Phil Spencer: Microsoft Will Not Make Any Call of Duty Content Exclusive to Xbox - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2023 / 8,172 Views
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in an interview with Xbox On was asked about the Activision Blizzard deal and the future of Call of Duty.
The plan for Microsoft is to treat Call of Duty the same way it does with Minecraft keeping the game multiplatform and available on as many platforms as possible.
"We want to increase the places where people can play Call of Duty," said Spencer. "I think a little bit like Minecraft. I think when we acquired Minecraft, our monthly active player base was 20-30 million. I'm doing this from memory, but I think that's about the size Minecraft was. And I think it's about maybe 120 million monthly players on Minecraft.
"And you do that obviously, first and foremost by nurturing the creative - make sure the game evolves and the teams have resources they need to build a great game, because in the end it's about great games."
Spencer mentioned the agreements Microsoft has with Nintendo and Nvidia. Microsoft signed a "binding 10-year legal agreement" to bring Call of Duty games to Nintendo platforms if Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition is approved. Microsoft has also signed a 10-year partnership to bring Xbox games on PC to the Nvidia GeForce Now cloud gaming service.
"With Call of Duty, I think we've made some specific agreements with Nintendo and with Nvidia to ensure the game can show up in front of more places," he added. "And you obviously don't make the game bigger by taking it away from anybody.
"I looked the other day. Wee have 58 games in our portfolio that are available on the PlayStation Store today. Now we've acquired a lot of those like the Doom games and the Fallout games, but even things we're updated like ESO (Elder Scrolls Online), Fallout 76.
"And so we expect to hit a certain level of quality on all of those games - the level of quality that PlayStation players expect. So that's our goal. And the same thing on PC and the same thing on Nintendo.
"And so when we say available everywhere or not exclusive, we want to make absolutely the best version of Call of Duty for any player on any of those platforms."
Spencer was asked if that includes anything about exclusivity in regards to content and he said it does not.
"I sit here today with a great game that's come out in the last couple of weeks, Hogwarts Legacy. And yes, there is a quest that's available on PlayStation. It's not available on Xbox. And part of that - and I know this is part of the industry - that's not the game we're trying to play here either. It's not about a skin on a gun. It's not about a certain kind of mode of the game.
"The same version of the game will be available on all platforms, which is really what we do today. Like if you're a Minecraft player on PlayStation I don't think you feel like you have the lesser version of Minecraft or Minecraft Dungeons or [Minecraft] Legends, which is coming out when it ships."
Spencer added Minecraft Legends will support cross-play and the team at Xbox wants to "make sure those players feel like they have a great experience on the platform they choose to play on."
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Some are quick to defend crap like exclusive content like the aforementioned Hogwarts Legacy quest as "good business" or "it's something small that no one cares about" when it's not just Xbox players that are getting screwed, but us on PC as well as Nintendo players too. Even ironically, exclusive CoD game modes and DLC lol, and that kind of bs needs to stop. And I don't mean Sony dropping the practice, but completely thrown out of the gaming industry.
Phil is a lot of fluff, but no one can deny he's kept his word about Minecraft, ESO, FO76, and other games being in parity with other platforms in regards to content. It doesn't matter though at this point. The deal is dead and Sony will continue getting away with what they always do.
im sure that was not the original plan
False. Microsoft said they sent Sony a signed contract back in January 2022 (the month they announced the acquisition) offering them Call of Duty support for several years beyond the end of Sony's current CoD marketing contract, including content and feature parity:
“In January, we provided a signed agreement to Sony to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract, an offer that goes well beyond typical gaming industry agreements,” says Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in a statement to The Verge.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/2/23334619/microsoft-sony-call-of-duty-playstation-letter-commitment-activision-blizzard
Activision has franchises it can put anywhere it wants. They put games where they are profitable. They'd put cod on switch if would be profitable. Same with Nvidia.
Microsoft wants Activision for Microsoft and gamepass.Thats it. Same as Bethesda.
They were pushed to concessions because Sony knew it would be the same story.
All this talk is the usual smoke and mirrors from Phil " im your pretend best friend" Spencer....
Then why offer only 10 year deals?
