In a report by Bloomberg, Activision Blizzard is still planning on releasing the next few Call of Duty titles on both major console platforms.
This news just comes a week after Microsoft announced their plans to acquire Activision Blizzard.
Insiders tell Bloomberg, that those three games include this year’s Call of Duty title which is set to be a new Modern Warefare entry by developer Infinity Ward, next year’s title by Treyarch and a new version of moneymaking free-to-play title Call of Duty Warzone.
Last week, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming put out a statement on Twitter to say that they intend to “honour all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation.”
It’s important to look at the careful wording of Spencer’s statement. After releasing the above-mentioned titles and the acquisition successfully goes through (which won’t be until 2023). Then Microsoft could easily decide to future Call of Duty titles exclusive for Xbox and PC, leaving PlayStation in the dust.
But it’s possible that Microsoft might not want to do that, since, for the past couple of years, Call of Duty has been a sales juggernaut with each game in the series making it to the top-selling games of its release year.
Cutting out PlayStation of the Call of Duty pie would leave a huge amount of money left on the table that might not be filled up by Xbox and PC sales. And I’m not sure if Sony would be willing to add Game Pass to their console just to have Call of Duty on their platform.
At this point in time, it’s still very early to tell what will happen to Call of Duty, some insiders are also reporting that the series will scale back on its annual release schedule to give developers breathing room.
