Microsoft Says it Will to Continue to Release Activision Blizzard Titles on PlayStation Consoles - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2022 / 3,605 Views
Microsoft last month announced its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7 billion. Following the announcement many wondered if future Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard would become Xbox console exclusives in the future.
Microsoft in a new statement has said it plans to honor any existing agreements Activision Blizzard has in place. Once the agreements have been finished the company still plans to release Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles on PlayStation consoles.
The company is even interested in taking similar steps to release Activision Blizzard titles on "Nintendo’s successful platform."
"We also recognize that regulators may well have other important questions as they review our acquisition of Activision Blizzard," said Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith. "We’re committed to addressing every potential question, and we want to address publicly at the outset two such questions here.
"First, some commentators have asked whether we will continue to make popular content like Activision’s Call of Duty available on competing platforms like Sony’s PlayStation. The obvious concern is that Microsoft could make this title available exclusively on the Xbox console, undermining opportunities for Sony PlayStation users.
"To be clear, Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision. And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love.
"We are also interested in taking similar steps to support Nintendo’s successful platform. We believe this is the right thing for the industry, for gamers and for our business."
Microsoft also announced new Open App Store principals that will "apply to the Microsoft Store on Windows and to the next-generation marketplaces we will build for games." The new principals are in part to address Microsoft's growing role as they start the regulatory approval of acquiring Activision Blizzard.
"Some may ask why today’s principles do not apply immediately and wholesale to the current Xbox console store," said Smith. "It’s important to recognize that emerging legislation is being written to address app stores on those platforms that matter most to creators and consumers: PCs, mobile phones and other general purpose computing devices.
"For millions of creators across a multitude of businesses, these platforms operate as gateways every day to hundreds of millions of people. These platforms have become essential to our daily work and personal lives; creators cannot succeed without access to them. Emerging legislation is not being written for specialized computing devices, like gaming consoles, for good reasons.
"Gaming consoles, specifically, are sold to gamers at a loss to establish a robust and viable ecosystem for game developers. The costs are recovered later through revenue earned in the dedicated console store.
"Nonetheless, we recognize that we will need to adapt our business model even for the store on the Xbox console. Beginning today, we will move forward to apply Principles 1 through 7 to the store on the Xbox console.
We’re committed to closing the gap on the remaining principles over time. In doing so, we will incorporate the spirit of new laws even beyond their scope, while moving forward in a way that protects the needs of game developers, gamers, and competitive and healthy game-console ecosystems.
"Ultimately, we believe that this principled approach will promote a more open app market and better serve our users and creators alike. And, in turn, they will help us build a bigger and better gaming business."
Read through Microsoft's new Open App Store principals below:
Quality, Safety, Security & Privacy
- We will enable all developers to access our app store as long as they meet reasonable and transparent standards for quality and safety.
- We will continue to protect the consumers and gamers who use our app store, ensuring that developers meet our standards for security.
- We will continue to respect the privacy of consumers in our app stores, giving them controls to manage their data and how it is used.
Accountability
- We will hold our own apps to the same standards we hold competing apps.
- We will not use any non-public information or data from our app store to compete with developers’ apps.
Fairness and Transparency
- We will treat apps equally in our app store without unreasonable preferencing or ranking of our apps or our business partners’ apps over others.
- We will be transparent about rules for promotion and marketing in our app store and apply these consistently and objectively.
Developer Choice
- We will not require developers in our app store to use our payment system to process in-app payments.
- We will not require developers in our app store to provide more favorable terms in our app store than in other app stores.
- We will not disadvantage developers if they choose to use a payment processing system other than ours or if they offer different terms and conditions in other app stores.
- We will not prevent developers from communicating directly with their customers through their apps for legitimate business purposes, such as pricing terms and product or service offerings.
We also recognize that emerging legislation will apply new rules to companies that both run an app store and control the underlying operating system like Windows. Therefore, we are also committing today that:
- We will continue to enable developers to choose whether they want to deliver their apps for Windows though our app store, from someone else’s store, or “sideloaded” directly from the internet.
- We will continue to give developers timely access to information about the interoperability interfaces for Windows that our own apps use.
- We will enable Windows users to use alternative app stores and third-party apps, including by changing default settings in appropriate categories.
