Phil Spencer speaks on the Activision Blizzard deal and confirms that as long as the PlayStation brand exists, then Call of Duty will be available on that platform.
Recently on the Same Brain podcast hosted by iJustine and Jenna, Xbox’s Phil Spencer was a guest on the recent episode. While Phil Spencer spoke on several topics, he also touched on the ongoing Activision Blizzard deal, as Xbox is in the progress of acquiring the company. This has been a topic that has upset PlayStation gamers, as the fear is that once this deal goes through, Call of Duty will no longer be playable on that brand.
“Yeah, we’re not taking Call of Duty from PlayStation,” Phile Spencer stated. He mentions, “Our intent is not to do that. As long as there’s a PlayStation out there to ship, our intent is that we’d continue to ship Call of Duty on PlayStation, similar to what we’ve done with Minecraft.”
You can check this segment at the 26:49 mark.
If that doesn’t put that notion to rest that Xbox doesn’t want to stop Call of Duty from being a thing on the PlayStation brand, I don’t know what else will. As people and I have mentioned, stopping COD from being playable on PlayStation would be silly. At a business level, Xbox is out to make money, it is a business. Pulling Call of Duty from the PlayStation would be a terrible business move.
I can understand why people are fearful, as the Zenimax Bethesda deal has shown that Xbox has stated several titles will be exclusive to Xbox and PC. Still, I’m glad Phil Spencer has finally put that out there. Hopefully, we’ll see less discourse on Twitter (if that continues to be a thing), Reddit, and everywhere else.
As for the pending deal, it hasn’t been finalized yet and isn’t expected to close until sometime in 2023. Still, Phil Spencer and several analysts expect it to go through, with Xbox becoming the new owner of Activision Blizzard.
Also, check out the Same Brain podcast. It’s a great show, and I’ve added it to my limited number of gaming technology-related podcasts out there.