Microsoft confirms offer of 10-year Call of Duty contract to Sony

Microsoft has now confirmed the offer of a 10-year contract for Call of Duty to Sony.

With the loss of the Call of Duty franchise, not only would the PlayStation as a platform lose a lot of revenue. Players could also switch to the Xbox ecosystem in the long run.

Of course, Sony doesn’t want that and has repeatedly spoken out against the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft has assured on at least as many occasions that the Call of Duty shooter series will continue to be playable on PlayStation. Apart from that, Microsoft would also lose sales because Call of Duty on PlayStation brings in a lot of money.

Microsoft President Brad Smith has confirmed that Sony has been offered a 10-year Call of Duty contract. At the same time, this obligation would also be assumed for other platforms and also legally enforced by the regulatory authorities.

Smith wrote in an opinion piece for that Wall Street Journal: “Sony has proven to be the loudest opponent. The company is as excited about this deal as Blockbuster is about the rise of Netflix. The main alleged anti-competitive risk Sony cites is that Microsoft would stop making Call of Duty available on the PlayStation. But that would be economically unreasonable. A significant portion of Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty revenue comes from sales of PlayStation games. Given the popularity of cross-play, it would also be disastrous for the Call of Duty franchise and Xbox itself, alienating millions of players.”

“That’s why we offered Sony a 10-year deal that would mean that any new Call of Duty release would be available on PlayStation the same day it was released on Xbox. We are willing to extend this commitment to other platforms and have it legally enforced by regulators in the US, UK and European Union. Microsoft made a similar commitment to the European Commission to ensure access to key technologies for competing services when it acquired LinkedIn in 2016.”

Indeed, with Call of Duty, PlayStation players needn’t worry about their favorite shooter becoming unplayable on their favorite console in the future.

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