According to the latest statements by Jim Ryan, Microsoft plans to make the Call of Duty series an Xbox exclusive in the future.
Microsoft plans to make the Call of Duty series exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem . The confirmation would come from none other than Jim Ryan, the head of Sony, in a direct attack on the Redmond company .
The news deserves to be underlined because from the announcement of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft , Spencer did his utmost to let people know that the series would remain on PlayStation in the future, as well as honoring the contracts in progress. In fact, that made public, according to Sony’s president, wasn’t the whole story. Or, at least, it was the part that was needed to convince the international antitrust bodies of Microsoft’s good will not to undermine the market.
Ryan , however, revealed: “Microsoft has only offered for Call of Duty to remain on PlayStation for three years after the current agreement between Activision and Sony ends. After almost 20 years of Call of Duty on PlayStation, their proposal was inadequate on many levels and failed to take account of the impact on our gamers. We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality Call of Duty experience, and Microsoft’s proposal undermines this principle.”
So, Spencer’s idea would actually be to keep the Call of Duty series on PlayStation for a while, and then make it Xbox exclusive. Considering the timing, PS5 should be covered for the entire generation, while a hypothetical PS6 would lose the franchise, with a strong impact for sales. So, if confirmed, he was right who speculated that Microsoft wanted to make future Call of Duty exclusive, as it did with the Bethesda titles.
Spencer simply had to go with lead feet so as not to upset those who can blow up the whole deal. At this point the US, UK and European antitrust bodies could force him to keep the multi-platform game, right in the face of Sony’s grievances.
Of course, on Microsoft’s side there is still no confirmation of what Ryan said. But let’s imagine that the Sony boss would not have exposed himself in this way if he were not sure of the truth of his words, since if they were false he would risk really big, especially in legal terms.