Microsoft, Staring Down Regulators, Promises To Keep CoD On PlayStation
from the heeding-the-call dept
After Microsoft’s deal to acquire Activision Blizzard was announced, alongside its deal to acquire Zenimax/Bethesda, we’ve had a series of posts pointing out that this consolidation of the gaming industry has featured vague statements from Microsoft leaving everyone wondering about the exclusivity of major gaming franchises. One of those major franchises would be Activision’s Call of Duty. Microsoft, in what has become its familiar fashion, made some vague statements about honoring Activision’s current agreements with Sony, along with a promise to keep CoD on the PlayStation for “at least another 3 years.”
What you need to keep in mind when it comes to these statements is that the gaming public is only one-half of the audience for all of these statements. The other half is the regulators in the US and the UK that will ultimately decide if this acquisition even goes through. And those regulators are keying in on the exclusivity of franchises like CoD specifically.
“Microsoft is one of three large companies, together with Sony and Nintendo, that have led the market for gaming consoles for the past 20 years with limited entries from new rivals,” the CMA said. “Activision Blizzard has some of the world’s best-selling and most recognizable gaming franchises, such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. The CMA is concerned that if Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard it could harm rivals, including recent and future entrants into gaming, by refusing them access to Activision Blizzard games or providing access on much worse terms.”
The CMA said these “concerns warrant an in-depth Phase 2 investigation,” so Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have been ordered “to submit proposals to address the CMA’s concerns” within five working days. “If suitable proposals are not submitted, the deal will be referred for a Phase 2 investigation,” which would “allow an independent panel of experts to probe in more depth the risks identified at Phase 1,” the CMA said.
That’s the UK side of this, while American regulators are starting to ask some of the same questions. Frankly, with all of that in mind, mealy-mouthed half-promises to maybe keep major franchises cross-platform for some period of time is… not helpful. The fact that Sony is very much pushing regulators to pay attention here shows just how important this is becoming to the gaming landscape.
And so perhaps it’s not all that surprising that Xbox’s Phil Spencer, responsible for said mealy-mouthed statements, is out with a brand new promise: CoD will remain on the PlayStation as long as Sony keeps making consoles.
Microsoft Xbox chief Phil Spencer said he intends to continue to ship Call of Duty games on PlayStation “as long as there’s a PlayStation out there to ship to.” The new promise comes weeks after Sony lambasted an “inadequate” offer to extend Call of Duty’s cross-platform access for three years past the current agreement and as Microsoft faces continuing scrutiny from international governments over its proposed $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard.
“We’re not taking Call of Duty from PlayStation,” Spencer said directly in an interview with the Same Brain podcast. “That’s not our intent.”
Now, were that the original (maybe actual?) intent of Microsoft, Spencer could have made this statement months ago. The three year timeline appears to be gone. Why? Regulatory approval of the acquisition.
Your next question should have already leaped mind: what happens if the deal goes through and then Microsoft reverses on this promise? Well, statements to the press aren’t a contractual agreement, so a failure to keep this promise would likely rely on regulators with actual teeth punishing the company for doing so. American regulatory bodies are not known for their canines, if I may be frank. The UK has traditionally been better about this.
To be clear, Microsoft should want to keep selling AAA franchises on PlayStation. And Switches. And mobile devices. Any anywhere else it can make money. Exclusivity is dumb and Spencer himself has said they are not the Xbox’s future.
Meanwhile, I need to go make a spreadsheet to keep track of all of Microsoft’s promises.
Filed Under: antitrust, call of duty, exclusives, playstation, xbox
Companies: activision blizzard, microsoft
Comments on “Microsoft, Staring Down Regulators, Promises To Keep CoD On PlayStation”
The boy who cried wolf called, something about 'Are you kidding me?'
Microsoft, while regulators are looking their way: Whaaaat? No, we never planned on tying a major game series to our platforms and only our platforms, didn’t you pay attention when we hinted very strongly that we’d super-duper release the games on other platforms? We were totally kidding around when we told Sony that we’d give them three years and then go full exclusives, clearly we meant something not that at all.
Five Minutes Later
Microsoft, post acquisition: ‘No exclusives’? No idea where you’d get that idea, clearly we’re not going to pay so much for a game studio and not squeeze every cent out of it that we can. If you want to play CoD you’re getting it from us or not at all.
