Call Of Duty Will Remain On PlayStation For Three Years After Current Agreement, Jim Ryan Says

In January, Microsoft declared that it would be buying Activision Blizzard at a staggering $68.7billion. This is the largest acquisition of gaming companies in history. Now, of course, regulators like the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority and the U.S.’ FTC must approve of this, and those investigations are ongoing. But suppose all goes according to Microsoft’s plan. The company would then own Activision Blizzard which is the publisher/developer behind Call of Duty and Overwatch. This will be in the spring/summer of 2023. 

Shortly after the company announced its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, Xbox head Phil Spencer confirmed his company’s intent “to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation” following the purchase. He reaffirmed this commitment earlier this month, going so far as to speak to PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan and promise that Call of Duty will remain on PlayStation even after Activision Blizzard and Sony’s contracts have run their courses (Thanks, The Verge).

This is a brand new statement GamesIndustry.biz, Ryan has revealed that Call of Duty will remain on PlayStation for three years after his company’s contracts with Activision Blizzard are done. However, Ryan calls this “inadequate” and seemingly expresses some frustration over the fact that Spencer publicly discussed that he and Ryan had spoken about this Call of Duty situation, calling it “private business.” 

“I hadn’t intended to comment on what I understood to be a private business discussion, but I feel the need to set the record straight because Phil Spencer brought this into the public forum,” Ryan’s statement reads, according to GamesIndustry.biz. “Microsoft has only offered for Call of Duty to remain on PlayStation for three years after the current agreement between Activision and Sony ends. Their proposal, after almost twenty years of Call of Duty on PlayStation was insufficient on several levels. It also failed to consider the effect on gamers. We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality Call of Duty experience, and Microsoft’s proposal undermines this principle.” 

GamesIndustry.biz says it’s believed that the current deal between Sony and Activision Blizzard is set to last for the next three Call of Duty releases, including this year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.

Call of Duty reportedly will skip 2023. Instead, the company is releasing a single game each year instead. If that’s true, and assuming Call of Duty is back to its yearly schedule following that – so a new game in 2024 and then 2025 – it seems Call of Duty will be released on PlayStation in 2026, 2027, and 2028, with the 2029 game possibly out of the question, according to Ryan’s statement. Of course, that’s just some quick math, and we aren’t privy to know the Call of Duty release plans for the next couple of years, so the final Call of Duty year for PlayStation could end up being different, but that’s a solid estimate.

We might soon be playing shooters with the PlayStation 6, if previous console versions are any indication. We will only know the outcome when it happens. Regardless, it’s becoming more apparent that PlayStation really doesn’t want Call of Duty to become an Xbox exclusive, which makes sense considering it’s usually one of the biggest releases of the year and surely brings PlayStation a good chunk of money. However, it wouldn’t be surprising if Call of Duty one day does become an Xbox exclusive. You don’t spend $68.7 billion without plans to do something big, and making Call of Duty exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem would be huge (albeit unfortunate for PlayStation fans). 

[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]

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