Microsoft announced on January 18, 2022, that it would be acquiring Activision Blizzard, the popular developers, and publishers of the acclaimed Call of Duty franchise for a staggering $68.7 billion.
Ever since the announcement, Sony has made moves to convince investigating regulators that the deal shouldn’t become a reality. In order to achieve this, the behemoth company has speculated that Microsoft will make the Call of Duty franchise exclusive to Xbox consoles which would have a negative impact on the video games industry.
The Call of Duty franchise is currently growing at an accelerated rate, especially with the release of new remakes that have made billions for Activision Blizzard. Sony has admitted that in pure sales, there is currently no franchise that can compete with Call of Duty.
The PlayStation owners even went as far as belittling EA’s acclaimed Battlefield, saying that the series “cannot keep up” with Call of Duty.
Sick burn…
In a document released as part of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, Sony also claims that EA has “tried for many years” to rival Call of Duty but has never actually come close to succeeding.
As reported by Eurogamer, Sony stated, “Call of Duty is too entrenched for any rival, no matter how well equipped, to catch up”.
“It has been the top-selling game for almost every year in the last decade and, in the first-person shooter genre, it is overwhelmingly the top-selling game. Other publishers do not have the resources or expertise to match its success.”
“To give a concrete example, Electronic Arts – one of the largest third-party developers after Activision – has tried for many years to produce a rival to Call of Duty with its Battlefield series.”
“Despite the similarities between Call of Duty and Battlefield… the Battlefield franchise cannot keep up.”
And although Battlefield has indeed been the biggest rival to Call of Duty, especially with titles like Battlefield 4, the recent Battlefield games have not exactly been a significant success.
Despite Battlefield 2042’s attempt to reimagine the Battlefield series and take it in a whole new direction, the game had a disappointing launch that wasn’t well received by many players.
Ultimately, Sony is right about Call of Duty’s dominance in both sales and in the FPS genre. However, Microsoft has brushed off the importance of the Call of Duty franchise by previously stating that PlayStation exclusives have “better quality” than Xbox exclusives, especially with acclaimed titles like The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, and of course God of War.
Microsoft added that the aforementioned PlayStation exclusives could easily sustain Sony without Call of Duty, assuming it does end up making the franchise exclusive to Xbox consoles, which is very likely to happen if the deal pulls through.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
