PlayStation Seems Worried About Xbox Owning Call Of Duty

Are they really, really worried though 🤔? I mean it is perfectly reasonable to think that if Sony makes the Destiny franchise and whatever else Bungie are working on a full on PlayStation and PC exclusive it more than fill the gap left by COD. Not to mention the exclusive game they signed with Deviation, a new studio formed by ex Sledgehammer devs who previously worked on COD and no doubt are making a Sony FPS. So yeah I'm definitely cynical regarding Sony’s being worried about COD.

@themightyant

I don't know man, I just can't see a scenario where Sony can be affected to the magnitudes they describe. Their first party output is arguably second to none, bar Ninty's. And don't forget they now own Bungie, one of the biggest fish in the shooting genre. Microsoft have terribly overpaid for franchise well past its heyday, but then again that's just probably me.

Sony will be fine.

If anything I hope CoD gets dialed back to coming out every other year when all is said and done.

I don't think MS has to even make it exclusive to cause a shift, putting it on gamepass with crossplay will pull people over. It'll be slower but it avoids the PR blow back.

I really hate Sony. Look at what they did, they locked multiplat games like ff 7 remake, ff 7 rebirth, ff 16, street fighter 5, spiderman, wolverine to PS (likely forever).
Aren't those games also "has no rival"
Sony literally said if they are the one who wins the market, it doesn't matter; but if Xbox wins, they complained. What a loser

I though call of duty wasnt going to be exclusive and would also be on PlayStation so why would they worry ?

@abe_hikura they did say that cod will be multiplatform but if you think about it they could shove free to play warzone on ps and keep the main game as a game pass/Xbox exclusive, they kept Thier word and kept cod on ps just not the main game

And those who are saying I don't believe Sony are worried of course they are ,any company would be ,cod makes a hell of a lot of money and then ps timed exclusives bring in a lot of money and console sales ,Sony knows this cause they have the numbers and they will lose that

Lets face it if cod has exclusive weapons on Xbox plenty of cod players will jump at it ( not me I don't play cod ) and when they do Thier friends will also follow suit it's a money printing machine ...that Sony won't see a penny of and thats without all the future sales of other ps games they won't buy anymore cause Thier on Xbox

Yes they are worried big time

Edit : destiny hasn't made anywhere near as much money as cod and they are independent and have already said Thier games will stay multiplatform so chances are it won't b the cod killer ,ppl are entrenched in buying the latest cod each year and will do for a long long time

And if say bungie started working on a cod killer now it won't b out for at least 4/5 years how many Sony fans are gonna jump ship to Xbox in that time ? A hell of a lot

Very interesting. I was taking a look after you posted the news.
Ubisoft said that "there is no such video game title that doesn't have close competition, all publishers and all games compete for available playtime, and none title stands alone in its game genre".

Amazon said they don't have enough info to evaluate Microsoft and Activision importance in game publishing. (hahaha)

"Riot Games believes Activision Blizzard titles face rivalry from close competitors", and they listed a lot of competitors. Google and Bandai-Nanco did the same.

Sony's alone in this.

I'm sure ms is more than willing to accept moneys from Sony for exclusive content. Spec ops? Zombies? Other exclusives? Just pay ms for the privilege 😂😂

@raftos yeh amazing how it's just sony , anyone would think they don't want the acquisition to happen lol

Sony have nothing to worry about until Xbox start producing AAA games and their studios output them and the general public take to them.
This includes COD.
I doubt it but Microsoft could mess up COD then there is nothing to worry about.
Soz, but current faith in Xbox studio management is at an all time low since being with Xbox day one original Xbox.

@Dezzy70 even the worst cod games still make a hell of a lot of money

@Martsmall
That’s very true. I’m sure they won’t mess it up
But you never know 😂

@Dezzy70 they might but the truckloads of cash it will bring in they won't care lol

Sony realise the value of COD on their system. They signed the exclusive timed DLC and marketing contract with Activision years ago knowing the pull it has. COD gets the casual gamer to buy your system and you could argue it’s one factor for Sonys dominance in recent years. You attract the casual gamer and hope they they invest in other games on your system too. So I can see what this guy is trying to say.

It’s kinda funny, if COD continues to sell best on PlayStation then all that money goes straight into MS pockets anyway. They can’t really lose whatever MS choose to do with COD 🤣

Well considering MS doesn't even own Activision yet, had no 1st party releases this year and just won NPD 3 months in a row and had their best fiscal year in the history of XBOX, imagine when they start dropping all these bombs. Sony just released 2 of their biggest franchises in GT7 and Horizon FW and had a 37% DECREASE in profit, and active users saw a decrease. That's telling. Guess one is more prepared for the future than the other ...

