Microsoft: “Call of Duty will never be an Xbox exclusive, it would only have disadvantages”
During a hearing before the Brazil antitrust, Microsoft executives explained why Call of Duty will never be a Microsoft exclusive.
The gel gaming industry awaits with bated breath the outcome of the complex acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft . The agreement would bring with it a treasure consisting of some of the most important intellectual properties in the sector: from Call of Duty to Overwatch, through World of Warcraft and Candy Crash. But the list is still very long.
Precisely for this reason the operation is in the crosshairs of the antitrust authorities of almost half the world: they want to understand if and what imbalances such an acquisition could introduce in the video game sector. Also because Microsoft sells the consoles and in addition to those it also has its own cloud gaming and Game Pass. All things that could potentially revolutionize the sector and upset the balance of power.
At a hearing in front of CADE , the free market authority in Brazil, Microsoft executives have denied that they want to make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive . The spearhead of the fps genre will continue to be available on Sony consoles as well, Redmond guarantees.
Microsoft executives explained that making CoD an exclusive would make little economic sense. There would be many more disadvantages than advantages, starting with the risk of making the Call of Duty saga marginal. Yet it is CoD, with its millions of copies sold worldwide, that is one of the most important assets within the Blizzard Activision basket.
Microsoft has done the math: making Call of Duty an exclusive would only increase costs, without a real advantage in terms of conversion of Playstation users . Hence the categorical promise: «it will never happen. We do not want and – above all – we cannot make CoD an exclusive ».
