Update: Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has tweeted saying that he has had “good calls this week with leaders at Sony” and confirmed to “honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation.” Of course, there is still plenty of wiggle room here as it is just vague enough to allow for some technicalities. It does say “existing” agreements, after all, and doesn’t lay out what that means in the future.
Sony also told the Wall Street Journal (through Video Games Chronicle) that it expects that Microsoft “will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform.” This could apply to Call of Duty as Sony and Activision previously had deals together regarding the franchise that often gave PlayStation users some bonuses like early DLC or first access to betas. These deals last multiple years and Sony first started doing these Call of Duty deals with Activision starting in 2015 with Call of Duty: Black Ops III. It’s unclear how long this deal will go on for but Call of Duty: Vanguard also has some exclusive PlayStation content, showing that there is likely some agreement that’s still ongoing.
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
Original Story: Microsoft announcing that it was planning to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion was quite unexpected and the deal has raised questions on whether or not Activision’s games would be ripped from PlayStation or Nintendo platforms in the future. Those details have yet to be completely confirmed, but Activision CEO Bobby Kotick recently stated that Microsoft gave him “repeated assurances” that Activision would see its content on various platforms.
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Kotick recently did an interview with Games Beat where he broke down some of the details of the deal. When asked about antitrust laws, Kotick spoke about the ubiquity of Microsoft’s products as well as King, the developer and publisher of Candy Crush, and its place in the mobile market. After talking about these disparate areas within the company, he then transitioned back to gaming.
“But we all realize that gaming over the next five years is going to be more on phones than on any other devices,” said Kotick. “And I think that they they have given us repeated assurances that our content will be available on as many devices as possible.”
This comes alongside other quotes that speak to a similar sentiment of Microsoft releasing Activision games on other hardware. According to one of Bloomberg‘s sources, Microsoft “plans to keep making some of Activision’s games for PlayStation consoles but will also keep some content exclusive to Xbox.” Head of Xbox Phil Spencer also gave a similar sentiment in that same report.
“I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that,” he said.
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It’s unclear how many Activision games will land on other platforms in the future or what exactly Kotick meant by “content” being on “as many devices as possible,” but it does at least sound like some of them will jump to competing systems. It’s all theoretical at this point and no specifics have been given, but this does give PlayStation and Switch users some hope that they can continue to play some of Activision Blizzard’s games.
Microsoft has answered similar questions when it purchased Bethesda as many wondered if its slate of games like Starfield or The Elder Scrolls VI would come out on PlayStation. Although he still leaves some wiggle room, Spencer said in March 2021 that while it will support games on other platforms and may change some things in the future, the deal was about “delivering great exclusive games for you that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists.” He was a little more firm in November 2021 when told GQ that he saw the same deal that has been officially applied Starfield — PC and Xbox exclusivity — also applying to The Elder Scrolls VI.
