The boss of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has shared his thoughts on the ongoing argument between Sony and Microsoft over the latter’s deal with Activision-Blizzard.
Microsoft announced earlier this year that it has acquired Activision-Blizzard, the company known for games like Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft and more. It was revealed that Call of Duty would still remain on PlayStation platforms following the acquisition. Criticism has emerged from Sony’s side though.
Recently, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan called Xbox’s decision “inadequate on many levels”. Overall, it seemed like Sony wasn’t happy at all with the Microsoft/Activision-Blizzard deal. Since then, Phil Spencer has spoken to CNBC about the deal and Sony’s comments.
Spencer’s Statement
On CNBC, Spencer said “I’ve set out there publicly to our fans and our customers, which is where our strongest commitment is, that our expectation is we’ll continue to ship Call of Duty on PlayStation and other places where people see it, and hopefully expand the places people are playing all of our games.
Following this, Spencer said “Competition is about driving competitors to innovate, driving competitors to do new things like cloud, like subscriptions, like building new intellectual property.” The Xbox boss said “everything we’ve been focused on is how do we compete effectively, how do we deliver more value to our customers.”
Jim Ryan may have called Xbox’s pledge inadequate, but Xbox has responded with its own criticisms. On a lengthy document sent to the Brazilian government, Microsoft said Sony pays developers “blocking rights” to stop games showing up on Xbox Game Pass.
However, the company has stated that it makes “zero business sense” to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation. New Call of Duty games will still release on PlayStation given its “market leading console position”.
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