PlayStation's Call of Duty Marketing Deal Almost Certainly Ending

Good, was a useless way of spending money anyway, can now spend that money elsewhere, maybe securing more timed exclusives or put towards acquiring Square Enix

If PlayStation doesn't even get the games it seems obvious they wouldn't also get extra skins?

@KippDynamite There's still Modern Warfare 2 coming out this year. The deal doesn't close until 2023 so this year's game should still be on PS5, PS4.

Come on! CoD has been in decline for years. If this takeover hadn't happened people would continue to threaten "not to buy it anymore" and moan at leisure. As soon as the takeover leaks it's a massive loss for some reason.

I'll happily say goodbye to the whole game. I'd rather sony snap up Ember lab than these or Bethesda.

@The_Moose Call of Duty: Vanguard was the best-selling PlayStation game of 2021. It is absolutely a big loss.

@LiamCroft
True. Good point.

@LiamCroft That's not saying much looking at the competition in 2021. Also Vanguard got awful user reviews which will do nothing to instill faith in the next entry.

This is going to cause a shift in hardware sale in the US now I imagine. The casuals who only buy CoD/sports games will migrate to Xbox now.

@Royalblues I think King played a major roll in the decision to buy. I could have easily seen Apple go for them to put more pressure against Epic. I know these sites are for console focused conversations but this whole situation screams a battle between the top two companies in the world, not against one that has a market cap of double this purchase.

@Royalblues Mojang was bought by MS in 2014.

Before Mojang was bought by MS, Minecraft was on Xbox One and PS4 and I think Wii U as well. It was way before Mojang was bought by Mojang

@Link41x that’s like a majority of gamers in the West tbh

@Royalblues Agreed. Sony focused site so I get the direction everyone is looking at but the gaming industry is much bigger than them. If MS was truly trying to target Sony they could have gone after Nintendo (market cap is close to Activision). I wouldn't be surprised if small perks were still included in the short run.

You're right. Activision was going down and I have no doubt Tencent was looking. Microsoft has been honest who they consider their competition is and people have to come to terms that it isn't Sony.

@Royalblues Microsoft never released a sequel to Minecraft so the comparison does not hold much water. Time will tell, but it would absolutely make sense for 2023's Call of Duty to be Xbox exclusive.

@lolwhatno
Ms: you need to straighten up, activision.
Act: why? You're not our boss!
Ms: we need to reconsider our approach to...wait. How much change is in the couch? $70 billion? Okay. As you were saying activision?
Act: yessir, right away, sir.

It's a good day to be a PC player!!!! Now is the time to jump on the express trip to the PC Master Race guys. PS5's are hard to come buy, so why not INVEST in a nice gaming PC, you get 90% of games minus Nintendo games and will only have to wait a couple of years for Sony exclusives to come to the platform. My PS5 breaking 2 weeks ago happened at the right time. Hyyyyyyyyyyyppppppppppppeeeeeeeee. I know consolidation of the industry is bad, but be honest, this will save so many of us so much money. Time for me to find PC game pass deals for the cheap and stock up for the next 20 years of Game Pass because there's no way the service price doesn't increase.

@lolwhatno if we look at it logically, what does ps stand to really lose, maybe. Diablo, cod, overwatch, spyro and crash? Cod is the only money maker. All the others are more about history and nostalgia, than current gaming kings. As I stated in another article, so long as I have my GoW, hzd, GoTsushi, etc, I'm good.

Maybe this is more of a ploy by MS, to get ps first party titles on xb. Kind of how ms finagled a deal with nintendo, so nin gets banjo kazooie and xb gets goldeneye.

the last good call of duty traditional multiplayer was black ops 3 .battle royale (i.e black out and now warzone ) has been hard-carrying the franchise .

From MS statement: "The acquisition also bolsters Microsoft’s Game Pass portfolio with plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into Game Pass..."
Gamepass = exclusivity. Thats it. CoD is a Xbox exclusive now, sparing Warzone and whatever existing deals are still on the table. Just like Bethesda, all CoD going forward are xbox/pc exclusive, for better or worse.

@Royalblues The only reasons Minecraft didn't go exclusive is because it was already multiplatform and the owner insisted on it in the contract of sale.

Neither holds true for CoD once this deal is closed. CoD23 will not be on PS5

I think a interesting part of this story that is NOT discussed, is that the main reason MS bought activision at this moment is precisely BECAUSE of the accusations at Blizzard/Acti and the lukewarm reception of CoD vanguard. These scenarios brought stock prices down nearly 5% for acti, which made the MS purchase more about timing than anything. They got another large stable of IPs and got them at a 5% discount. Still, not the end of the world by any means, and Sony still has its own killer studios and its own gamepass of sorts on the way. That said come on Sony, wheres that resistance/Killzone reboot? Gonna need it now that CoD is gone...

They were terrible bonuses to be honest

@Avaloner They have made a spin off though Minecraft Dungeons which is on PlayStation

Looks like Cod will be xbox only.
Battlefield better up their game then it will be on playstation.
The last cod got bad reviews so we won't be missing much.

@Loftimus Bethesda is also owned by Microsoft.

@PhhhCough I'm honest in saying that this acquisition doesn't affect me for the games I play, as the only games I'm interested in for activision are Spyro and Crash Two ICONIC ps1 franchises and at Blizzard Diablo and Hearthstone (although that's never been on console) But trying to think that this acquisition isn't a loss to sony is just plain ignorant and Fanboyish. Call of Duty alone is consistently a best seller for the past 14 years and is a massive draw for the casual audience, so this will be a huge dent for Sony, they've had the marketing deals with COD for the last console generation. Are you going to say the same thing if Microsoft buys Take Two or Epic Games in the future? I'm not a fan of the acquisition because it is starting to monopolise the industry under one banner, but this will save money for alot of people, Imagine being a teenager right now and you only need to pay 10 bucks for one month to play COD for the year, good proposition.

@Gh0stz1011 i know, thats why i said it.