Once existing contracts between Sony and Activision Blizzard end, it'll be very interesting to see how the buyout will affects the overall console market.

Even if future Call of Duty games remain multiplatform as Microsoft has promised, how big a draw will the allure of COD being included on Game Pass prove to be? Presumably Microsoft won't allow any future COD games will be made available as part of the various PlayStation Plus tiers. Add to that some sort of exclusive content incentive and we may very well see the scales tip in Microsoft's favour.

And make no mistakes: Sony isn't misguided here. No videogame franchise rivals COD in sheer market mind share. Countless other games are indeed objectively better than COD, but you can't put a price on being a household name for so many years. It doesn't matter how good an alternative Sony might come up with; in the eyes of the general public, it just won't be Call of Duty so they'll likely have little interest in it.

Yes, interesting times ahead indeed...

I really like my PS5 but Sony is exhausting.

@Dezzy70 Xbox studio’s management is laughable at this point. I say that as someone who loves the system.

First person shooter is one genre that Sony has not found much success in. They should be a little concerned about xbox having a huge advantage in this genre. Halo, doom , COD, Wolfenstein, Fallout, Quake, Dishonored, starfield etc.

I don't think COD ever leaves Sony, but it will still hurt them even if it remains multiplat. Just marketing it as an xbox owned franchise will probably actract a lot of casuals. Plus if people are scared about xbox always having the ability to stop putting it on Sony they will need to consider buying an Xbox.

@Fenbops
I feel the same and your pain.

I kind of want them to make it exclusive just to stick it to Sony but it's possible it won't happen because MS wants the Activision Blizzard purchase to go through. In all honesty, I don't know enough about Antitrust laws to speculate on that but I'd chortle if MS does end up making COD exclusive to Xbox after the sale goes through.

"Call of Duty is so popular that it influences users’ choice of console"

Considering that neither xbox or PS has had an exclusive COD game, I find this to be one hell a statement.

@rhyno_888 🤣🤣🤣🤣 You know what...I was about to call you the typical Xbox fanboy, but damn I appreciate your honesty about hating them. I had a good laugh this morning.

Btw, SF5 was co funded by them. Of course it was gonna be exclusive. Also Sony was approached by Marvel to make those Spidey and Wolvie games. Why would Sony make games to go on other platforms if they don't have to. Bad enough with The Show. Same thing if Playground, Coalition or any other Xbox developer making a special licensed game. I wouldn't expect those games on Playstation.

Casual gamers that buy COD and only cod don’t care about GPU. That’s not the issue here. It’s the cut of the COD pie. Plenty of people buy cod and fifa and that’s it - maybe gta - look at the sales numbers. These people are gonna pay £100 plus a year to have GPU. They are gonna get COD at Tescos/Asda when shopping. Sales figures are crazy for COD.

I’d imagine the in game purchases are meaty too. Sony get a cut of that. They don’t want 25% even of the cod players going from them to Xbox. This is just common sense

Sony are worried about it because they've lost one of there biggest money makers....

To the average console-owning casual gamer (think 90%+ of the gaming population) CoD is THE first-person shooter. Full stop. Nothing else even comes close. Is Xbox going to make CoD an exclusive? I doubt it. As we've seen with Minecraft, there's a lot of money to be made by employing a multi-plat strategy. Why upset the PS user base when you can charge them $60-$70+ annually? That'd be stupid.

It puts Sony in an interesting position… they have the stats to show it’s the biggest game on their system by far, that’s why they have so many exclusivity deals in place with COD.. but once they run out… it’s game over.

So do they lean into the deals they already have for the next few releases to leverage the COD brand only to have Xbox potentially make the annual game Xbox only.. in which case they’re screwed.. or do they try and downplay it and build their own first party COD style game to compete.. in which case they’re also screwed…

@raftos Sony is the only one that can objectively compare how much more one game is played over all others in their platform. Maybe also Microsoft can do the same on Xbox.

Like many others have said. I doubt COD will be exclusive. But as a gamepass day 1 release, it will definitely push subscriptions and get more people into the Xbox ecosystem. And every PS game sold is profit to our back into their studios and ecosystem.

