Microsoft Offers Huge Deal With Sony For Call Of Duty
According to Kotaku, Microsoft is offering huge deals with Sony and various other concessions to the European Commission, including a 10-year deal with Sony over the Call of Duty franchise — whose latest installment had the biggest opening in the history of the entertainment industry — and other ABK games. Should the deal between Microsoft and ABK follow through, all ABK titles, including the aforementioned FPS franchise, would be under the control of Sony’s largest gaming competitor.
Microsoft really set out to change the gaming history with its acquisition of Activision Blizzard (ABK), and Sony isn’t too happy about it — it’s actually very loud in voicing its concerns after Xbox beat PlayStation 5 at Sony’s domestic market, even going as far to call for a regulatory veto after its own company has faced a massive lawsuit over pricing, mishandling of players’ physical goods, and refusal to issue refunds for said goods.
This is forcing Microsoft to cut various deals left and right, just to see the acquisition through. The entire issue emerged as a result of Sony’s call for a regulatory veto and a statement of objection. Namely, Sony apparently has issues with the largest tech giant acquiring one of the largest and oldest independent video game developers and publishers on the planet, which directly jeopardizes Sony’s already shaky position in the gaming industry.
This, paired with an insider trading scandal, forced Microsoft to spend a whole year bargaining with various committees, only to appease the European Union and acquire ABK. The purported deal between Microsoft and Sony would keep the said gaming franchises available for Sony’s PlayStation platform for at least ten years into the future, echoing previous statements made by Xbox head Phil Spencer, who stated that the company has no plans to make Call of Duty.
Admittedly, that would amount to a Pyrrhic victory; it would cripple PlayStation’s offering, but it would also devoid Microsoft of a good portion of the market for one of the largest titles coming into its possession. Even Sony realized the foolishness of keeping its titles exclusive to its gaming hardware. For decades now, PlayStation has reigned over Xbox as a superior gaming console, prompting Microsoft to cut deals and ensure a better subscription service for its gamers.
It ultimately tipped the scales in the tech giant’s favor so much that it actually forced Sony to redesign its subscription service to retain player count. The effort ultimately proved unsuccessful, and while the sales speak in favor of PlayStation, Xbox’s gaming services and hardware are becoming more readily accessible to the public.
So, the EU is now taking regulative measures, and rumors about FTC’s antitrust lawsuit filing in an effort to block the acquisition, Microsoft has to jump through fiery hoops to seal the deal with Sony. This is very troublesome since the main idea behind the acquisition was to overcome ABK’s lack of computational power and machine learning expertise and Microsoft’s lack of first-party gaming content. This deal would be very beneficial to everyone, especially since it would challenge collaborations that were established between gaming and tech giants in China and other eastern countries.
