“We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and @PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. We look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favorite games.”
https://twitter.com/XboxP3/status/1680578783718383616
No word on how long the deal is for, but my guess would be 10 years.
Digital foundry had an interesting take on this. Cod makes more than 1 billion a year, and cost probably more each year than any other franchise to develop and maintain. If Microsoft made it an Xbox exclusive, they might cut that 1 billion dollar figure in half, and the franchise might bleed more money than MS would make selling more consoles. In fact, the franchise might go negative.
Basically, they can’t afford to lose the ps5 playerbase.
I doubt any company would want to give their competitor 20-30% of their profits, so in my mind it isn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when they start locking all their franchises off from PS. What will be most interesting to me will be how will they do it. Will they just drop franchises so they don’t have to face the backlash for turning a franchise into an exclusive? Will they just make up a new “franchise” with a new name but similar gameplay? Will they just slowly one by one exclusive them off to try and reduce blowback? Do it all at once to get it out of the way?
This generation has already been mostly played out and I don’t see large changes making a large difference, but once the next generation comes around in another 3-5 years I imagine they will want to be in a place where they can leverage all these franchises to get people excited to buy their new box over their competitors. And you do that with exclusives.
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