Bobby Kotick Forced Microsoft Into a Bigger Revenue Share to Keep Call of Duty on Xbox - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 July 2023 / 6,335 Views
Microsoft’s corporate VP of gaming ecosystem at Xbox Sarah Bond during the hearing between the US FTC and Microsoft revealed Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick forced Microsoft to give them a bigger revenue share to keep Call of Duty on Xbox consoles.
"If we did not move beyond standard revenue share that [Kotick] intended to not place Call of Duty on Xbox," said Bond. "Time was limited. We had players whose expectations we wanted to meet, so we ultimately made a decision that it was the best thing for the business."
Bond added, "It was clear that Call of Duty would be on PS5 and that would not have been good if it was not also on Xbox if it was launching at the same time."
Activision Blizzard did ask Microsoft if it wanted to bid on the marketing rights for Call of Duty, however, the company declined. This meant Microsoft couldn't show Call of Duty during Xbox showcases.
"A year ago we wanted to show that Call of Duty: Vanguard was launching on Xbox, we were told we could not say it on YouTube or any other place where customers who were not our own customers could see it, and we had to hold for a period of time," said Bond.
Showing that Call of Duty was coming to Xbox was fine on Xbox's own Twitter accounts and on the official Xbox website.
"But when we film a showcase, that is people can watch it live on YouTube and other places," said Bond. "And at the end we wanted to put up a slate that say, 'Here are all the games coming in the next year,' we were told we could not say Call of Duty was coming in the next year."
Bond was asked about other games that had similar marketing exclusivity and Bond mentioned Hogwarts Legacy.
The FTC's counsel accidentally let slip that Microsoft has agreed to 80/20 revenue splits for some Xbox games, which is lower than the typical 70/30 split.
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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So MS decided to buy the company that was trying to play hardball with them.
Also if a standalone ABK had this much bullying power, imagine how much more leverage and bullying power they will have when combined with Microsoft.
Umm they will have greater powers to listen to so they will have no bullying power under MS.
Damn. Lot of tea being spread today on this matter.
Kotick really is a ruthless piece of shit.
Wow......Activision is willing to be that level of aggressive towards Xbox of all companies....I wonder if they made a similar argument at Nintendo and Nintendo didn't bite? There used to be several points where there were hints of a Nintendo COD port (stuff like Nintendo Switch listed on COD registry sites and in legalese on them), so maybe we're going to see something like this come up with them.
Sony is 20/80 with them. I don't think that was really the reason why it didn't launch on switch though.
The 20 going to Sony?
Thanks playstation for additional ammunition against the FTC and CMA.
And so, that's why Microsoft would rather just buy Activision
If they gonna have to pay them more money anyways over a long time, may as well buy the house, and it ends up paying for itself, lol
Sony paying Activision to ban Xbox talking about CoD even on Youtube. Disgraceful.
And MS go the extra mile to prevent even any news or other company to mention these games are launching anywhere else for 48h after the reveal, while everything show on PS showcase was posted by MS minutes after.
