Microsoft’s recently announced acquisition of Activision Blizzard is set to close around summer 2023, and many thought that any future plans would likely remain quiet until the closure neared. However, Phil Spencer has been quite candid about plans regarding this acquisition in the past few days. He recently confirmed that he was interested in talking to the developers at Activision Blizzard to see what they wanted to work on, citing potentially-running IPs from Activision Blizzard’s vault.
As many know, Activision Blizzard has had a huge emphasis on Call of Duty in the past few years, with many devs who didn’t work on Call of Duty eventually being moved to it. Whether Call of Duty became an Xbox exclusive once all was said and done has been a big point of debate these past few days, but Phil Spencer recently put that to rest too.
In a tweet, Phil Spencer shares that he has had some good calls with Sony leaders this week, where he confirmed to honor all existing agreements with Sony once Activision Blizzard is fully acquired. This doesn’t really come as a surprise, as Microsoft has also done this with other acquisitions in the past. That’s why games like Deathloop, The Outer Worlds, and Ghostwire: Tokyo are on PlayStation consoles, despite being owned by Xbox.
He didn’t end there, though, continuing that he confirmed “[Microsoft’s] desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation.” The language used here doesn’t seem to be as vague as other parts of the Activision-Blizzard acquisition, such as CEO Bobby Kotick’s future, and it’s a pretty clear indicator that Call of Duty will remain a multi-platform title after the acquisition is done. Spencer ended the tweet, as seen above, by stating that Sony is an important part of the gaming industry, and Microsoft values the relationship between the two companies.
This may lay to rest some debate that many felt would have lasted throughout this year and into next, as Spencer's wording here seems pretty clear. That doesn’t mean, of course, that everything from Activision Blizzard will release on PlayStation platforms in the future, but it does mean that not everything will be exclusive either. Chances are, big seminal releases will remain on Microsoft-owned platforms where it can continue to support Game Pass, but titles like Call of Duty may not be as cut and dry as many first thought.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.