A few years ago the “console wars” were interesting because there was potential for a market player to actually bottom out and go under. This was a realistic notion in the early PS3 years, and far more so in the XboxOne years. Now… neither side is going away. So the “console wars” mean less. With profits going up for both, what this means is both will present more and more value. As a guy who mainly goes with Xbox, I don’t care if they sell 50 million less consoles. They’re profiting and growing which means more games and value for me on their service. That’s a win as an Xbox gamer in my book. Getting COD for free might actually make me play it.

@J_Mo_Money a 37% decrease? I never heard this news.

Also nice user pic, favourite DBZ character.

@Tharsman I totally agree with you. But, considering those companies are all answering the same questionaire, it makes sony the only one complaining.

@Fenbops Yeah, it's crazy dude. And I'm so looking forward to the Dragon Ball Super, Super Hero movie later this month. Can't get enough Dragon Ball!

Halo was the same way for years and that was an Xbox console exclusive from the beginning. If you want story-driven single player masterpieces, Sony has that on lock. I bet that influences console purchases and you can bet they're not willing to share.

I have something that Sony can blow out of proportion

@Fenbops Found it!

"We're currently in the middle of financial report season, with Microsoft announcing on the 27th of July that Xbox content and services revenue increased 2%. Sony, however, don't appear to be doing so well, as noted in a post from the company's Game & Network Services division. In the post, they reported that, despite the increase in shipments of consoles mentioned above, overall profits are down 37%."

https://www.gamingbible.co.uk/news/playstation-reports-they-had-a-very-unprofitable-q1-20220729

@Sol4ris That’s like putting The Beatles against The Kinks. Both great bands but the Beatles reach was so much further. Cods reach is far beyond destiny’s. Cod is constantly one of the biggest selling games each and every single year it’s out. Cod is a hardware seller. Cod brings in the casuals….

Damn right Sony are worried. But they’ll still get cod…however now it will come with the caveat that it’s on gamepass day1… so, £60-70 on PlayStation…or part of your subscription on Xbox/pc.
And with ps5 stock still hard to get. A possibility of them raising the price of ps5…well, that little machine that could (the series s) ends up looking more and more attractive to the casual audience…who in turn then get locked into the Xbox ecosystem and gamepass.

Cod is huge for MS.

What I’m interested in seeing is how xbox plays it. If there’s any spite there and they keep exclusive modes for their platforms.

Either way, this activision deal is win win for xbox…long as they can get games out of course and market it well. Which there’s no guarantee.

Oh boo hoo, I thought they were the world leaders in exclusive content? Why would they feel threatened?

@raftos ooof cheers for that. I wonder why that is.

I argue the opposite. Biggest selling console of the current market? Switch. Call of Duty games available? Zero.

People buy Nintendo consoles for their franchises and games parents can trust their kids to play. Sony have just as many franchises and just as many family oriented titles as Nintendo.

Arguably Microsoft has the opposite problem: they shuttered half of their best 360 franchises and the Xbox One has always had a huge gaping hole when it comes to first party family oriented titles. Call of Duty isn’t much help here.

@RadioHedgeFund I’d love to know the percentage of switch owners who also own one of the other consoles though…

As I understand it, COD is routinely Playstations #1 seller, so yes I would imagine that it IS a big deal. Phil should have used it as leverage to get games like FF7 Remake (which I don't believe will ever make it to xbox). Now I expect the higher ups at Microsoft to reconsider making COD exclusive...

@RadioHedgeFund it would be if Microsoft were to make COD exclusive. Tons of people are into it (not me), and a large number of them would buy Xboxes to play it.

The thing is, Microsoft as a corporation is probably pretty happy just selling the game to everyone they can and taking in the profits...

I'm pretty certain fhe FTC would of shut the deal down unless Microsoft signed something saying they would keep certain games multi platform like call of duty and overwatch.

Also all sony need to do is log a complaint to FTC to try and block/postpone the deal.

@Snake_V5 @UltimateOtaku91 I don’t think the games are going exclusive. Especially not Overwatch. They even said they wanted to move COD to the Switch.

@UltimateOtaku91 The problem with the market leader filing an FTC complaint about anti-competitive practices is......they're the market leader crying that their main competitor is competing against them for once. Out of all the companies that could complain, Sony is the one the FTC would least pay attention to since the argument would amount to little more than "it's unacceptable that our competitor could gain the opportunity to destabilize our unquestioned industry dominance and ruin our near-monopoly position" considering allowing that is the whole point of the FTC regulations. It's like heeding Amazon complaining about Walmart expansion.

