PlayStation fears Call of Duty being owned by Microsoft, according to recent Q&A

PlayStation recently spoke to a Brazilian regulatory body, according to the ResetEra forums, concerning the future of Call of Duty. The way Sony views Call of Duty is that it is a franchise that has no rivals, and other companies cannot hope to compete with it.

Call of Duty is a genre all its own, and with Microsoft owning the IP, it could easily influence who purchases what consoles in the future.

The company was very open about how they felt about it, but it’s important to note that the sale is not final yet. It needs to be confirmed by several regulating bodies worldwide, including the Brazilian body PlayStation spoke to recently.

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Call of Duty being owned by Microsoft raises sale issues for PlayStation

The information for this recent Q&A isn’t a leak, however. Brazil is open and transparent about things of this nature, so the entire review process is available for public consumption.

PlayStation had numerous concerns regarding Activision Blizzard being owned by Microsoft, such as the sheer popularity of Call of Duty.

“Call of Duty is so popular that it influences users’ choice of console, and its network of loyal users is so entrenched that even if a competitor had the budget to develop a similar product, it would not be able to rival it.”

The company fears that if the game is owned by a company that also has a console, fewer PS5 units would be purchased. Instead, fans are more likely to pick up the Xbox, as Microsoft also develops it.

Another problem is that Call of Duty, in the shooter genre, will not have a rival, according to PlayStation. The company fears that no company can devote the same amount of resources that Call of Duty can.

Even if they could, it wouldn’t matter because it would be too difficult to catch up to where CoD already is.

According to Sony, Call of Duty has been the top-selling title for about a decade, and the numbers aren’t even close. It’s a franchise that defines the first-person shooter genre and has a reach on social media that no other FPS can match.

“Even in weaker years like 2021, Call of Duty still outperformed most other games by a considerable margin. Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021), for example, was widely regarded as weaker than previous years’ titles but was still one of the best-selling games of 2021. In other words, players remain loyal to the brand even in a bad year and continue to buy the game.”

Even the weakest, most disappointing Call of Duty games still sell millions upon millions of units, and it’s not something lost on PlayStation. No matter how poorly the titles in the franchise are received, they will continue to sell due to brand loyalty.

In the past, Sony has stated they feel Call of Duty will remain multiplatform due to contractual agreements. However, it does not change how open they are about their fears of what it will mean in the future.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said the same thing regarding Call of Duty, but this could always change in the future. He has also confirmed a desire to bring Call of Duty to the Nintendo Switch, so the game will likely remain multiplatform for the foreseeable future.