| Ryuu96 said: They didn't "renege" on Indiana Jones, Microsoft didn't promise Disney anything, Zenimax formulated that contract agreement before Microsoft acquired them, Microsoft went to Disney and asked if they could make Indiana Jones exclusive and change the contract, Disney agreed. They also didn't "fail" to renege with Minecraft Dungeons (?) They own Mojang, they chose to release Minecraft Dungeons on PlayStation. Changing contract agreements between two corporations is a whole lot different to what we're talking about here, the contract agreements that Microsoft have are enforced by the European Commission, if Microsoft tries to "renege" on them without a very serious explanation then the EC will come down on them hard, if Microsoft so flagrantly breaks the promises made to the EC to get the deal approved, then the EC is well within their power to force a divestiture. Microsoft will continue releasing COD on PlayStation for as long as COD remains huge on PlayStation, exactly the same as they do with Minecraft. It simply makes zero financial sense to remove a title as massive as COD from PlayStation for such little benefit. They would LOSE money on it. There's ZERO evidence that this is their intention and they've even sworn under oath that they will continue releasing on PlayStation, Lol. What more does it take? The rest of ABK's catalogue is slim, maybe Spyro and Crash become exclusive, Diablo releases every 10 years and I suspect that won't be exclusive either, Overwatch 2 was literally an update over Overwatch 1 so I don't anticipate an Overwatch 3 anytime soon and if it does, it could simply be an update over the Overwatch 2 client. WOW is PC only. Maybe Xbox fans will get some Blizzard New IP exclusive, Lol. Hell there's even emails from Zenimax to Microsoft confused about why Activision-Blizzard is being treated differently to Zenimax in terms of exclusivity so no it isn't the same case at all, Activision-Blizzard is not being treated the same as Zenimax. The Sega plans actually back up Microsoft...
They planned (if they acquired Sega) to keep all their IPs multiplatform, Lol.
Their priorities for future acquisition were/are PC, Mobile and Console/PC in Asia-Pacific. Of course, they made these contracts to appease regulators, it doesn't change the fact that they're pro-competitive contracts which the companies have willingly signed and agreed that they're good contracts, Nvidia will have an army of lawyers for example, they aren't dumb, they know a good contract when they see one and wouldn't sign one if it wasn't. |
The point about Microsoft changing the terms with Indiana Jones and Minecraft Dungeons is they could attempt to do the same thing with Call of Duty. If anything, the fact that Phil Spencer was trying to make Minecraft Dungeons exclusive, an IP which is on practically every platform, and makes sense being a multiplatform release, could indicate they are willing to eat some loss in unit sales, in order to drive subscription/platform growth. The same could be said for Call of Duty in this context, but on a much bigger scale, when it comes to driving growth. Sure, Minecraft Dungeons ended up releasing on every platform, but why was it even considered in the first place, especially with such a longstanding contract?
Speaking of the European Commission, the contractual agreements they reached in court were about the cloud, and similar to the CMA, most of the console concerns were disregarded, and didn't require any remedies. Unless I'm missing something, Microsoft wouldn't be reneging anything if they ended up removing Call of Duty from PlayStation platforms, before the aforementioned 10 year agreement is up. With that said, I do think Microsoft would keep COD on PlayStation platforms for the rest of this generation, at the very least.
As for what Microsoft would gain from removing Call of Duty from PlayStation: massive increase in GamePass subscriptions and Xbox hardware sales. It may be a massive gamble, in terms of maintaining the popularity of the IP, but I wouldn't classify it as such little benefit. Getting even a quarter of PlayStation COD players in their ecosystem would be huge for Microsoft. They would get 100% of the MTX cut on their platform, along with increased subscription rates, accessory sales, game sales, digital game sales, etc. Furthermore, I may be underselling how many players are willing to jump ship, if Call of Duty were to be made exclusive to the Xbox platform.
Last edited by PotentHerbs - on 13 July 2023
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