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's always the best selling game every year no matter what because so many casual gamers play CoD and only play CoD. And many of them play it on PlayStation because that's where their friends are. Because that's what they're used to.
Xbox now has has an enticing proposition for those casual gamers. Why spend $70 for CoD on PlayStation when for only $15, you can play that years CoD as well as most, if not all, past CoD entries with your friends? Then realizing that you also have access to 200+ games you could try out. That's a pretty enticing offer to the casual gamer and could get a lot of them to make the transition to Xbox/Game Pass and keep them subscribed. Plus still making all the money from those that will buy CoD on PlayStation.
That wouldn't be enough to make a ps5 player go out and buy a 300dollar console + 180 dollars gamepass + 30 dollars battery pack = 510 dollars and end up with worse graphics and performance.
Much less go out and buy another 500 dollar console + 180 gamepass + 30 dollar battery pack = 710 dollars, just to play a game that would still be on their current console minus some exclusive content.
For people that play only that all year long won`t it cost more than 15 per year?
For sure, but it also gives Xbox the opportunity to have them also try out older CoD games or even try out just other games on the service. Game Pass could entice them in just to play CoD initially then they naturally branch out from there seeing all the games available to them. At least that's what I'm thinking Xbox is betting on to keep them subscribed.
From what I know CoD crowd want to play the latest one (very frontloaded sales) not older titles, and mainly for MP, so a 180 USD per year to play the game and buying a new system doesn`t seem much enticing.
You're completely right! That would be a complete waste of money. Which is why Microsoft is buying these companies to add as many games and value to Game Pass as possible to keep them subscribed. Will it work? Really hard to say because like you said, the CoD crowd wants to play the latest one right from launch. But it's the gamble Microsoft is taking.
I still buy my xbox games (on PC at the moment) instead of gamepass, why would I want gamepass for maybe 2 games per year that I want from Microsoft? The rest I'd rather get very cheap on steam and be able to play them forever. I am still waiting on Halo infinite to go on sale or second hand for a good price, people forget that they dont have to pay 60-70 per game, I barely pay more than 20dollars per game, especially on PC has never happened to me.
I do think GP is a good proposition, I was only talking about the CoD crowd, the ones that only play CoD. Those buy one game per year and will play it until the next one come. So having older CoD on the service or more isnt exactly enticing to them. Sure quite a few will like the other CoD and even other games, but I dont think that will be the majority.
I agree. Also that 180 dollars will vanish once the year ends, you wont get any of it back, but with discs you get let's say 50% back when you resell it, so it ends being 30 dollars, a savings on 120 dollars.
Those kind of people will only play call of duty, fifa and maybe a far cry. They would end up paying 180 dollars per year just to play it. Call of duty and fifa would cost 120 otherwise but they can resell it second hand and get at least 50 dollars back. In the end the price would be 70dollars per year, instead of 180.
For a player like me it would make sense the gamepass as I play at least 30 games per year. I still prefer to get the games second hand or on sales. When I don't like the game I resell them, usually for the same price I bought, so you also get to try games for free. You're only stuck if you buy digital.
You are making the assumption that Game Pass is their only option. It as been proven that Game Pass as not really stop people from buying games on Xbox. Therefore, the people you are describing will probably just buy COD at $59.99-69.99 instead of getting Game Pass.
Nope. He is saying about using CoD being "free on gamepass" as a way to bring the CoD crowd to Xbox. If those already have a working console and can buy their CoD there, and you want to remove the GP from equation, why would they buy another console to have it free on GP but still buy the game anyway?
This is the casual market most of them have yet to make the jump to next gen. It will be advertise as "Free on Game Pass" and Microsoft can also have the Xbox CoD console bundle. Some people like you suggest only play one game and don't want to deal with subscription service. They will still buy retail games even if it's on Game Pass. The Xbox Series S is also poised to be $250 next holiday, that will be the most enticing thing for the casual.
Sure agree on your arguments, but those are like pointless when discussing bringing people that only play CoD by having it on GP (which would cost more than buying the game) or having the option to buy the game (something they were already able to). Casuals also buy new systems because well it plays CoD better.
You can bet yearly CoD releases and Warzone will have Game Pass perks as well.