Nice to see that Sony is scared but it is OK that they are scared with all their exclusive stuff in multiplatform games. However, I don't think that CoD will become an exclusive for XBox, MS will lose to much sales (money) by that. And possibly it is not even allowed when MS wants to buy Blizzard-Activision.

@NEStalgia Pretty much. Sony, of all people, trying to cry foul on something like this would be the most laughable thing I've ever seen. They'll have COD on their platform, for sure, going forward but after their license is up they can kiss the marketing, the exclusive skins, guns, modes, xp boosts ect goodbye. That will go a LONG way.

@UltimateOtaku91

"Also all sony need to do is log a complaint to FTC to try and block/postpone the deal."

Yes I'm sure the irony in the Sony logged complaint will not be lost on the FTC😅. Sony are the market leader and their record of paying, buying and signing exclusivity deals is not exactly squeaky clean either, in fact far from it.

Of course Sony is worried.
They've had the marketing and exclusive content for COD since the PS4 era and it's by far the #1 selling game on their console.

The comical element is they are worried it will sway console purchases, yet they do everything they can to pay for timed exclusives for that very reason.
Sometimes a taste of your own medicine can do wonders...

@rhyno_888 to be fair mate I’m not sure all of those games combined even touch the sides of a couple of years of COD sales and paid content.

It’s a different animal, like GTA and possibly FIFA - it’s what people play on a vast scale even if they aren’t huge gamers.

They will probably have to keep it multi platform and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing for gaming. Imagine GTA only being on a single system.

Putting it Day 1 on game pass will influence peoples console choice anyway and still damage Sony- and they still get a truck load of cash from PS players paying £70 a pop on a vast scale.

It's been an interesting day and has made for some great reading, both here and on Push Square. It makes me laugh and it's ironic given Sony's position and their stance on taking content away from Xbox. Phil Spencer has already said they would not pull COD.

The ploy and the idea is that Call of Duty will be part of Game Pass, and all along for me was the best part of the acquisition. I couldn't care less if it went exclusive.

Personally, I don't think the FTC will ask for any concessions.

I was never a fan of COD but I can see Sony’s concern on this. COD is definitely huge, there’s no denying that. It wouldn’t matter to me which console it ended up on as I never play the games. Having COD as part of the Xbox brand and right into gamepass can be very tempting for gamers that don’t necessarily have a favorite console. This can tip the scale in Xbox’s favor over PlayStation.

Though I can see why PlayStation would worry as they make a lot of their money on third party sales and their big budget games. If players switched over to Xbox, it would take away future game sales from PlayStation’s big budgets. I think PlayStation will be fine but I can’t say I feel sorry for them. They’ve played dirty for years, it’s time to play nice and get along. I know Phil said he wants to keep COD on PlayStation but things can always change. PlayStation needs to behave.

When you’re number one, the only way to go from there is down. That goes for both PlayStation and COD. Either one can fall from the top spot they’ve been in.

@Sol4ris I'm just saying that if sony have a big problem with it then they should take it up with the FTC.

Also I believe exclusivity deals don't have to be approved by the FTC, its just a deal between two companies, not a takeover.

Its up to a developer who has their games, if square enix wanted to they could make all their games playstation exclusive without sony paying a penny and the FTC couldn't do anything

STOP THE COUNT!!!!

This is purely a miserable attempt by Sony to block the deal, they are getting everything they deserve, Sony has locked games and content to its platforms for years. It’s hilarious how they state the cold hard facts too, that all those exclusives Sony fans endlessly shout about mean absolutely nothing in terms of sales.
I hope MS make it Game Pass exclusive but I know they won’t.

@UltimateOtaku91 Nope, they can log a complaint but then they would need to provide endless amounts of evidence to back it up, and Microsoft can do the same to defend, and Sony would lose as they have a reputation since PS1 of timed exclusives and total exclusives. Plus Sony has bay far a much much larger share of the games market then anyone else, they have the dominant position and Microsoft could prove that’s down to times exclusives. They can simply say their will be no timed exclusives in any platform, but COD will be on Game Pass day and date.

@rhyno_888

While I get the argument for SF 5 and FF, Spider-Man and Wolverine are both developed by PlayStation themselves so PlayStation has the right to keep Spider-Man and Wolverine exclusive to PlayStation (and in the case of Spider-Man, also for PC)

@anoyonmus Wrong, Insomniac made Spider-Man in 2018, and Sony didn’t own that studio till 2020, it was a paid exclusive.