A thing of beauty when corporate and consumer interests align to get rid of deadweight losses like exclusive content
Will someone please explain to me what's the point of this (attempted) acquisition? Microsoft is spending $70 billion, and yet they're still allowing Call of Duty to stay on PlayStation for at least another 10 years? And by not putting CoD on Game Pass, what reason is there for PS gamers to switch to Xbox? And can Microsoft say with 100% certainty that CoD will still be a massively popular franchise in 2033?
Money. Spending $70 billion and allowing it on all consoles, allows for the investment to make a speedy return. No-one is asking for PS gamers to switch to Xbox for Call of Duty, they can continue to play it on their PS5. No-one can guarantee what will be popular in 2033.
"No-one is asking for PS gamers to switch to Xbox"
You'd think that Microsoft would try to sell the Xbox brand. Instead, they're ensuring that PlayStation will continue to be hugely successful, especially during the holiday season, which seems to be the only time of the year when Xbox doesn't get completely mauled by PlayStation in sales.
More and more, I find myself wondering if Microsoft even gives a damn about Xbox anymore. They're always boasting about how many Game Pass subscribers they have, and yet they flatly refuse to share how many Xbox consoles they've sold. And when they do talk about Xbox, it's usually about how much money they lose with every Series X/S console that they sell.
As long as Playstation keeps selling well, it provides a huge player base for CoD. And Nintendo and Steam have already been guaranteed 10 years of CoD. Eliminating an amount of customers for that product doesn't make any sense.
Xbox customers will have plenty of other incentives to purchase an Xbox that may not appeal to other console users, and there will be certain disadvantages and advantages to owning one. CoD won't be the deciding factor.
There will be exclusives gained from the Activision Blizzard buyout.
Just Call of Duty won't be one of them.
Companies like Sony ad ms don't make profit from selling consoles. Its all about software. Cod makes too much money on ps for ms to ignore. By having it on all platforms and beyond the profit that cod usually makes will get even bigger. That profit alone will allow ms to fund more games or buy more. Publishers. Plus having it also on gamepass will. Help gamepass subscription grow which in turns will. Bring even more money.
I think the idea is to keep them on PS5, but bring COD to game pass thus making it more likely that players would choose game pass for financial reasons. Anyway, I dont know if this deal is still worth it, as there was a huge market downwards right after the accouchement, most likely the market value of Activision would be much smaller today. Microsoft is probably paying at least double the price of the company.
Also... dont forget in case they give up on Xbox and go the Sega route, they will have an amazing portfolio of games.
What do you mean by "by not putting CoD on Game Pass"? Did they announce that CoD won't be put on Gamepass?
From what I've heard, Sony is working very hard to prevent CoD from coming to Game Pass.
I would imagine that's referring to Sony preventing Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard. If they don't own Activision, then they don't own CoD.
COD has been on top of market for more than 10 years at this point I think. So in 10 years MS can do what they want with COD and if it's still the top game they now have full control of it. The CMA made it clear that the chances of someone making a game that takes over COD in 10 years is very unlikely.
They are buying one of the biggest mobile developers, King by itself is pretty substantial, Activision also makes CoD mobile.
They also have said they plan to put CoD on Gamepass. Helps their mobile business, helps their console business.
"And can Microsoft say with 100% certainty that CoD will still be a massively popular franchise in 2033?"
Certainly not, but CoD has had remarkable staying power.
MS said within days of the announcement of the acquisition that they weren't going to take CoD off PS and they wanted to increase the amount of platforms it's on now. I see a lot of people use the 3-year and 10-year deals as some proof of Xbox making CoD exclusive after those deals are up. Those agreements are there to show regulators their commitment to keep CoD on other platforms as a formality. MS has already demonstrated they will keep their word when they said, "Minecraft is not become exclusive." MS expanded the amount of platforms it's on and released spinoff games on those platforms. No deal was in place then and no deal is in place now for Minecraft. The same would have been true for CoD but Sony made a fit and regulators fell for the bait.
Unlike that scummy sony.
Then complain mods erase your comments.
Microsoft should let go of the deal and then go on a buying spree of smaller studios, just like sony does. Nobody will notice and in a short time they will have a much bigger portfolio. And sony most likely won't be able to go to the justive system crying about it.
Muhahaa xD plz stfu spencer.
Yup, and this wont change if the deal gets blocked. We will continue to see CoD content butchered on other platforms due to anti consumer deals.
