The Daily Populous Thursday August 11st, 2022 morning edition
Authored by videogameschronicle.com and submitted by Aggressive_Sea_8206

Microsoft has reiterated its claim that it doesn’t have plans to make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive should it successfully acquire Activision Blizzard.

In a document sent to Brazilâs Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) discussing the proposed acquisition, Microsoft claims that any concerns that Call of Duty would no longer appear on PlayStation are unfounded because it “would simply not be profitable” for Microsoft.

“Regardless of how unsurprising Sony‘s criticism of content exclusivity is â given that PlayStation’s entire strategy has been centred on exclusivity over the years â the reality is that the strategy of retaining Activision Blizzard’s games by not distributing them in rival console shops would simply not be profitable for Microsoft,” the company claims in the docs.

“Such a strategy would be profitable only if Activision Blizzard’s games were able to attract a sufficiently large number of gamers to the Xbox console ecosystem, and if Microsoft could earn enough revenue from game sales to offset the losses from not distributing such games on rival consoles,” it adds.

“As if that weren’t enough, exclusivity strategies still result in title-specific costs,” it claims, giving further information that has been redacted from the document, likely due to confidentiality.

“Such costs, added to the lost sales estimated […] above, mean that Microsoft would not be able to offset the losses by earning higher revenues in the Xbox ecosystem as a result of implementing exclusivity.

“This is especially true considering (i) the ‘gamer-centric’ â as opposed to ‘device-centric’ â strategy that Microsoft has pioneered with Game Pass, and (ii) the fact that PlayStation has the most loyal users across its various generations, with all indications that brand loyalty accrued in previous rounds of the ‘console wars’ suggesting that PlayStation will continue to have a strong market position.”

Continuing to push its case, Microsoft claims that even if making CoD Xbox exclusive were to turn out to be profitable, its implementation “would have no competitive impact”, partly due to “the intense competition in the game publishing market”, the fact that exclusivity strategies are commonly adopted in the games industry and the fact that rival consoles enjoy a high degree of player loyalty.

“In summary,” it concludes, “the hypothetical adoption of any content discontinuation strategy would content would not be profitable for Microsoft and, even if implemented, such strategies would have no competitive impact, for the reasons described above.”

In itsÂ first response to Microsoftâs proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, published in January,Â SonyÂ said it expects Call of Duty games to remain multiplatform due to âcontractual agreementsâ.

Microsoftâs head of gaming also subsequently confirmed hisÂ intention to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation platformsÂ once Microsoftâs acquisition of Activision Blizzard is completed.

However, it was later claimed that Activision BlizzardÂ is contractually committed to releasing only the next three Call of Duty games forÂ PlayStationÂ consoles, including this yearâs Modern Warfare 2.

The Call of Duty series is regularly among PlayStationâs most popular games. Last year, the series was both the first (Vanguard) and third (Black Ops Cold War) best-selling games on PlayStation in the US, according to NPD.

Commenting on Sony’s previous comments on the importance of the Call of Duty brand, GamesIndustry.biz’s Chris Dring claimed that the shooter franchise remaining on PlayStation would actually benefit Xbox.

“Microsoft isn’t as interested in the battle of the console boxes. It believes the future of games is going to be through streaming and subscriptions. Call of Duty isn’t so much a reason to buy an Xbox console, but a reason to subscribe to the Game Pass subscription service,” he wrote.

Further reading 114 Xbox has accused Sony of paying developers Game Pass ‘block fees’ The company claims Sony is trying to "inhibit growth" of its subscription service

“And this is where PlayStation is right to be concerned. Because Call of Duty is the No.1 game on PS4 and PS5. Should this deal go through, Microsoft will own the most popular game on PlayStation. And what an opportunity that is. The marketing writes itself: ‘Fed up of spending $70 every year on this game? Want extra in-game items and points? Then subscribe to Game Pass instead. You can even stream it on mobile.’

“Microsoft would be able to speak directly to PlayStation’s own fanbase on its own console, putting Sony in an impossible position of either rejecting its consoleâs most popular game, or accepting what could amount to a huge Game Pass ad disguised as a first-person shooter.”

Poeticyst on August 10th, 2022 at 22:24 UTC »

All COD content will be on Game Pass too so. Ya

Strongpillow on August 10th, 2022 at 21:20 UTC »

Isn't Playstation the biggest cod userbase? I don't think alienating that userbase in the foreseeable future would be something they'd want to do. The same way they haven't snatched up Minecraft. They even added more features to the PlayStation version like VR support as a free update.

Xbox has a lot of cards to help bolster its portfolio for the future but they're not petty for petty's sake like this console bubble wants to believe. It's all business.

Aggressive_Sea_8206 on August 10th, 2022 at 20:33 UTC »

Is Call of Duty still as popular as it was in the PS3/360 days? Modern Warfare 3 is the last COD game I really put some time into.