Microsoft doesn’t want to ‘pull communities away’ by making Activision Blizzard games exclusive to Xbox

pcinvasion.com:

There were a lot of questions following yesterday’s announcement that Microsoft was acquiring Activision Blizzard for the tune of a cool $68.7 billion USD. Namely, the thought that plagued many players minds was: will Diablo and Call of Duty be exclusive to Xbox and PC? Newly crowned Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer did say the company was planning on bringing AB franchises to Game Pass. However, would that mean Call of Duty fans on PlayStation need to migrate? In another statement by Spencer, this probably isn’t the case: Activision Blizzard games won’t be exclusive to Xbox and PC.

“I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that,” Spencer said in an interview with Bloomberg. From the sound of things, if you enjoy Call of Duty on your PlayStation console, you won’t need to worry about migrating elsewhere.

There will, however, be new ways to experience Activision Blizzard games. Yesterday, Spencer revealed that many of AB’s major franchises, such as Crash Bandicoot and Diablo, are heading to Game Pass. But not all, per se. The company “will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass,” according to Spencer. Right now, it’s unknown which franchises will make the leap. But imagining Crash Bandicoot 4 and its remakes all on Game Pass sure is nice.

And please get Toys for Bob back on Crash Bandicoot, thanks.

When considering the acquisition, and what is exclusive to Xbox, I wonder about what the future looks like with Activision Blizzard games. Granted, the future of the company is still dicey, what with the ongoing harassment lawsuit.