The console dads are bickering about Call of Duty

pcgamer.com:

The dispute over the future of a Microsoft-owned Call of Duty has taken on a little bit of a mano a mano sheen as a recent comment by Xbox boss Phil Spencer has brought PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan trucking out to «set the record straight.»

One of the big sticking points in Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is the Call of Duty series, one of the biggest games on the planet. It's been multi-platform from the start (the original 2004 release even had an N-Gage version developed by Nokia), and in recent years—going at least as far back as 2018(opens in new tab)—PlayStation owners have actually had an edge over the rest of us in terms of getting (opens in new tab)early access to COD beta tests. But Sony has expressed understandable concerns that Microsoft could end up making Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive if it gains control of the series.

Microsoft has repeatedly dismissed those concerns(opens in new tab), most recently in a statement sent to The Verge(opens in new tab) in which Spencer said Microsoft sent a formal offer to Sony in January «to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract.» The offer went «well beyond typical gaming industry agreements,» Spencer said at the time.

That sounds reasonable enough, but Spencer's counterpart had some harsh words for the specifics of Microsoft's proposition, and he clearly wasn't happy that Spencer was airing their laundry in public either.

«I hadn’t intended to comment on what I understood to be a private business discussion, but I feel the need to set the record straight because Phil Spencer brought this into the public forum,» Ryan told GamesIndustry(opens in new tab).

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