The historic Microsoft deal is having an impact: Xbox boss Phil Spencer gives a clear rejection to exclusive CoD content in the future
Activision Blizzard is now officially owned by Microsoft – and with it, the Call of Duty brand in all its facets.
The billion-dollar deal has many consequences for studios, customers and the industry, as Petra Fröhlich has analyzed. Specifically for CoD, that means an end to exclusive content for certain platforms.
Everyone is equal
As Xbox boss (Phil Spencer in the official Xbox podcast) explained, exclusive deals, as they were commonplace in the past, will be off the table in the future.
Accordingly, players on PC, PlayStation, Xbox (and in the future probably also on Nintendo consoles), should get the same gaming experience. Spencer also assures that they will not turn the tables and offer benefits on Xbox. He says:
CoD players on PlayStation and in the future on Nintendo should feel one hundred percent part of the community. I don’t want people to miss out on content or get a skin or certain time perks. That’s not our goal and […] we don’t want to use CoD to push Xbox consoles on you.
“Part of the CoD Nation “
In recent years, Sony had aggressively marketed benefits to PlayStation users in CoD.
In 2019’s CoD Modern Warfare, there was an exclusive game mode on PlayStation, in MW2, the operator Oni was only on PlayStation and the beta of MW3 ran longer on PlayStation, as it had in previous years. Spencer comments:
We’ve seen such time advantages and exclusive skins from the other side. Even the new beta wasn’t on Xbox for the first week. This doesn’t help anyone or the game. Whether you’re on Xbox, PC, Nintendo, or PlayStation, I want you to be a part of CoD Nation there.
Spencer acknowledges, however, that he is referring only to content and not to technology Complete parity in terms of performance is impossible to achieve because different platforms also offer different resolutions and framerates, Spencer said.
The changes to CoD’s exclusivity policy might even come sooner than expected: first PC players report (according to Dexerto) having spotted the Oni operator in the menu, which is only available on PlayStation.
In any case, it is certain that time advantages in betas, exclusive modes and other in-game advantages such as more slots for loadouts, will be a thing of the past for Call of Duty 2024 at the latest.
However, it can be assumed that agreements already made with Sony will still be implemented by Activision and thus there may still be “remnants” of exclusive deals.
What do you think of the change of course under Microsoft? Are you convinced, like Phil Spencer, that exclusive advantages hurt a game and the community? Feel free to write us your opinion in the comments!
