When asked about the future of Call of Duty on the PlayStation, everyone at Microsoft was very cautious about expressing themselves as the company announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Since Microsoft President Brad Smith said they would release Call of Duty and other major franchises in March “beyond existing pacts and into the future,” the likes of Phil Spencer ) Such people have been reconciled for “a few years” and similar statements leave a lot of room for interpretation. This is obviously for good reason.
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan issued a statement to gamesindustry.biz, claiming that Microsoft’s proposal is to continue publishing Call of Duty games on PlayStation for three years after the agreement with Activision. He apparently said that the proposal “is insufficient on many levels”.
To underscore how kindergarten-like the argument has become, Ryan gave reasons for speaking now:
“I was not going to comment on what I understood to be private business discussions, but I felt compelled to clarify because Phil Spencer brought this into the public forum.
You can be absolutely sure that Microsoft will make new comments as a result, as Ryan’s statement is one of the last attempts to get different competition regulators around the world to stop Activision Blizzard from being part of Xbox Game Studios.