Activision Reportedly Committed to Release Next 3 Call of Duty Games on PlayStation - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 February 2022 / 3,004 Views
Microsoft announced last month it is acquiring Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7 billion. Before this deal was in place Activision Blizzard had signed an agreement with Sony to release the next three Call of Duty games on PlayStation consoles, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with Bloomberg.
The sources claim the three Call of Duty games are Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 from Infinity Ward set to release this year, Call of Duty 2023 from Treyarch, as well as Call of Duty: Warzone 2, which is also set to release in 2023.
A Sony spokesperson in a previously released statement expects Microsoft to follow contractual obligations that are already in place once the deal closes and that Activision games will remain multiplatform.
"We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform," said the spokesperson at the time.
Microsoft when it acquired Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax did follow contractual obligations already in place as Deathloop launched as a PS5 console exclusive and GhostWire: Tokyo will also launch only on PS5. Psychonauts 2, which was already announced for PS4 when the studio Double Fine was acquired, still launched for PS4 at launch.
What is not known is what Microsoft will do once the contractual obligations end. However, we do know Starfield and Redfall, which are new IPs, will launch exclusively on Xbox and PC.
Microsoft Gaming CEO also recently said he had calls this week with the leadership at Sony and confirmed Xbox's intent to honor agreements when the Activision Blizzard acquisition is complete. He also says their intent is to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles.
"Had good calls this week with leaders at Sony," said Spencer. "I confirmed our intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Sony is an important part of our industry, and we value our relationship."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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COD 2022, COD 2023, and Warzone 2 (2023). The acquisition is supposed to be complete in financial year 2023 (which for Microsoft ends June 30th 2023). The fact that they wouldn’t commit to anything after that is indicative of the COD marketing deal likely not extending past that point, and also that the ball is pretty much in Microsoft’s court as to whether future titles launch on PlayStation.
Wasn't aware Warzone 2 was coming.
Playstation getting Warzone 2 is huge. I kept telling my friends releasing Warzone 2 for Xbox only and discontinuing support for the original would really hurt Sony. Now Warzone 2 will be on PS and that should satisfy most COD players for a long time. This is still going to hurt Sony but this will definitely soften the blow.
Makes sense. There is really no reason at all for Activision not to release any games on Play Station before the acquisition is completed. And even after that, if there are only few months remaining before another release, it may still be on Play Station consoles. After that, they are done with it tho.
Yeah, but now you've actually got to commit to PC and Xbox now too, which means ya'll gotta cut down on those whole DLC/game modes being exclusive for a year.
The duality of being bought out. Say you still wanna please one side, but now you've gotta please the other too.
Oooh I dont know. From the way Spencer has worded it, it seems like he may want to keep COD on PS longer than 2023. Or at least that is what a lot of people may expect. If he does want to make it exclusive later, he should really be a lot clearer so that there isnt any pressure later or negative feedback when he does announce exclusivity.
Spencer isn't going to lock it away completely. What I meant is that now that they own Acti, it would be in Spencer's best interests to keep his vision going, which means the PC/Xbox side of things gets his treatment of fairness, which would also mean denying Sony temp exclusivity for CoD betas/DLC/game modes going forward.
I don't see him making the entire franchise Xbox/PC only, since CoD going everywhere would still make him more money .
Just a rumor, but based on contracts that is much likely. Anyway not worried at all if those games aren't released for PS.
More importantly, hopefully microsoft can commit to a proper next gen halo infinite release, or atleast patch up the series s version
Halo Infinite was always a last gen game at its core. If the next major Halo game is like four years away, the Series S/X may have a bigger userbase than Xbox One or close to it.
Its hard to imagine Xbox One getting major support beyond 2023. I think developers will keep the 8th gen support going a big longer because of the combined userbase. MS could also encourage people to upgrade by selling the Series S for $249 during the holidays.
Strange because we were hearing for a long time that having a X1 version wouldn't impact Infinite at all.
Who said this? The vast majority embraced it as a cross-gen title and knew to temper expectations when it came to graphics. We all saw the demo from 2020.
You were certainly away from the threads discussing this. Whenever it was said that X1 would hold back Halo Infinite that was dismissed as hater discurse.
You mean before we saw any gameplay or a proper trailer? Maybe, but even then most knew a cross-gen game will never be fully utilized. Then once the 2020 demo was shown, it was clearly the case.
Yes, and they referred to some videos or whatnot from earlier that had better quality than the 2020 demo plus the "scalability" that would ensure that the impact would be close to 0. And what happened in VGC at the time of the trailer was a change to "Halo was never about the graphics", "there is no reason to complain", etc. But thankfully more voices were on complaining about the state of that 2020 demo and even with the constraints of X1 the game improved a lot.
So will the PS4 version of God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, and GT7 affect those games?
Yes. And there were a lot of complaining from Sony fanbase here in VGC when they learnt that GoW, HFW and GT7 would be crossgen. One of the main complains when talking about HFW was the flying mechanics compromise.
Horizon was always going to be cross gen, dev started way before PS5 specs were even known most likely. God fo War and GT7 I think were the ones people were most concerned about, because of the ambiguity of their announcement. People were expecting true PS5 experiences, but what we are getting is actually PS4 games with PS5 enhancements. All three will be great, just like Halo and Forza H5 are, but they certainly will not be anything to far beyond what the previous entries were from a gameplay perspective.
