Bored of hearing about whether Microsoft will keep Call of Duty on PlayStation or not? Good, because so is Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. In an interview on Decoder, a show hosted by The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Spencer has settled the debate over the future of Call of Duty on PlayStation once and for all.
“It’s not about at some point I pull the rug underneath PlayStation 7’s legs and it’s ‘ahaha you just didn’t write the contract long enough,’” says Spencer. “There’s no contract that could be written that says forever.”
Spencer says he’s now open to making a commitment to Sony and regulators that Call of Duty will stay on PlayStation.
“This idea that we would write a contract that says the word forever in it I think is a little bit silly, but to make a longer-term commitment that Sony would be comfortable with, regulators would be comfortable with, I have no issue with that at all,” says Spencer.
Some spectators on social media have been picking holes at Microsoft’s use of “intent,” or that it may require Sony to accept Xbox Game Pass on its platforms, or even that the company’s commitments are just words that need to be in a paper contract. Spencer doesn’t agree that this stuff needs to be written down.
Instead, Spencer is trying to make it clear that Call of Duty will remain on PlayStation, no strings attached, no need for Xbox Game Pass, and no trickery around “intent.”
Native Call of Duty on PlayStation, not linked to them having to carry Game Pass, not streaming. If they want a streaming version of Call of Duty we could do that as well, just like we do on our own consoles.
There’s nothing behind my back. It is the Call of Duty Modern Warfare II doing great on PlayStation, doing great on Xbox. The next game, the next, next, next, next, next [game]. Native on the platform, not having to subscribe to Game Pass. Sony does not have to take Game Pass on their platform to make that happen.
There’s nothing hidden. We want to continue to ship Call of Duty on PlayStation without any kind of weird ‘aha I figured out the gotcha’ as Phil said ‘our intent.’ I understand some people’s concerns on this, and I’m just trying to be as clear as I can be.
Microsoft’s Xbox Chief Settles the Call of Duty PlayStation Debate - The Verge
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