PlayStation gamers heartbroken Sony traded Bethesda, Crash, and more for 10 years of Call Of Duty
Topics: Call Of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Bethesda, Activision, Xbox, PlayStation
Featured Image Credit: Activision
Topics: Call Of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Bethesda, Activision, Xbox, PlayStation
The Microsoft and Activision Blizzard takeover saga may nearly be over, but some fans are left feeling aggrieved.
Since 2003, the Call of Duty series has evolved into one of the most commercially successful and popular video game franchises of all time. No doubt, this series was a major reason that Microsoft stumped up $68.7 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard.
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Even though Microsoft has reiterated that it intends to keep Call of Duty multiplatform, to the extent that Nintendo was offered a 10-year deal, Sony was concerned that at some point in the future, Microsoft could pull the series from PlayStation and keep it on the green brand.
If that was to happen, Microsoft would have shot itself in the foot, especially as it once admitted, it wouldn’t be profitable to restrict Call of Duty to just Xbox, even if it meant taking it away from its most fierce competitor.
When Microsoft made the first steps to acquire Activision Blizzard in January 2022, many would have assumed that the takeover would have been completed by now, though we still have a little way to go until everything is finalised. The first major roadblock to halt its progression (other than PlayStation boss Jim Ryan throwing spanners into the works), was the FTC and CMA’s attempts to block the deal, both of which are the US and UK market regulators, respectively.
However, Microsoft recently won a court battle against the opposing FTC, taking one step closer to the takeover being completed. Now we just wait to see what happens in the UK with the CMA.
Following Microsoft’s big win in court, it was revealed by Xbox head honcho, Phil Spencer that a binding deal has been signed with PlayStation to ensure that Call of Duty remains on the blue brand. Details on that agreement, such as contract length remain undisclosed at this time.
Interestingly, there was no other mention of other Activision franchises such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Overwatch or Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater to name a few. What’s more, there was also no mention of Bethesda titles, a company that Microsoft had previously acquired paying $7.5 billion for its parent company, ZeniMax Media.
Unfortunately, it seems that there is a good reason why only Call of Duty was mentioned in the ‘binding agreement’, and that’s reportedly due to the deal only including the popular first-person series.
“Outlets [such as The Verge] published Phil Spencer's email to Jim Ryan proposing a 10-year deal to keep ALL CURRENT Activision Blizzard games (CoD, Overwatch, Crash, Spyro, etc) on PlayStation, it was rejected. Now this deal is ONLY FOR CoD. Jim Ryan might have made a big mistake,” said Redditor olorin9_alex. “Say goodbye to those classic Microsoft franchises like Crash, Spyro, Diablo, Overwatch, Tony Hawk... Those aren't in the deal,” exclaimed a sarcastic joeyrvn.
"I couldn’t careless about COD," another user added. "I don’t play those types of games. Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Dishonored, Doom and Wolfenstein are the games I would want access to, but looks like that’s not going to happen."
So in other words, once Microsoft officially acquires Activision Blizzard and you were looking to play games from a publisher other than Call of Duty, it might soon be time to invest in an Xbox Series X|S.