Thursday, March 23rd 2023
Microsoft Believes That Sony is Capable of Creating its Own Alternative to Call of Duty
Microsoft is still deep into its negotiations with several international regulatory bodies regarding the buyout of Activision Blizzard, with a deadline looming it seems that tensions are rising. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) needs a lot of convincing since it regards the proposed takeover as a serious threat to Sony's ability to compete with Microsoft, with the ownership of the Call of Duty series being a main focus. Sony has expressed concern about the blockbuster franchise becoming a potential Xbox console exclusive in the future - Microsoft has pledged to continue development on PlayStation platforms for a proposed 10-year period, with no technological compromises and a promise to release all versions simultaneously on launch days.
In its latest testimony given to the UK's CMA, Microsoft has made a (slightly odd) suggestion that Sony should figure out a way to make its own answer to the Call of Duty series: "Microsoft considers that a period of 10 years is sufficient for Sony, as a leading publisher and console platform, to develop alternatives to Call of Duty.…The 10-year term will extend into the next console generation.… Moreover, the practical effect of the remedy will go beyond the 10-year period, since games downloaded in the final year of the remedy can continue to be played for the lifetime of that console (and beyond, with backwards compatibility)."
Sony has the budget to expand its first party development studio footprint, but it will take a lot of resources to form a multi-location operation that can operate at the same level as the ones that currently pump out Call of Duty titles on a regular basis. Sony purchased Destiny series developer Bungie mid-last year, which boasts an 800+ staff count, but the studio is an MMO specialist - albeit in first person shooter form. Dutch developer Guerrilla Games is well known for its production of PlayStation exclusives, and has pedigree in making first person shooters in a similar vein to CoD, in the shape of its Killzone series. The last entry, Shadow Fall, was released in 2013 and Guerrilla has moved onto developing the third-person Horizon action role-playing games.
The PlayStation FPS library is by and large shared with other platforms, with the Call of Duty series being a prime example, given that Microsoft is also proposing to expand the reach of the games onto Nintendo consoles. Deathloop was a console timed exclusive on PlayStation 5, but its developer is part of the larger Bethesda group that was purchased by Microsoft in the Spring of 2021. Sony Corporation has $5 billion to spend on new investments in 2023 - it will be interesting to see how much of it can be spent on growing their games development operations around the world. Microsoft has clearly been keeping tabs on their rival's financial strengths, and thinks that their rival has the means to start on a CoD-sized competitor.
Sources:
CMA Documents, Video Game Chronicles
In its latest testimony given to the UK's CMA, Microsoft has made a (slightly odd) suggestion that Sony should figure out a way to make its own answer to the Call of Duty series: "Microsoft considers that a period of 10 years is sufficient for Sony, as a leading publisher and console platform, to develop alternatives to Call of Duty.…The 10-year term will extend into the next console generation.… Moreover, the practical effect of the remedy will go beyond the 10-year period, since games downloaded in the final year of the remedy can continue to be played for the lifetime of that console (and beyond, with backwards compatibility)."
33 Comments on Microsoft Believes That Sony is Capable of Creating its Own Alternative to Call of Duty
stop being lazy Sony, go back to your roots and kick ass with a new exclusive!
Remake the SOCOM games in Unreal Engine 5.2... holy fuck, that would be way funner than any CoD game.
Sony Call Of Duty:
Microsoft has own studios, bought a few others - they shouldn't get approval. They don't have enough staff in the gaming department? They can't come up with new game series themselves, don't they already have a dozens game brands?
Also imagine if Sony actually did make a CoD alternative and it is better and becomes more populair
Hell ms couldn't even create it's version of candy crush but they're right about sony so 1 out of a million isn't bad :laugh:
Scarcely even makes sense to say this shit, it's a self fail admission.
-release a new one every ear with little to no differences except its theme
-?
-profit
But enough is enough. They're spending billions to basically buy premade franchises and developers they'll ultimately have to prune down to shadows of themselves because they'll never sustain the development cycle of all these developers and once-publishers. At this point, they're diminishing the entire gaming industry. They could be making new games and adding to it instead. They could be making new games, new franchises, and expanding the market. Instead, they're making it smaller. That's why the purchase should be blocked.
It's bad for everyone except ironically the one man we want gone: Bobby Kotick. He'll get a lot of money and go buy another publisher to ruin. Probably Ubisoft, which is already bad enough. It's definitely not going to improve the industry when Microsoft owns two major publishers of games. What happens when Microsoft goes through a tighter cycle and they start killing off entire devs and franchises people love because, well, they have too many?
They've done it before and they'll do it again. Sony's right this time. Microsoft should take its own advice. Make a Call of Duty competitor, especially since they're lecturing Sony on it being easy. I expect they'll have no problem what with all the success they've had at making Halo great, right?