From the "Promises, Promises" department
The chief reason I stopped gaming wasn’t because I am an old fart, but because I got tired of the games the producers play to make profit. I’m not disinclined to profit mind you, but 100,000% returns on investment are… irritating. So much so it’s even put me off of open source games.
That being said, Microsoft keeping a promise occurs approximately at the same rate cell phone networks and cable monopolies keep theirs. EG: none to speak of.
What proposals could possibly make market consolidation un-harmful? This is a primary sign that regulators are unserious, even if that isn’t the intent of individuals.
There’s this story, about three little pigs and the Very Insistent Encyclopedia Salesman…
I think you might be better with one of those room-spanning connection charts with thread-laden pins connecting newspaper articles, names, and conspiracy theories.
The Venn diagram of Microsoft’s public promises vs. promises kept looks suspiciously like the one for Google products/services launched vs. those killed off.
However PlayStation users have had access to CoD weeks before all other platforms for years. Reverse that and give Xbox/PC players preferential treatment and I won’t care about the acquisition. But as it stands now Sony PlayStations users having early access is really annoying and it’s about time the tables turn!
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Another day, another 'Geigner shows his fanboyism' article
Microsoft saying they’ll continue to support Sony’s hardware is essentially the exact same statement Sony said (and you covered) in February with Bungie.
Unsurprisingly, that article was almost entirely favorable to Sony (“This is starkly different than … Microsoft”, “it is a welcome sign in a few ways”, etc).
Is there ever going to be a way to filter out a single author’s bullshit here?
compulsory support
So ms have to support Sony and make their game compatible with Sony hardware?
I may be a “copyright maximalist” but how exactly is that ok?
I bring a new console to market and my competitors have to convert their games to run on my device?
Yeah, that’s clearly bollocks and not how any of this should work.
I’m fine with Nintendo games on Nintendo devices and don’t think they should be compelled to support their rivals.
Evil,evil copyright maximalist that I am……
Call of duty sells millions on both consoles having it xbox exclusive makes no financial sense,
What will happen is maybe some content like dlc will appear on xbox first before its released on sony consoles
microsoft has millions to buy game studios and makes games that are maybe released on xbox consoles first before being released on ps5 .
it makes no sense to spend millions making a game and just release it on one console.
we need competition we need at least consoles
plus some nintendo console to have competition in the marketplace and provide choice to consumers
Re:
Agreed. At the moment, CoD sells more on Playstation than Xbox. What Sony is really after, though, is preventing MS from putting Activision games, especially CoD, on Gamepass. And let’s be real, if regulators made them divest the CoD IP and Sony snapped it up, what do you think are the chances it became a Playstation exclusive?
It’s not about CoD, it’s not about AAA gaming, it’s not about Cloud compute gaming – put simply Microsoft wants a bigger stake in the mobile games market.
I trust that Microsoft will forever ship CoD on Playstation. It’s a no brainer to leave those sales intact when the eyes on the prize focus on mobile, mobile, mobile Activision products.
Sure CoD will be integrated in Gamepass just like Sony will have more timed exclusives e.g. Horizon Forbidden West, Ragnarock.
Sony’s walking a fine line on integrity with their complaint.
Promises by M$ to regulatory bodies is worth the paper it’s printed on.
Just make them submit their answer in writing, signed and notarized.
Once it becomes a contract between them and the regulatory bodies THEN we can have confidence in things following though.
Oh yeah, please toss Activision’s little skeevy gremlins out in the street if not into a state subsidized concrete box for a few decades.
Sony still rolling in the grave for now
Sony is desperately hanging on to its game market.
Content censorship choices created a dedicated consumer watchdog movement to point out all of their ‘choices’.
But then they did the unthinkable.
A few thousand anti-censorship gamers became millions when they started breaking games with their choices.
Now the company is in trouble. The only thing it has right now keeping users (fee fans remain) on the platform is the big titles. COD, WOW, GTA. Etc
Loosing any one would be a devastating blow to the company.
The company is literally trying to patch all the holes they made by shooting themselves with the censorship scatter gun. Random, inconsistent, and often pointless, decisions.