Xbox Boss Wants to "Keep Call of Duty on PlayStation"
Earlier this week, Xbox stunned the world with the announcement of its intent to purchase Activision Blizzard. The move will give the company control over some of the most beloved franchises in all of gaming, including Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, World of Warcraft, and Call of Duty. Naturally, Call of Duty fans have been quite nervous about that last one, and there's been a lot of speculation whether the series might leave PlayStation platforms. However, that might not be the case, as Xbox boss Phil Spencer took to Twitter to share discussions between the two companies to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation.
"Had good calls this week with leaders at Sony. I confirmed our intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Sony is an important part of our industry, and we value our relationship," Spencer wrote on Twitter.
While this certainly sounds like good news, Spencer's language leaves a lot of room open to interpretation! Keeping "Call of Duty on PlayStation" could be interpreted a number of different ways. It could mean that Xbox will continue to maintain existing games, such as Call of Duty: Warzone, while making new Call of Duty games exclusive to Xbox. Or, it could mean that nothing will change, and the series will continue to release on both platforms! For previous Xbox acquisitions, such as Bethesda and Double Fine, Xbox has maintained existing agreements and released games like Deathloop and Psychonauts 2 on PlayStation platforms. However, future games from those publishers will be exclusive to Xbox.
Call of Duty is one of the biggest franchises in all of gaming, and it makes a significant amount of money on PlayStation systems. There's a strong incentive for Microsoft to continue putting Call of Duty games on the platform, while also making the deal sweeter for Xbox fans by offering new CoD games on Game Pass. The deal isn't set to go through until 2023, so PlayStation fans will just have to wait and see what happens!
Are you hopeful that Call of Duty games will continue to release on PlayStation? What do you think the future will bring? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!