Microsoft is trying to persuade government regulators to approve the $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Sony, on the other hand, does not want such a deal to happen, as it fears that Microsoft will make games like the Call of Duty series exclusive to the Xbox. But in newly released documents submitted to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sony has a rather interesting idea that Microsoft could “break up” Call of Duty games for future PlayStation releases.
Sony’s statement, which appeared in its documents at the CMA, is as follows: “Microsoft may release the PlayStation version of Call of Duty in such a way that the bugs only occur at the final level of the game or after subsequent updates. Even if such corruption could be detected quickly, any solution would likely be too late and by then gamers would have lost confidence in PlayStation. Indeed, as evidenced by Modern Warfare II, Call of Duty is most purchased within the first few weeks after its release. If the game’s performance on PlayStation turns out to be worse than on Xbox, Call of Duty players may decide to switch to Xbox for fear of playing their favorite game in a 2nd class or less competitive environment.”
Frankly, this sounds like an extremely extreme and also unlikely scenario. Because if Microsoft intentionally puts bugs in the PlayStation version of Call of Duty, players are more likely to blame Microsoft rather than Sony.
Microsoft had told Sony that it would keep Call of Duty games on PlayStation consoles and would offer a 10-year deal that would be on par with the Xbox versions in terms of features. Microsoft had a similar deal with Nintendo, promising NVIDIA’s GeForce Go game streaming service to provide access to Microsoft games, including Call of Duty. The CMA is continuing its investigation into Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and is expected to make a final decision by April 26. Let’s see what the result will be…
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