Sony: Nobody can compete with Call of Duty – not even Battlefield

What used to be Quake vs. Unreal Tournament is now Call of Duty vs. Battlefield – and from Sony’s perspective, there’s only one clear winner. This emerges from documents from the British competition authority CMA.

It is currently working very intensively on the planned takeover of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. In the course of this, Sony was also allowed to comment on this topic again and once again put Call of Duty in the foreground. The PlayStation manufacturer continues to see the crux of the deal in the shooter brand, because the series is simply “not replaceable”.

Despite the similarity: Battlefield can’t keep up with CoD

Call of Duty is an important building block for the PlayStation, as Sony says in a 22-page article document executes While the exact numbers are blacked out, the quotes make it clear: Call of Duty accounts for a large percentage of Sony’s annual PlayStation brand sales. The shooter brand also has a noticeable impact on the respective hardware sales.

“Call of Duty is too entrenched for any other gaming brand to catch up with the franchise, no matter how hard they try,” Sony continued. Other publishers would not have the resources or expertise to compete. Sony cites Battefield as an example. “Electronic Arts – one of the largest third-party publishers after Activision – has been trying to produce a rival to Call of Duty with the Battlefield series for many years, despite the similarities between Call of Duty and Battlefield […] the Battlefield franchise can’t keep up.”

Sony confirms the latter based on the sales figures: The entire Call of Duty series had sold a total of over 400 million units worldwide by August 2021, while Battlefield would only sell 88.7 million units. A huge difference meant to underscore Call of Duty’s prevailing market power.

Microsoft argues against it

On the Microsoft side, of course, you can see all of this in a very comprehensive way document completely different. Neither Activision as a whole nor Call of Duty have “significant market power” despite their popularity. The shooter series is also not as good as Sony would make it out to be. The ratings at Metacritic are never outstanding, and neither has a series part been able to win Sony’s own awards such as Game of the Year.

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After all, Call of Duty is just one of many successful shooters that exist on multiple platforms. As an example, in addition to Battlefield, Apex Legends, Fortnite or Rainbow Six Siege are also listed, which would continue to exist on the PlayStation consoles.

In addition, Microsoft argues that Nintendo and Steam are also successful without Call of Duty. In the years leading up to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, there had been no serial part for Steam for a long time, but the dominant market position of Valve’s distribution platform hadn’t changed. The Nintendo Switch even has no access to the Call of Duty brand and is still extremely successful.

But Sony counters this argument and uses it as a template for its own attack: “That reveals Microsoft’s true strategy. Microsoft wants PlayStation to become like Nintendo” in order to pose less of a threat to the Xbox business.

Call of Duty is not meant to be exclusive

It remains to be seen how the British competition authority will ultimately assess the situation. The debate about Call of Duty itself only goes into another round, because Microsoft and Sony were already arguing about the shooter brand. Sony fears that sooner or later Call of Duty will no longer appear on the PlayStation – which Microsoft, in the person of Phil Spencer, vehemently denies.

What is clear, however, is that Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard is far from over. Only in the coming year will it become clear whether the deal will come about or whether it will still burst.