Last month, Microsoft announced that it will acquire Activision Blizzard. a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher for about $69 billion. This acquisition includes several popular games including “Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush.
Even since the acquisition was announced last month, the gaming community and commentators have been asking Microsoft to confirm whether it will continue to make popular game titles like Call of Duty available on Sony’s PlayStation or other competing platforms. Yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that it will continue to make popular games on competing platforms like Sony’s PlayStation. Microsoft reiterated that it would continue to make CoD on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision.
Microsoft has committed to Sony that it will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love. Microsoft also has plans to take similar steps to support Nintendo’s gaming platform.
We believe this is the right thing for the industry, for gamers and for our business. – Microsoft.
BigTechWire’s take:
We welcome Microsoft’s decision to keep the popular Activision Blizzard titles cross-platform. But this decision is an expected one. Microsoft did not acquire Activision Blizzard for securing exclusive titles for the Xbox platform. Microsoft’s focus was to bring more value to the GamePass subscription and push the GamePass subscription to nearly 400 million monthly active players in the Activision Blizzard community. We also predict that GamePass subscription will be coming to PlayStation and Nintendo platforms in the coming years.