Phil Spencer Says Xbox Won't Pull a Hogwarts Legacy with Call of Duty

gamerant.com:

If Xbox successfully acquires Activision Blizzard and the Call of Duty franchise, PlayStation gamers don't have to worry about missing out on any content. Console exclusivity for certain content or games is one of the main ways that PlayStation and Xbox compete, with the companies shelling out cash to secure timed exclusives for their platforms. A recent example of this can be found in the wildly successful open world Harry Potter action-RPG Hogwarts Legacy.

Hogwarts Legacy offers largely the same experience regardless of what platform people are playing it on, with one big exception. Hogwarts Legacy on PlayStation has an exclusive horror-themed quest for players to partake in, with the quest expected to remain exclusive to PS4 and PS5 gamers for about a year. This was brought up by Head of Xbox Phil Spencer in a recent interview with Xbox On, where he confirmed that Xbox won't pull anything like that with Call of Duty if it were to gain control of the IP.

Hogwarts Legacy Dominates Key Market in Third Straight Week

In the Xbox On interview, Spencer stated that Xbox wants to increase the places where people can play Call of Duty. «You obviously don't make a game bigger by taking it away from anyone that's playing today,» Spencer said, pointing out that there are 58 games from Xbox's portfolio already available on the PlayStation Store. Spencer was then asked about the possibility of exclusive content for Call of Duty gamers on Xbox if the acquisition goes through, but made it clear that won't happen. Using Hogwarts Legacy's PlayStation exclusive quest as an example, Spencer said that's «not the game we're trying to play here.»

Spencer acknowledged that exclusive content is «part of the industry,» but that Xbox isn't looking