Potential Call of Duty Exclusivity Could Be a "Tremendous Opportunity" for Battlefield, EA Boss Says

If Activision's gargantuan Call of Duty series ends up being an Xbox console exclusive in the future, that could make for a "tremendous opportunity" for the Battlefield games, Electronic Arts boss CEO Andrew Wilson has speculated. These comments were shared recently in response to questions about EA's various IPs and how it looks to handle them in the future. On a broader scale, the comments also came amid ongoing speculation and debate about whether or not Call of Duty will eventually be exclusive to Xbox and Windows PC platforms, and if that happens, what such a move might mean for the industry at large.

During a Goldman Sachs-hosted event (via Eurogamer and transcribed by Seeking Alpha), Wilson spoke about a couple of different EA IPs including the FIFA games, Apex Legends, and, of course, Battlefield. Wilson referenced the ongoing discussions surrounding Call of Duty and suggested that the "platform agnostic" nature of the Battlefield games could be good for EA's war games.

"And in a world where there may be questions over the future of Call of Duty and what platforms that might be on or might not be on, being platform agnostic and completely cross-platform with Battlefield, I think is a tremendous opportunity," Wilson said.

While not explicitly spelled out, Wilson's comments here are suggesting that if PlayStation users are one day no longer able to play Call of Duty on their devices should it become an Xbox exclusive on consoles, Battlefield will be the next major war series available to PlayStation owners and will likely be the one they turn to.

One could continue speculating about what might entice PlayStation users to shift to Battlefield more should exclusivity talks come to fruition, but it's tough to do so given that we don't know exactly how all this will play out. What we do know per comments from PlayStation boss Jim Ryan is that Microsoft has supposedly offered to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles for the next three years after the current deal between Activision and Sony ends. Ryan says that proposal is "inadequate," and Xbox boss Phil Spencer has since said the company plans to continue putting Call of Duty on platforms where people will want to play it.

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision has not yet been finalized and is still being investigated at this time.

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