First of all, call of duty is not 70.
Second, xbox gamepass is not 15 dollars, did you mean per month? Because when you buy the disc for 60 dollars you get it for the whole year and you can always resell the game and make half the price back.
Third, as I am seeing now on the UK xbox website, gamepass has over 100 titles, not over 200, unless you meant PC too, but if someone would have a powerful PC anyway then ps5 would be only an option, they wouldnt be losing the gamepass deal in the first place.
But I agree gamepass otherwise is enticing and a great deal. But you make it look like people who buy the discs of games are losing the 60-70 dollars, they don't, if they only want to rent, like on gamepass, there's services that rent games for cheap, or they can buy a game for 60 dollars and sell it after for 50 dollars too, so they only spend 10 on it.
You also forget most people do not want or need 100 games, from those games they might just want 20. Most of those can be bought second hand for 5-10 dollars.
Gamepass costs 180 dollars per year, and once you cancel you lose everything.
Sure its a good deal, but not for everyone. With 180 dollars per year I can buy at least 10 good quality games of my choice, second hand, and get to keep them forever and lend them to friends.
If I really thought gamepass was for me, I'd have it on PC which I dont, I still prefer to get steam sales, and get to keep those games in my account forever.
That is how I built my library. PS+ costs me about 30-40 USD a year (current exchange ratio) and from the PS4 gen I got almost 200 games of it (most of which sure I didn`t care to play but added to library just in case). Also bought plenty of older games for 10-20 bucks. From little by little I must have bought more than GP library with almost all games being ones I like and likely costing less than 6 years of GP sub.
The next gen version is $70 USD at launch.
Game Pass has actually over 300 titles.
First of all, you're focusing too much on disc-based sales when most sales are digitally. Even if someone only wants to play a certain game that's on Game Pass, it easier and probably cheaper to sub for a month or 2 and call it a day. Then they can at least play other games too.
You realize it would be cheaper to sub to Game Pass than buying 20 games?
You talk about waiting on sales to buy games, but you fail to realize you can find deals on Game Pass as well. I got a year of Game Pass Ultimate for $100 last year and I did the same the year before.
Did you even bother to read my comments, once you cancel gamepass you lose all games, you don't get to keep them. I'd rather pay a bit more for 20 games and keep them forever than pay to rent them for a year for slightly less money.
Its like buying a house, I paid my house, it was much better than if I was paying rent and once you stop paying rent you go homeless.
So you paid 100 las year and 100 before? So that's 200 dollars and you got to keep not a single game, good deal lol You just thrown your money in the fire.
If that's your choice, then more power to you. But not everyone cares about owning a game, just like people don't care about owning movies, tv shows, or music using other sub services. What makes it worth the money is the experience and time spent. If I'm having fun, then it's worth it. Just like if I pay to go on a trip somewhere, I'm paying for the experience and memories.
If you care about owning, then cool, but don't try to make it seem like I'M wasting money because you're 100% wrong.
You're example of buying a house is hilarious. Buying a home is one of the most expensive purchases someone will make in their life and you're like, just buy it bro ?
It seems, by the reactions in the comments, that some users didn't took the news too well.
This is MS saying extremely clearly "We don't care about console sales. We want to sell software, preferably through our subscription. We don't care what hardware you use to access it."
More likely they care a lot about regulators not approving the purchase otherwise.
Definitely they are concerned about regulators. But how does that change the meaning of their statement?
Do you really want me to reinstate that MS PR says one thing and do another? Like saying they didn`t want to remove content from PS on Bethesda purchase but when deal was approved they gone and said several titles would be exclusive... I wont go on and on, because there will appear some Phil defense force to say it is out of context, misrepresented and that he truly only have our best interest in mind.
That is what they've said. But that's always been the case when it comes to consoles. Companies will lose money for years selling consoles, but they make their money back from software and services. I think Nintendo is the only one that's never sold their consoles at a loss. Sony does initially for a year or two before they start to turn a profit from consoles sales.
PS4 and PS5 disc version turned a profit after 6-7 months of being launched. Ps5 digital on the other hand is still losing money.
