The dispute over the possible entry of Call of Duty among the IPs owned by Microsoft does not seem to subside, a process that would arrive later to the already announced maxi market operation involving Xbox and the Activision Blizzard group.
Among the main opponents of the possible acquisition – and it is no longer a mystery – there is certainly Sony, worried about what the importance of the shooter brand could entail, recently reaffirmed with Modern Warfare 2 (you can find it on Amazon) if it becomes an Xbox exclusive.
And it seems that the 10-year agreement proposed to PlayStation has not yet achieved the desired effects, which in the meantime has instead been accepted by Nintendo, which will return for the first time since the Wii U era welcome Call of Duty to their consoles.
The house of PlayStation had not yet responded to Microsoft’s invitation to «sit down and talk about it », but judging by an internal report by MLex (via Game Rant) it seems not only to be unwilling to do so, but would even argue that the agreement between Xbox and Nintendo is only «smoke and mirrors».
Sony would in fact argue that the reason why Call of Duty was not available on Nintendo consoles was not for reasons of exclusivity or difficulty in converting versions, but for a pure and simple question of target.
The house of PlayStation believes that «the younger audience of Nintendo does not is interested in first-person shooters» and that the agreement would have been taken only to give the impression that the Redmond house is ready to collaborate.
This from Sony’s reported response to the MS/N deal is weird. For decades now the precedent (at least in U.S.) has been to approve deals if prices will stay the same or go down. And Sony is asking for protection because it won’t be able to compete with COD being more affordable. pic.twitter.com/bv2Ry4fYQM
— Grubb (@JeffGrubb) December 8, 2022
Moreover, Nintendo would not even have reason to worry about a possible offer through cloud gaming, given that it is not a sector in which the Kyoto house is investing, suggesting that the last chapters of Call of Duty wouldn’t even be able to run on Switch.
A hypothesis, the latter, actually denied by Phil Spencer himself, who wants to ensure the simultaneous launch also on Switch of the next chapters of the series, after an understandable period of adjustment.
In any case, the agreement does not seem to have convinced even the very strict FTC, which has already announced that it intends to do everything possible to block the acquisition of Activision Blizzard in court and, consequently, also of Call of Duty.
