After much legal wrangling, Microsoft has finally closed their $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which means it’s now time to think about what comes next. Much of the regulatory battle over the deal revolved around the fate of Call of Duty, so what’s Xbox boss Phil Spencer saying now that he’s got the deal in the bag?
On the latest episode of the official Xbox podcast, Spencer reiterated previous promises that all versions of Call of Duty, even hypothetical ones on Nintendo platforms, will offer the same content. He’s also fairly clear that said content parity will mean certain longterm sweetheart deals that saw PlayStation players get early access to betas and some exclusive content, is likely going away.
"For Call of Duty players on PlayStation, and in the future on Nintendo, I want you to feel 100 percent part of the community. I don't want you to feel like there's content you're missing out [on], there's skins you're missing out, there's timing your missing out on. That's not the goal.
The goal is 100 percent parity across all platforms as much as we can for launch and content. I say as much as we can on parity, because clearly some platforms have resolution and frame rate differences just based on perf. But there's nothing else. We have no goal of somehow trying to use Call of Duty to get you to buy an Xbox console. I want the Call of Duty Nation to feel supported across all platforms.
We've been on the other side of some of those skins and times -- even this [Modern Warfare III] beta wasn't on Xbox the first week. I don't think that helps the community. I don't think that helps the game. If you're a PlayStation player, you're a Nintendo player, or PC player, or an Xbox console player, I want you to feel 100 percent part of the Call of Duty Nation.”
It is interesting to see Phil talk around the subject slightly – he very specifically says that he doesn’t want to use Call of Duty to get you to buy an Xbox console, but he doesn’t say anything about whether he might use CoD to get you to sign up for Xbox Game Pass. In fact, Game Pass isn’t mentioned at all during his response, and oddity considering it’s usually every second word out of Phil’s mouth.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III arrives on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5 on November 10. What do you think the future of the series might look like under the Xbox banner?
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