There will be at least 3 more Call of Duty games on PlayStation
Not too long ago, we all got the news that Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard for a massive $68.7 billion. While the dust is still settling on this deal, people are already wondering just how many of the games Microsoft is going to hoard for itself. Right now, it seems that it will be all of the games except for Call of Duty. Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft, said that Microsoft plans to honor its existing agreements to keep Call of Duty on Sony’s consoles. He spoke with higher-ups at Sony and, according to Spencer, they all seemed to be on the same page. Microsoft plans to have Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles only for another three installments. While three more Call of Duty games will be on the scale of years, there’s still a definite cut-off point.
What about the other franchises?
Looking back at the statement, Spencer said that the company will honor all EXISTING agreements with Sony. This could possibly mean that there won’t be any future agreements struck with Sony to keep games on the platform. That’s a scary thought because there’s no word about games that are already on Playstation. Overwatch is a game that was acquired in the purchase. It’s also a game that’s already available on PlayStation consoles. The question is “Will Microsoft just yank that game from the Playstation and away from the players that are already playing it?” There are still a lot of questions in the air surrounding this deal. We’re not even sure if the US Department of Justice will allow this deal to fully materialize. The major game franchises that were bought are Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and Candy Crush. Those are only the major titles; there could be hundreds of smaller franchises that will be under Microsoft’s thumb. This puts a bad taste in most peoples’ mouths, as no one wants so many franchises to be under the control of just one company. This is one reason why Microsoft has been butting heads with the Department of Justice over the decades. Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard walks the line between good business and anti-competitive practice. This story is still developing as time goes on, so we should expect things to shift quickly.
