Call of Duty: Xbox boss won’t stick a knife in Sony’s back

As you know, the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard for more than $60 billion is currently under investigation by the competition authorities of many countries, especially the UK. What matters to these institutions, above all, lies in the fate of the American publisher’s flagship licenses. Call of Duty.

The idea is, first of all, that this takeover is in the minds of other manufacturers, Sony, in a weak position for the release of their next console. In the eyes of the CMA (UK Competition and Markets Authority), Call of Duty games can:make a significant difference in the success of competing gaming platforms”.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has raised his voice several times when faced with these legitimate concerns. The executive assured in an interview with his YouTube channel that he has no intention of removing Call of Duty from Playstation. In September 2022, Mr Spencer made a written commitment to Jim Ryan.Call of Duty, the boss of Sony Interactive Entertainment, remains on Playstation. on his side, Jim Ryan used this expression as “inadequate in many ways“.

Phil Spencer doesn’t want to stick a knife in Sony’s back

And exactly, on the microphone of the Decoder podcast, BoundaryThe leader of Xbox maintained this position. for him, the idea is not to backstab Sony a few years later. “At some point I’m not saying you didn’t pull the carpet under your Playstation 7’s feet Aha, you didn’t write a long enough contract. There is no contract mentioning Forever. I think the idea of ​​writing a contract with Never is a bit silly, but I have no problem making a longer-term commitment that would be okay for Sony and regulators. explains.

During this exchange, host Nilay Patel underlined an important point. As a matter of fact, it is not impossible for Call of Duty to be limited to only certain formats on Playstation. For example, nothing prevents Microsoft from offering COD games only through the Playstation cloud. it won’t be like this. “Native Call of Duty on Playstation not connected to Game Pass but without streaming. If they want a release version of Call of Duty, we can do that just like we do on our own consoles.”