It is no secret that Call of Duty is an important factor for both Xbox and PlayStation. However, the planned Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard leaves the future of CoD open for Sony. A court document now reveals how important CoD actually is for Sony.
In Brief
- Sony has expressed concerns about the future of Call of Duty (CoD) if Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard.
- Sony fears that CoD could become a Microsoft-exclusive game or that the PlayStation version may not offer the full experience.
- Documents submitted to a US court indicate that one million PlayStation players exclusively play CoD.
- In 2021, over 14 million users spent at least 30% of their playtime on CoD.
- The document reveals that Sony generated approximately 730 million euros from CoD alone in the USA in 2021.
What are these court documents? Due to a US hearing regarding the planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, important documents were provided by Sony. Sony provides these documents to express their concerns regarding the acquisition and the future status of CoD.
Sony has the fear that CoD might become Microsoft-exclusive or that the PlayStation version of CoD may not deliver the full experience in a potential acquisition. Due to this potential threat, Sony views an acquisition by Microsoft as detrimental to its business. Their document now reveals why their fear is so significant.
The UK has already blocked the deal for a reason other than CoD.
Many players only play CoD on their PlayStation
What does the court document say? In the original document, the numbers were redacted; however, during the scanning, the numbers were visible, and efforts to delete the document came too late.
In an article by The Verge, the information from the document was summarized. Besides information on the development of Horizon Forbidden West or The Last of Us Part II, the most important information pertains to Call of Duty.
It is said that one million PlayStation players exclusively play Call of Duty. No demos or games from the PS Plus Essential
-subscription, which is needed for online play anyway, were played. The following information regarding CoD is stated in the document according to The Verge:
- In 2021, over 14 million users spent at least 30% of their playtime on CoD.
- Over 6 million users spent 70% of their playtime on CoD.
- Almost 1 million users spent 100% of their playtime on CoD.
- Players who played over 70% of their playtime on CoD averaged 296 hours of CoD.
The document suggests that in 2021 alone in the USA, Sony earned nearly 730 million euros just from CoD. This figure does not yet include the PS Plus subscription.
According to a contract between Sony and Activision, another CoD game is supposed to be released within the exclusive marketing deal in 2023.
From next week, you can secure a COD game in your PS Plus subscription along with two other titles.
Looking at these numbers, the importance of CoD for PlayStation becomes clear. If the acquisition of Activision goes through and CoD were to become Microsoft-exclusive or receive a better
version on Xbox, the financial consequences for Sony would likely be significant.
However, the situation is not as one-sided, and even the Xbox chief has already spoken about Sony’s exclusive deals:
