Is Sony starting to get paranoid? The firm fears sabotage on the next Call of Duty from Microsoft.
The interminable affair of the takeover of Activision Blizzard is aptly named (which we have just invented). New twists have just surfaced, as documents attest to PlayStation’s greatest fear. Indeed, it seems that the company is increasingly afraid that its big rival Xbox sabotages (intentionally or not) the next games call of duty on PS5…if the franchise doesn’t become an outright exclusive.
The two companies have been fighting a merciless battle over the license for months. call of duty specifically. If Microsoft has assured – key contract – that the license will remain on PlayStation at least until the PS7 (or more or less 10 years), this is obviously not enough for Sony. In the new documents submitted to the British authorities, it is written:
“Microsoft could release a PlayStation version of Call of Duty in which bugs and errors only appear on the latest level of the game or after subsequent updates. Even if such degradations could be detected quickly, any remedy would likely come too late, and the gaming community would then have lost faith in PlayStation as the preferred place to play Call of Duty.
Indeed, as evidenced by Modern Warfare II, Call of Duty is most often purchased from the first weeks of its release. If it turns out that the game’s performance on PlayStation is worse than on Xbox, Call of Duty players may decide to switch to Xbox for fear of playing their favorite game in a second-class location or less. competitive.”
Are Sony’s claims possible?
That’s the $70 billion question. For the moment, it seems obvious that the firm has no proof of what it announces, especially in view of Microsoft’s commitments to try to calm the situation. In this context, we understand that Sony is afraid of a version of call of duty which just wouldn’t be optimized for PS5 to further benefit players on Xbox and Windows PC. What Microsoft responds to:
“By ensuring parity between Sony, as the largest console platform, and Microsoft, the proposed fix will ensure that CoD is indeed available on “level playing field” (which has not been the case during of the past 20 years), benefiting Xbox and PC gamers, as well as PlayStation gamers. Additionally, the proposed fix will allow Sony to place CoD in its own PlayStation Plus subscription service.”
Such sabotage would obviously be legally reprehensible, and is therefore not an option if Microsoft wants to continue to be in the good graces of Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. It would also be very unethical. That’s why Sony’s reaction sounds more like a desperate cry for help as the authorities begin to lean in favor of Xbox.
This comes just a week after Microsoft was able to get its hands on other documents, this time in its fight which is taking place on American soil. As a reminder, the firm can now have access to all the exchanges between Sony and the regulators since the beginning of the conflict, but also the documents which testify to the way in which Sony treats its own exclusivities.
