Xbox is committed to keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation and other platforms if and when the Activision deal closes. Earlier this year, Microsoft made a bombshell announcement with the biggest acquisition in the history of the gaming industry. The tech giant confirmed it would be buying Activision for just shy of $70 billion, meaning Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and tons of other major franchises and top-tier developers would all become first-party property of Xbox. The immediate concern by some was that this would mean Call of Duty would join Halo as an Xbox exclusive. Shortly after the news of the acquisition, Xbox’s Phil Spencer noted that Microsoft intended to honor PlayStation’s existing agreements with Call of Duty with regards to marketing deals and whatnot. Nevertheless, some felt this wasn’t definitive enough to rule out Call of Duty becoming an Xbox exclusive eventually.
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In a new blog post, Phil Spencer cleared the air about the Activision deal. In the post, he talked about how franchises like Call of Duty will be on Xbox Game Pass in the future amongst other things. One of the other key takeaways was that Spencer said Xbox is “committed” to making the same versions of Call of Duty available on PlayStation on the same day it releases on Xbox platforms. Spencer even mentioned how this can be beneficial, noting how Minecraft has had massive success on other platforms outside of Xbox.
“We’ve heard that this deal might take franchises like Call of Duty away from the places where people currently play them,” wrote Spencer. “That’s why, as we’ve said before, we are committed to making the same version of Call of Duty available on PlayStation on the same day the game launches elsewhere.We will continue to enable people to play with each other across platforms and across devices. We know players benefit from this approach because we’ve done it with Minecraft, which continues to be available on multiple platforms and has expanded to even more since Mojang joined Microsoft in 2014.As we extend our gaming storefront across new devices and platforms, we will make sure that we do so in a manner that protects the ability of developers to choose how to distribute their games.”
PlayStation had previously raised concerns about Xbox’s acquisition of Activision, noting how big and important Call of Duty is as a franchise. The rival platform holder stated that the deal could push players to play on Xbox because it owns Call of Duty. Whether Spencer’s statement serves as a counter to that is up for debate, but it certainly does offer a more definitive stance on the matter.
What do you think of Call of Duty remaining on all platforms? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
