Microsoft Acquisition Won't Affect Call Of Duty For "Several Years", Says Xbox

After Microsoft announced its planned acquisition of Activision earlier this year, the concern on many gamers’ minds was what would end up happening to Call of Duty. Since Microsoft is set to own the entire IP, many were worried that the decision could be made to make the franchise an Xbox exclusive. 

Take a look at some gameplay footage for the upcoming Modern Warfare II below.

However, in a statement released to The Verge, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has reaffirmed that PlayStation users don’t have anything to worry about - at least not for a few years, anyway. “In January, we provided a signed agreement to Sony to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract, an offer that goes well beyond typical gaming industry agreements,” he said.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve been reassured this will be the case. In fact, last month, Microsoft actually argued that “the strategy of retaining Activision Blizzard’s games by not distributing them in rival console shops would simply not be profitable for Microsoft” in defence of the buyout, in a document sent to Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE).

“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,” Microsoft wrote.