Specs for next gen machines are estimated like 5 years ahead, and the team new the ballpark for several years. So it could have been developed exclusively for PS5. Ratchet and Clank launched before Horizon and is a next gen game only.
And yes the 3 games had people disappointed to find were crossgen and complaining of the we believe in generations remark.
The thing is Horizon was announced as a cross gen game from the start, while GoW and GT7 waited around 6 months after the PS5 release to reveal they were actually cross gen. That is why I single those two out.
Ratchet doesn't even feel like a gen 9 game to me, and could have been cross gen as well. For example, as polished as it is overall, there are certain physics related things that are jarring. Like the conveyor belts in the first area where if Ratchet jumps onto them, they just keep moving under his feet while he stays static and falls off. This seemed like a major oversight to me as they are even part of the main path to continue through the level. There are other instances that make it feel older than gen 9 from a gameplay perspective, but that one really stood out to me. I think it was only released on PS5 just to advertise it as a gen 9 game, but it could have been released on gen 8 hardware if they wanted to easily (I believe DF pointed this out).
You are right, I forgot this detail of announcement (but was only talking on the question of time and spec). Still people discussed the complains devs had talked on the constrains on PS4 and that the improvement would come from going only PS5 so they are still a little concerned of what will come from it being crossgen. I know I'm excited for it.
I don't think R&C could be made without much compromise, but you are right on saying that there were several overlooks (that perhaps if they were being less rushed to meet launch window would have been better covered, besides the fact of insomniac releasing a lot of stuff and not being massive studio so perhaps they lack a little on polish).
Well think about what you said. "We were hearing for a long time that having a X1 version wouldn't impact Infinite at all."
Halo Infinite is and always was a Xbox One game. My greatest expectation was the next gen and PC version would push graphics further, which they did to some extent. But its ignorant to expect some true next experience or whatever.
How the tune changed from X1 won`t hold back Series X version.
No, not really. It really depends on which platform is the lead.
Last time we saw numerous 8th gen games as lead, with struggling ports on 7th gen. I don't feel we've reached that yet for 9th gen.
I do agree, if Halo was a 9th gen game that they had to cut stuff then yes X1 woudln't had hold it to any considerable degree, but when it is a 8th game that you just put a little more shine then yes it holds. Same holds true on PS case.
I've been playing it on pc monitor because i've been isolating due to covid. Although the screen is 1080p and supports up to 60 fps, still at times I ask myself if the game would have been possible on the ps3/360. I'm not sure if the game doesn't render certain textures properly till you get close, it just doesn't seem polished enough. Maybe it will look different when I play it on my tv today.
My son plays on his PC monitor with his Series S, and it looks vastly different (washed out) compared to what I see on my Series X on a 4k TV. I am curious to try it on a TV to see if it is the console or the monitor myself (based on past experiences with other consoles and monitors, it is likely that and will look better on a TV). He is obsessed with playing on a monitor though, so more power to him I guess.
As for the game running on a PS360...not even close. Kind of hyperbolic with that suggestion lol.
I'm only saying that bcause i;ve seen games on ps4 with better texture assets. So seeing some of the visuals made me think back to the ps3. Even for an open world game, i;ve seen better visuals on last gen. enemy models look nice, but i wish every thing else matched. But you may be right, it could be the monitor.
Well, we had one crazy developer (of very small games) saying he was absolutely sure R&C of PS5 could have been made on PS3 with a few compromisses on graphics or something of the sort.
So well maybe Halo Infinite could have been made for X360, but that would have so much compromisse that we wouldn`t really be able to call it Halo Infinite imho.
I believe Ratchet in PS5 can be run on PS4, but to say it could run on PS3 is madness IMO. It would be like those gamegear games back in the day that were advertised as the same game as their Genesis counterparts, just to be a completely different game lol.
Same applies to Halo Infinite as far as I can see.
Are you saying its possible to make Halo Infinite on PS3/360 specs? Well I'll say this. Skyrim and Far Cry 4 worked well enough on Xbox 360. So I don't think a game like Halo Infinite is too ambitious for 7th gen specs if it was built for those specs. But new hardware isn't solely about creating entirely unique gameplay experiences. Its also about how it looks and plays.
I mean Far Cry 4 runs on an Xbox 360. The resolution is low, the performance is bad, visuals assets are kinda ugly, but its ultimately the same game you get on Xbox One. Meanwhile that same game on Xbox Series S has much better resolution, its a solid 60 fps and the visuals assets are vastly superior. Hence, the core gameplay of Halo Infinite is likely feasible on 7th gen specs. I just don't think it would be a great experience by current console capabilities.
how does farcry4 compare to halo infinite visually on series S?
I believe Halo Infinite has the edge, but both look quite good. Also, both are 60 fps on Series S thanks to FC4 getting FPS boost. As far as resolution goes, FC4 is 1440x1080p because that is the resolution it has for Xbox One. Halo Infinite might be dynamic 1080p on Series S with 60 fps.
Wowie looks like that's out of the way,
I think that fallout 5 and elder scroll 6 will be timed exclusive after this bonanza,
While starfield can stay console exclusive,
Legacy titles that makes lotsa dollars on multiplatform consoles is a no brainer just saying.
Lol its logical because those 3 games would be before the acquisition deal is finalised. Once the deal ia finalised thats when it will be exclusive. Same with es6 and when the next fallout is coming
Lol.
Spencer already said that Elder Scrolls V will go the same way as Starfield, It will be exclusive.
