According to Microsoft, there are no upcoming plans to make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive, as it “would simply not be profitable” for the company, as per a story from Video Games Chronicle. A document sent to Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) outlined the proposed acquisition of the hit shooter series.
In a statement from the documents, Microsoft said: “Regardless of how unsurprising Sony‘s criticism of content exclusivity is – given that PlayStation’s entire strategy has been centred on exclusivity over the years – the reality is that the strategy of retaining Activision Blizzard’s games by not distributing them in rival console shops would simply not be profitable for Microsoft.”
However, the strategy would only work “if Activision Blizzard’s games were able to attract a sufficiently large number of gamers” and provided “Microsoft could earn enough revenue from game sales to offset the losses from not distributing such games on rival consoles.”
“As if that weren’t enough, exclusivity strategies still result in title-specific costs,” the document reads. Microsoft continues its argument by saying that if Call of Duty became exclusive to Xbox and made a profit, it “would have no competitive impact” due to “the intense competition in the game publishing market.”
To conclude, the report reads: “In summary, the hypothetical adoption of any content discontinuation strategy would not be profitable for Microsoft and, even if implemented, such strategies would have no competitive impact, for the reasons described above.”
In January 2022, Sony responded to Microsoft for the first time following the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, expecting Microsoft to follow “contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform.”
The next iteration of the shooter mega-franchise, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II, will launch on October 28, 2022, on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, and PC via Battle.net and Steam. The beta dates for the sequel were recently announced to be coming throughout September. For more on all things Call of Duty, stay tuned right here at GameLuster.