@S1ayeR74 ok so you’re right about that. And what about Sunset Overdrive? That was a paid exclusive for Xbox wasn’t it?

You’ll get paid exclusives from time to time like sunset overdrive or blood borne. Nothing we can do about it.

@anoyonmus tbf insomniac always had a tight relationship with Sony since day one, they made a game called disruptor for playstation, then spyro, then ratchet and clank, then resistance and then spiderman, all exclusive to playstation. They may as well been a playstation studio from the beginning, I would wager sony even helped them create those games.

@UltimateOtaku91 good point

@anoyonmus I would hardly compare Spiderman with Sunset Overdrive in terms of marketing power. Sony has a history of being incredibly ruthless with timed and pure exclusives with big name games including COD. It is now getting a taste of its own medicine where the 'actual' profits or gets come from. All of Sonys exclusives combined can't touch COD sales despite what Sony fans like to believe.

@Fenbops Sony would still make exactly the same from COD sales as they always have. Only difference is Activision’s profit share will now belong to MS.

@UltimateOtaku91 this is the element about these purchases and deals that people are forgetting. When I had my ps3 I didn’t pay close attention to companies but assumed insomniac was a PS studio because they only made exclusives. It made sense for them to merge. They were to PS what Playground was to MS.

Arguably though it’s not that different with Bethesda and MS. The first two console Bethesda games (Elder Scrolls Morrowind and Oblivion) were Xbox exclusive until a PS version of Oblivion released later. Even after that, Bethesda worked more closely with MS when releasing their games. They already had a tight relationship. The shocking thing about the purchase was the purchase of an entire publisher, but “who” it was made sense based on the relationship.

It’s why I totally buy the rumor of Sony acquiring Square Enix. It’s true close, historical relationship. It’s also why I don’t see MS going after Capcom or SEGA beyond some helpful deals. I think sometimes people get caught up in rumors because of the rare exceptions (The surprises like Ninja Theory or Sony buying Bungie, even though that still makes some sense because of recent timed exclusive partnership Sony had with Bungie). But pretty much these companies still operate within their comfort zones and relationships, even during periods of extreme consolidation. It’s why I don’t see anyone buying EA or Ubisoft and making them exclusive (unless one of them are basically bankrupt and we don’t know it).

Sony should complain to the FTC, that’s the funniest thing I’ve read. I’d love to see it.

Sony: ‘Umm we don’t like that Microsoft own Call of Duty now even though they’ve said they’ll keep it on our platform’

FTC: ‘Didn’t you pay Activision millions of dollars to keep Call of Duty content away from your competitors?’

🤣🤣🤣

All I have to say to this is LMFAO.

If Sony were the one buying CoD it’d be all good.

Sack up and take the hit that’s coming.

@themightyant only two shooters may be able to rival call of duty not named halo or destiny(assuming you wanna say those compete) Medal of Honor(if they decided to give it some real chops and not throw have dice do it but maybe respawn, and give it sequels that are solid and even then it will take years... and the only real game is Battlefield but EA needs to kill off Dice as personally i think their style for the game sucks.....also hate the engine they use for those game frostbite engine kinda sucks, cant name a game that was made on it thats actually good...

Still if u limit the market to just xbox and pc, you lose like 20+ million paying players there

It is pretty funny you have Phil promoting Sony games one day…then we get to read about Sonys attempts to block Xbox’s activision deal the next. You know full well every time Phil Spencer pretends ‘console war bad’ Jim Ryan’s blood pressure rises.

@rhyno_888

this 1000x Sony right now is bad for the market

Microsoft will win usa market if they make call of duty exclusive to their console, of course cod make so much money on playstation so they didn't want to do that.

Exclusive perk to xbox and making xbox the primary console for cod tournament will make some players choose xbox instead of playstation I think. And of course there's gamepass, getting cod "free" on xbox ecosystem will be huge for microsoft.

Why are half the articles on this website about Sony?

It's hard to tell whether they'll make it Xbox exclusive or not. To me the best play would be to make it available on playstation while also making it free on game pass. Xbox will still have a massive advatange having it on game pass but at least it wont alienate the playstation user base.

@Sol4ris
I see nothing factually wrong with what Sony said... But, I would hardly describe it as worry. These are just facts that they are stating.

Really what they are saying (indirectly) is, "If the Activision-Blizzard deal is approved, then there should be a requirement that CoD stay multi-platform as part of the approval".