They do seem to be shrinking the length of time that consoles are lossmaking though , the PS5 disc version only took 8 months from launch to reach breakeven , this would indicate that much more effort is being put into ensuring cost control and its being done earlier than ever before most likely another positive to come out of the PS3 learning experience.
MS almost likely still lose money on S and X... S is quite cheaper than X while the parts aren`t as cheap to buy (similar to how PS5DE being sold by 100 less but only missing a driver that for Sony cost less than 20). X may have been close to break even, similar price to PS5, a little stronger but no parts that should be much more expensive. Sure lower sales means less discount from parts vendor, but if PS5 is already breaking even X is at least close to it.
They will start caring for console sales if somehow the xbox would outsell the ps5, then they would be advertising it all over the news. Microsoft only doesn't care because they never beat the ps in sales. 360 was doing it, and while it was happening, microsoft kept advertising sales numbers.
And on the PC side of things, they really need to do something, their store is horrible, to the point I have fully paid games such as forza 7, which I had to pirate afterwards just because back home I have a very weak internet connection, and when I build a new PC I had to redownload everything, there is no way of keeping the microsoft games on an external HDD and then reinstall if you had done a windows software clean install. Also the game was like 100gb but download was showing like 140gb and still going, microsoft really is clueless about software, they should as Sony for some tips.
Of course they would advertise any positive news. But, that's not what I'm talking about. They're focusing on a business model that doesn't need console sales to be successful. With XCloud, we're almost at a point where buying an XBox console is pointless. I expect there will be no reason at all to buy one in about 5 years, assuming you have fast internet.
Good news for gamers all around, although this still leaves new IPs being exclusive to Xbox/PC in the future.
This article is extremely significant well beyond the issue of content exclusivity. Read Microsoft’s press release thoroughly, there are significant regulatory changes coming to the walled garden business model.
Translation: We will be honoring all existing contracts because we are legally obligated to. Please refrain from asking what our plans for when those are complete, regulators.
im sure it has to do with the contracts that are in place!
"You don't spend 68.7 Billion dollars to release multiplatform games" :) Also, MS first party games never did increase to 70$. So if this deal goes through, Activision games might even get 10 dollars cheaper for PS users. lol
How enticing is Cod on gamepass though? If Cod gamers only buy Cod once a year. Surely buying it and owning it for 70$ every years is better than renting access and never owning anything for 180$ a year!
Thats something you never hear xbots boast about. Kinda mental buying battlepasses and lootboxes on a life long rental. Bit of a swindle. And you know Microsoft blowing up behind the scenes eager to increase the price of gamepass!
To an extent, yes. But Microsoft's bigger plan is not just to keep them on CoD. They may dive in for CoD initially, but Microsoft is most likely betting that they'll see all the 200+ plus games on the service and branch out from there to keep them subscribed. Because you're right, paying $180/year just for CoD is idiotic. Even if it does include most, if not all, past CoD entries.
Where did you get that $180 number?
Gamepass isn't that expensive.
I like physical copies of games, no doubt about it, but if all you are doing is buying gamepass and playing Call of Duty, it is the best deal you can get.
And Gamepass Ultimate allows you to play Call of Duty on the same subscription even on PC.
Gamepass ultimate is in effect $15/month
It's also currently $200 a year in Canada at that's before they inevitably raise the price.
Um i stopped buying cod cause its not worth fill price every year when it was 60usd let alone 70usd. I would be stoked if every new iteration goes on gamepass. Would definitely play it that way. If ms see subscription users increasing rapidly then they wont increase the price. Their goal is to get as many people to subscribe as possible. Increasing the cost will cause the opposite
Those people are being swindled anyways for battle passes and MTX for a full game purchase right now. At least the upside with Game Pass is you also get access to 300+ games, a lot being new releases, so if they don't want to only play CoD they have other choices. Maybe Game Pass will finally entice them to play other games.
It would be interesting if during the investigation into the purchase of ABK that Microsoft is forced to reveal the cost of running the gamepass program and as a condition of purchase is forced to sell it (subscriptions) at cost not as a loss leader. That way the barriers to entry for other franchises are fairer.
Well that settles it. Next some of the Bethesda Zenimax titles hahaha
Convenient that those weren’t mentioned wasn’t it
Great news! CoD staying multiplatform is the best way to go and this was always what I thought was going to happen. CoD being own by MS will still be huge based on the choice of using Game Pass and/or buying, along with marketing, which will make the Xbox platform the more popular place to play CoD eventually.
