Sony has finally issued a response to Microsoft’s shock announcement that it will be acquiring Activision Blizzard from earlier this week, stating that it expects relevant games to remain multiplatform due to preexisting “contractual agreements” with the publisher.
On Tuesday, Jan. 18, Microsoft announced it will be acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Within 24 hours of the news, rival company Sony’s market value plummeted by a whopping $20 billion, prompting concern over whether or not major Activision Blizzard games like Call of Duty would be exclusive to Microsoft-affiliated platforms going forward.
According to a recently filed report from The Wall Street Journal, Sony has now addressed these concerns. “We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform,” a spokesperson for the company said.
At the time of writing, people are decisively split in relation to the possibility of new Activision Blizzard games being made available for PS5. While existing games like Call of Duty: Warzone and Overwatch will no doubt continue to be supported across all relevant platforms — it has been claimed that “some” games will still be on PS5 — it’s worth looking at Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda in 2021, which will see behemoth titles like The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield launch exclusively for Xbox and PC.
At the same time, some analysts are of the opinion that making Call of Duty exclusive to platforms owned and supported by Microsoft could present serious antitrust issues.
While it’s certainly worth considering how a deal of this magnitude might affect the games industry in the future, it’s important not to let figures distract from more pressing concerns. Activision Blizzard is still very much a company with deep-rooted systemic problems and is currently facing serious allegations of harassment within the company.
Employees have staged strikes and walkouts in response to the company’s decision to keep CEO Bobby Kotick in power, and even shareholders have officially called for Kotick’s resignation. It is believed that Kotick will step down from his position once the deal is done and the ink has dried, although that has yet to be officially confirmed. Last we heard, he was considering acquiring gaming-trade publications Kotaku and PC Gamer.
In terms of how this relates to Sony, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan claimed to be “stunned” over Activision Blizzard’s response to the allegations made against it.
As for Sony’s own exclusives, we recently got another look at upcoming blockbuster Horizon Forbidden West, while the highly anticipated God of War Ragnarok is still slated for release later this year.
Written by Cian Maher on behalf of GLHF.
