Sony Still Worried Microsoft Could Release Worse Version of Call of Duty on PlayStation - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 April 2023 / 3,918 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment in its response to the UK regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Addendum dropping concerns that the Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition won't significantly lessen competition in the video game console market in the UK is still worried Microsoft could still release a worse version of Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles than Xbox consoles.
"Today, Activision goes to great lengths to promote console competition by releasing an equally high-quality Call of Duty game on PlayStation and Xbox while making use of their somewhat different technical capabilities," reads the response from Sony Interactive Entertainment.
"Post-Transaction, Microsoft would have different incentives because degrading the experience on PlayStation would benefit Xbox, PlayStation’s 'closest rival.' Microsoft would have no incentive to make use of the advanced features in PlayStation not found in Xbox. Yet the Addendum claims that Microsoft would not have the ability to engage in partial foreclosure. It does so despite its recognition that Call of Duty is critically important for console competition and that fully withholding Call of Duty would foreclose PlayStation.
"The Addendum’s implication is that Microsoft could degrade Call of Duty on PlayStation (including simply by not making it as good as it could be), raise its price, release the game at a later date, or make it available only on Game Pass without harming competition between PlayStation and Xbox.
"This finding is unsubstantiated and inconsistent with the evidence. It appears to be based on speculation that the 'deterioration' in Call of Duty would be 'modest' and, as a result, that the CMA 'would expect only a fraction of gamers would switch to Xbox.' Yet it is difficult to conceive of an industry where consumers are more attuned to quality and where quality affects purchasing decisions.
"Call of Duty gamers are passionate, knowledgeable, and sophisticated. Gamers engage with each title in the franchise immediately after its release, are keenly aware of a game’s price, quality, and features, and regularly compare the quality, performance, and features of their favourite games across PlayStation and Xbox."
Sony stated that within a week of release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II that analyst group Digital Foundry released a comparison of the game between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, while VG Tech compared the frame rates of the game on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Sony says " these types of comparisons are highly influential."
Sony added "Conversations in forums, chatrooms and public gaming sessions confirm that gamers are
very conscious of the slightest changes in a game’s performance."
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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Fix your own games before accusing others Sony.
Hasn't Sony been doing that with other games?
Watchdogs: 60 mins of exclusive playstation content
Marvel's avengers; exclusive spider man
As well as cod players on PS getting early access to maps, exp boosts and other goodies
All while making Xbox AND PC gamers pay the same price but for less content?
"Gamers engage with each title in the franchise immediately after its release, are keenly aware of a game’s price, quality, and features, and regularly compare the quality, performance, and FEATURES of their favorite games across PlayStation and Xbox."
looks at years of CoD advertisements of PS console bundles plastered with PlayStation exclusive stickers all over them
Well.....this is awkward.
Oh you mean the thing 3rd parties have done to Nintendo for 27 years and yet they are still going.
Sony, how about releasing a better version of The Last of Us on Xseries?
You cannot really fault Sony here. They put all their eggs in the COD tactic and it got blown up. What else are they going to do but double down.
You definitely can fault Sony. You might also understand why they're doing what they're doing. But they are still doing it, and doing so intentionally.
Well of course Sony is doing what they are doing and no I do not have to fault them for it. I already stated many times its a bad tactic but being a bad tactic just means in my eyes the chance of success was slim because of MS response. For all we know Sony is just setting up the stage were if the next COD doesn't perform better on Sony system or something like that they can come back to these statements and say MS is deliberately making it so.
I am not looking at this as a gamer, its a waste of time none of these companies care what we think on that level. I am always looking at the short/long term strategy of any particular move. I know for a fact that Jim isn't just doing this from the hip, him and his senior advisors probably constantly talk about short and long term strategy and the message they put fort to the CMA.
Sony PS5 is actually really easy for developers; I doubt they would put the effort to make it worst. If anything it will probably optimized for the PS5 before the Xbox version of the game even if it's a Microsoft studio. Microsoft will take 70% of revenue of every game sold on PS5 and Sony only recourse now is to lie to their customers and industry lobbies.
No. Once they become a MS studio the lead system may be the PC but it will not be the PS5. Anyway I think we have seen enough body of work now to know that both machines are very close performance wise and the PS5 has the better SSD. So I doubt we really going to see any real difference between them both outside of first party games.
sony just put a junk baseball game on xbox, I doubt the playstation version is bad.