Also, great news about the store changes.
Good stuff, however:
We will continue to enable developers to choose whether they want to deliver their apps for Windows though our app store, from someone else’s store, or “sideloaded” directly from the internet.
I'm not a huge fan of how this positions Microsoft so that allowing installing software from outside Store is actively enabled by them instead of it simply being the case. This will make it a smaller step to prevent installing software from other sources in the future if they so desire. That said, currently it doesn't seem like it's going to happen at all, but it's still slightly worrisome.
I mean obvious, the MS heads would not let Xbox division spend 70bil and then just just give up one of it's biggest revenue streams in an instant. However, I think the great news is they are then going to look into adding more on to Switch.
Kind of crazy that Call of Duty is more likely to release on Nintendo platforms under Microsoft's helm than it ever did with Activision.
I don't get it Microsoft, why not make it exclusive, to entice ps players to jump to xbox or at least get an xbox as a secondary console, in the end they might prefer it and make it their primary console.
The market is about customer base, and you have now a huge opportunity to gain the upper hand or at least get some of the lost customers back.
Me personally I don't care for call of duty, hasn't been good since the first black Ops. I tried WW2 recently and it was terrible, the same old linear levels with boring characters and boring story.
By keeping it on ps, nothing will change at all, all of the ps players will just keep enjoying it as always.
Not entirely surprising. Maybe MS feels obligated to do this as well.
Simply launching these titles on Gamepass will still be an edge for MS though. However, MS should still charge Sony for timed exclusive content.
This is a bad move by MS IMO. The whole reason this purchase was so huge IMO was that COD is massive. I know so many people who have a playstation and they just play COD with some random other games thrown in like once a year. I really saw this as a huge blow to Sony that could see them losing 5-10 mil users eventually. Maybe even more then that over time.
At the same time I could see a situation where both Sony and MS realized what was going on with the consolidations happening and maybe made a gentlemen's agreement.
If you read the writing on the wall, this is the only move they can make. Especially if their long term goal is to break into all of the other walled garden ecosystems.
They are trying to get ahead of the curve with regulators
As they continue to buy studios I can agree but I disagree that they had to make COD multiplat. At the very least they could have made COD exclusive and let other smaller titles be multiplat.
US regulators are expressing increased concern and skepticism around walled garden, closed store business models. Both Microsoft and Sony have talked at length in recent months about moving “beyond” the console. Both companies have made unusually robust commitments to non content exclusivity.
They are telegraphing the future for us, if we choose to listen. The games industry broadly and games consoles specifically are about to undergo a massive transformation over the next 5-10 years.
That does not mean consoles are going away, but clearly change is coming. Both companies are diversifying revenue streams substantially, and this kind of statement in favor of platform openness from a console manufacturer is basically unprecedented in the industry’s history.
If sony bought Activision and bkizzard, would they make it multiplatform?
I didn’t used to think so, but now I am convinced they would
They wouldn't pay for Game pass these people don't play games like that they just pay for COD. It wouldn't happen right away but slowly I could see people moving away from Sony because of it. The damage probably wouldn't be noticed until next gen though as I'm sure they would be satisfied with the titles that are already contracted + Warzone 2. Once next gen comes though there is a real possibility they switch. With this announcement though doesn't look like anything will change. In the end this is good news for gamers. It's just a shocking move by MS when I really though they struck a major blow.
This is very straight forward. CoD will remain multiplatform.
Nah it's nothing like that. MS was very dodgy with their wording during the zenimax deal. They are very clear about what will happen at least when it comes to COD. Which IMO is what made this buyout such a big deal. If it wasn't for COD I wouldn't haven't even thought it was that big of a deal. Blizz is a shell of what they were. The best you can get out of them is the IPs. Most of the top talent at Blizzard left a few years ago. Which is why Sony paying extra to keep the staff on Bungie matters. Sony knows better than anyone that the studio name doesn't mean anything if all the people who made that studio are gone.
Wonder how many lawyers were used to write that article.....i reckon it probably took them a few weeks and about 50 lawyers lol
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