Microsoft may have admitted that it plans to make Call of Duty an exclusive title, contrary to previous statements. The tech giant is now saying that ten years is enough time for Sony to develop a rival to Call of Duty.
Microsoft recently hit back at Sony’s claims that Call of Duty is irreplaceable. In fact, the Xbox manufacturer believes that its rival is capable of making a first-person shooter that will challenge the popularity of the Activision title, saying:
Microsoft considers that a period of 10 years is sufficient for Sony, as a leading publisher and console platform, to develop alternatives to CoD.
The 10- year term will extend into the next console generation [redacted]. Moreover, the practical effect of the remedy will go beyond the 10-year period, since games downloaded in the final year of the remedy can continue to be played for the lifetime of that console (and beyond, with backwards compatibility).
Most will read the statement as an admission from Microsoft that it plans to make Call of Duty an exclusive title after the ten-year deal expires, provided that Sony even accepts it.
“CoD is an entertainment franchise which is already nearly 20 years old,” the Xbox maker writes. “[Redacted], Microsoft will need to secure the broadest distribution of the franchise and will be heavily incentivised to keep it on the PlayStation platform [Redacted]. Microsoft considers that having maintained CoD on PlayStation and grown its player base on Nintendo, GeForce Now, and other cloud gaming platforms for a decade, it will have no incentive, or indeed ability, to take CoD exclusive.
The recent filing from Microsoft also challenges the UK CMA’s findings regarding the importance of Call of Duty. It claims that Nintendo has been very dominant in the market even without a Call of Duty game on the console.
Microsoft states, “The Provisional Findings focus specifically on the potential impact of the Merger on Sony. In particular, the Provisional Findings conclude that CoD is an important input for Sony PlayStation. The CMA has not, however, found or presented evidence to suggest that CoD is an important input for console providers generally.”
“Nor could the CMA reach such a conclusion, given that CoD is not available on Nintendo – the second largest provider of consoles – today. As the Provisional Findings acknowledge, console platforms offer different technical specifications and differentiated gaming propositions.”
It concludes, “Nintendo’s success demonstrates conclusively that a console platform’s ability to compete effectively is not dependent on the ability to offer CoD to its customers. Rather, this is possible with a ‘differentiated offer.’ In any event, Microsoft has already reached an agreement to bring CoD to the Nintendo platform for 10 years as part of its strategy to make CoD as widely available as possible.”
The UK CMA will have until April 26 to finalize its investigation of the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.
