The boss of the new Microsoft Gaming branch has reconfirmed his desire to keep Call of Duty games on PlayStation consoles. “Sony is an important part of our industry,” he says.
After the announcement of a Microsoft spokesperson in the columns of New York Times, the turn of the boss of the Xbox branch, Phil Spencer, to formalize the maintenance of the Call of Duty franchise on the PlayStations. In a twitter post that has been liked over 140,000 times, Spencer explains the situation:
I had some good calls this week with Sony executives. I have confirmed our intention to honor all existing agreements upon the 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.
Even though the disappearance of CoD on PlayStation was unlikely, the acquisition of the Activision-Blizzard group by Microsoft brought many questions.
The main one is the place of the group’s games in Microsoft’s strategy. Indeed, most Bethesda games, a group acquired by the firm recently, will be released exclusively on Xbox (TES 6, Starfield, etc.). But Call of Duty, one of the best sellers each year on Sony consoles, cannot do without its flagship support.
Will it be the same for other licenses? Concern seems less present to communicate on this. In any case, Xbox quickly announced that it wanted to put as many games as possible in its Xbox Game Pass when the deal was finalized, in 2023.
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.
—Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) January 20, 2022
