “Call of Duty will be on PlayStation as long as players want to play Call of Duty on PlayStation.” However, these new statements suggest that, once the deal is done, PlayStation players will only have the option to play the CoD game released in the deal’s tenth year.
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