Sony’s Getting Terrified About Losing Call of Duty

Several months have now passed since Microsoft announced their intent to acquire Activision Blizzard, in a deal scheduled to be finalized around June 2023. Sony has only begun to realize the full ramifications of what this will mean in the last month.

The figurative light bulb has activated in the heads of PlayStation executives, President and CEO Jim Ryan chief among them given the rampage he’s been on throughout September and into October. The fun began after Microsoft, through Head of Xbox Studios Phil Spencer, confirmed to Ryan that Microsoft “provided a signed agreement to Sony to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years,” in a letter verified by the Verge. It was an ostensibly generous offer, considering Microsoft didn’t have to do this and could simply end support for the franchise on PlayStation platforms after the deal closes.

This was not good enough for Ryan, who specifically confirmed that the agreement would leave CoD support on PlayStation for three years after the deal closes (until 2026). “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.” There is fear dripping from that statement. A certain someone realized what it will mean when PlayStation loses the franchise.

This feud has seriously intensified with the Competition and Markets Authority in the United Kingdom being in the midst of probing the deal between Xbox and Activision Blizzard on antitrust grounds, an investigation that’s now entered a second phase. Sony, in response, said that it “welcomes the announcement” of the CMA continuing their investigation.

Sony believes this is their big, perhaps only, chance to scuttle this deal before Microsoft finalizes it in about eight months. Ryan went as far as to personally visit the European Union in Brussels to voice the concerns of Sony’s PlayStation brand on September 8th. The report from Deal Reporter (which requires a subscription to read — thankfully other websites reported this) said Google also voiced their concerns to the EU. Whether they did so on behalf of Stadia is unknown, but if so, those concerns are falling on deaf ears now that its corpse is being readied for the Graveyard.

It’s understandable why Sony is concerned, considering how well the Call of Duty series has performed on PlayStation platforms over the years. Sony had frequent marketing deals with Activision for the games during the PlayStation 4’s time in the limelight, a trend that’s extended into the early PS5 era. The upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (not that one — a naming scheme that isn’t the least bit confusing), for instance, will have pre-order content exclusively for PlayStation purchasers. This was undoubtedly negotiated well before Microsoft announced their purchase of Activision, and will be moot once the next CoD arrives, assuming those rumors of the franchise sitting out next year (for the first time in nearly two decades) are true.

I’m no fan of all the mergers happening within the video game industry with alarming rapidity, and Sony is making solid points here despite being a bit hypocritical. If the ball was in the other court, there is no way that Sony would be saying this deal is unfair and stop, and Microsoft knows this. Microsoft themselves went into this game of mass consolidation with an unfair advantage considering their bulbous size and war chest compared Sony (and that’s not even getting into Nintendo). Microsoft is also aware that you could count the number of corporate mergers scuttled on anti-trust grounds in recent history on one hand, and this particular merger is all but certain to progress despite Sony’s justifiable issues. The best they can do is delay the completion date.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony knew this, which is why they should also be thinking of a future where Call of Duty does not release on PlayStation. This is the time — right now! — for them to plan their own successor, whether that involves reviving a franchise like Killzone or creating a new IP. Since the Microsoft/Activision deal won’t be finalized until June 2023, it will likely be until 2027 before CoD starts releasing exclusively on Xbox –perhaps when the PS5 will be at the end of its lifeline. But games take a lot of time to develop these days, so Sony should at least be planning this now.

It’s worth noting how humorous it is that Sony isn’t using this opportunity to cozy up with EA and DICE for a deal for the Battlefield games. Recent titles in that franchise have been divisive at best.

Sony will have a difficult future to embrace in this regard, but unless they make some big mistakes along the way, the PlayStation brand will be fine in the near future. Another aspect I’m humored about here is the other franchises Sony will miss out on. It’s not like Activision is concerned with those either, outside maybe Crash Bandicoot. But Sony might express concern about Blizzard franchises like Overwatch and Diablo in the future. It’s nice that the most recent installments in those franchises have released and are planned to arrive, respectively, on PlayStation too, and will be supported for years to come. Besides, it’s not like they won’t have a popular multiplayer franchise of their own soon.

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