Playstation

Is Sony right to be worried that Call of Duty games on PlayStation could be sabotaged?

March 18, 2023

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Sony is doing all it can to disrupt Microsoft’s $68.7 billion Activision acquisition out of a genuine fear of losing access to Call of Duty on PlayStation

A masked Call of Duty multiplayer character raising his gun

Call of Duty is intended to stay on PlayStation for 10 years after the Activision deal, but Sony isn’t convinced (

Image: Activision)

Microsoft has hit back against Sony’s claim that the PlayStation version of Call of Duty may end up being inferior, but past precedent speaks for itself.

Microsoft’s attempted $68.7 billion dollar acquisition of Activision-Blizzard continues to reveal the nastier sides of the gaming industry’s two major platform holders. On one side you have Microsoft, attempting to appease UK regulators by setting out its intentions for Call of Duty in the future, while downplaying its own position in the market. On the other side you have its main rival, Sony, doing all it can to prevent the deal from being approved by poking holes in these apparent plans.

The latest disagreement came from Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan’s admittedly rather bonkers proposition that any one of the Call of Duty games released on PlayStation could have issues “where bugs and errors emerge only on the game’s final level or after later updates” should the franchise become an Xbox exclusive. In effect, he accused Microsoft of sabotaging other versions of the popular military shooter series in order to make the company’s consoles the superior way to play – or at least suggesting that Microsoft would be capable of doing so.

On the surface, he’s not wrong. At any point, once Call of Duty becomes a first-party exclusive alongside other Xbox franchises like Halo, Gears of War, and, most recently, Starfield, Microsoft could tell its developers to make the PS4, PS5 and the eventual PS6 versions subpar in some capacity. While it’s an eventuality that’s definitely possible, the question is: would Microsoft actually do it and stoop to such petty tactics in reality? Probably not.

After all, even when Call of Duty comes under Microsoft’s ownership, the publisher will still want to sell as many copies as possible, including on platforms like PlayStation and Nintendo. Microsoft has already said the Switch and subsequent Nintendo consoles will receive support for a minimum of 10 more years. It’s worked out pretty well for Minecraft, which Microsoft acquired in 2014 and has since continued to launch spin-offs of – such as Minecraft Legends, and Minecraft Dungeons on consoles other than Xbox, while also supporting the main Minecraft title with post-launch updates and support elsewhere too.

The truth is that it doesn’t make a lot of business sense to sabotage Call of Duty on any platform. Microsoft has now even said as such in a rebuttal to PlayStation’s claim, saying (via Eurogamer ) that it will offer up a “guarantee of parity between Xbox and PlayStation on access to Call of Duty” after the buyout is approved. Of course, it would say that in order to try and get the acquisition approved, and it’ll only keep on doing so until April 26, 2023, when the CMA makes its final decision.

Though sabotage of this nature is unlikely, that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible in other areas. Ryan is correct to be wary in terms of the way Call of Duty is handled in the future, especially if you look at how other Microsoft publisher acquisitions in the past have been handled. When Bethesda was welcomed into the Xbox family back in September, 2020, for instance, head of Xbox Phil Spencer strongly hinted in an interview with GQ that The Elder Scrolls 6 would be an Xbox exclusive, similar to how it took Starfield off the PlayStation table despite it previously being announced for the platform. Who’s to say the same couldn’t happen to Call of Duty?

For the payers

The very fact that Microsoft has been so adamant about its 10-year minimum guarantee to other platforms would suggest that its ultimate goal is to make Call of Duty a true Xbox exclusive. So as much as Microsoft might try to give the impression it wants to bring the franchise to more people – apparently 150 million more, when brought to Nintendo Switch and Nvidia users – the future of Call of Duty isn’t on PlayStation.

Sony is so concerned about Microsoft’s willingness to go back on its promises, that in the same documentation to the CMA where it raised concerns of sabotage, it also pointed towards previous examples of U-turns the company has done on its promises. From the time European antitrust regulators fined Microsoft $1.3 billion for abusing its market dominance with Windows operating systems in 2008 to when it was fined another $731 million for a similar situation with Internet Explorer in 2013, it’s clear that Jim Ryan isn’t beyond digging deep to throw punches.

I’m of the opinion that consolidation of any kind isn’t good for players. It leads to less competition, fewer independent studios to work on ideas they’re passionate about, and the increased likelihood that we’ll get less interesting games as a result. Neither PlayStation nor Microsoft are tussling over Call of Duty with any of these considerations in mind, but it’s indicative of an industry fighting over who gets to keep the biggest financial share.

Sony is absolutely right to be fearful of Microsoft’s sabotage, as Microsoft would be of Sony had it been the other way around. Whatever verdict the CMA settles on, it’s us gamers who will ultimately get caught up in the crossfire.

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For the payers

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