• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

WSJ: Sony Expects Microsoft to Keep Activision Games Multiplatform abiding “by existing contractual agreements"

Kenzodielocke

Kenzodielocke

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,853
"We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform," a Sony spokesman said Thursday.


Activision supplies some of the most popular games for Sony's PlayStation game console, including the Call of Duty series. After Microsoft on Tuesday announced its acquisition plan, some analysts raised the possibility that Activision games might be available exclusively for Microsoft's own Xbox console and its subscription videogame services in the future.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

www.wsj.com

Sony Expects Microsoft to Keep Activision Games Multiplatform

Sony Group said it expected Microsoft Corp. to ensure that games from Activision Blizzard Inc. are available on non-Microsoft videogame platforms after its proposed acquisition of Activision.
www.wsj.com www.wsj.com
 
ASleepingMonkey

ASleepingMonkey

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
4,497
Iowa
First part is a given… the second part of that statement is an lol

they ain't giving you Crash Bandicoot or Diablo, Sony.
 
Neural

Neural

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,820
Italy
Unless Sony and Activision have a long term contract in place where the latter can never exclude PlayStation from all console releases (which I doubt), this makes no sense at all.
 
MrCibb

MrCibb

Member
Dec 12, 2018
5,349
UK
Honouring any current contracts and commitments seems a given, they did that with Bethesda. The rest, not so much.
 
Gay Bowser

Gay Bowser

Member
Oct 30, 2017
17,708
That seems a bit like a carefully-worded statement designed to imply that Microsoft is contractually obligated to ensure AB games are multiplatform, or at least create doubt as to that.

Of course they'll abide by any existing agreements, as they did with Deathloop and Ghostwire. But beyond that? I think Sony's in for a rude awakening if they genuinely think that new CoD releases will still hit PlayStations. I suspect they don't.
 
Ahti

Ahti

Unshakable Resolve
Member
Nov 6, 2017
9,208
FlimsyArtisticBabirusa-size_restricted.gif
 
AshenOne

AshenOne

Member
Feb 21, 2018
6,110
Pakistan
Things are heating up!

Contractual agreements are a no go in terms of breaking them from MS's side but it depends what sort of 'Activision games' the spokesman meant cause upcoming ones I highly doubt personally considering the precedent MS left for their past acquisitions, MS will keep making them as multiplat.
 
degauss

degauss

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
4,631
I don't care. And it's been hashed out on there 100 times already since the 2 days ago.

Don't give the telepaths on here, who apparently know more than Sony, Activision, and even probably Microsoft at this point, more opportunities to tell us exactly how it's going to go down.
 
Poldino

Poldino

Member
Oct 27, 2020
3,334
We don't know what contractual obligations are in place between Sony and Activision, especially for the Call of Duty partnership, so I guess we'll see

The situation looks a little bit more complicated than most are assuming
 

alphacat

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,932
Gay Bowser said:
That seems a bit like a carefully-worded statement designed to imply that Microsoft is contractually obligated to ensure AB games are multiplatform, or at least create doubt as to that.

Of course they'll abide by any existing agreements, as they did with Deathloop and Ghostwire. But beyond that? I think Sony's in for a rude awakening if they genuinely think that new CoD releases will still hit PlayStations. I suspect they don't.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

this
 
vivftp

vivftp

Member
Oct 29, 2017
19,764
I'm certain Sony's already contracted out a buttload of AB games for Spartacus for many years to come. Games from the PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, PS4 and PS5 gen. If there's a contract for it then Microsoft has to abide by the contract until whenever it expires.

Spartacus launches in a roughly a couple of months, any content deals would've been put into place months if not years ago.
 
Desodeset

Desodeset

Member
May 31, 2019
2,326
Sofia, Bulgaria
There are talks among market experts, that anti-trust bodies will greenlight the deal if MS ensure that Activision-Blizzard content is not exclusive to MS platforms. We will see.
 
BeeDog

BeeDog

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,556
Gay Bowser said:
That seems a bit like a carefully-worded statement designed to imply that Microsoft is contractually obligated to ensure AB games are multiplatform, or at least create doubt as to that.

Of course they'll abide by any existing agreements, as they did with Deathloop and Ghostwire. But beyond that? I think Sony's in for a rude awakening if they genuinely think that new CoD releases will still hit PlayStations. I suspect they don't.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Pretty much, but won't prevent most Era members to post snide sniping posts. Would be very interesting to hear about the actual contractual obligations in place, but I guess that will never get leaked.
 
aloner

aloner

Member
Jun 30, 2021
2,485
Australia
it really depends how long they have their contracts for - if they have a long term CoD marketing/release contract that runs til 2030 or something like that... then yeah it could be reasonable that they expect the games to be multiplatform for the foreseeable future but they'll absolutely say that for the time being as they won't want people joining the dots that Activision won't be on PlayStation at some point in the nearish future
 
vivftp

vivftp

Member
Oct 29, 2017
19,764
Yeah OP, I think this is one time it would've been good to modify the title of the original article to specify contractual arrangements cause a lot of folks are just gonna waltz in here and spit hot takes without bothering to read the article.
 
Humidex

Humidex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,228
Oh Sony, you sweet summer child...

(anything beyond what was contractually agreed is absolutely in the air at this point).
 
DukeBlueBall

DukeBlueBall

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
9,059
Seattle, WA
Desodeset said:
There are talks among market experts, that anti-trust bodies will greenlight the deal if MS ensure that Activision-Blizzard content is not exclusive to MS platforms. We will see.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Does Steam count as MS platform?

I also don't think the anti-trust bodies will single out MS for exclusive content practice that a lot of big entities are currently practicing. You'll never know what the EU will do though.
 
Frieza

Frieza

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,850
vivftp said:
I'm certain Sony's already contracted out a buttload of AB games for Spartacus for many years to come. Games from the PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, PS4 and PS5 gen. If there's a contract for it then Microsoft has to abide by the contract until whenever it expires.

Spartacus launches in a roughly a couple of months, any content deals would've been put into place months if not years ago.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What?
 
TechnicPuppet

TechnicPuppet

Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,835
Sony can just seed doubt for the next 18 months, that's a long time in the early build up stage for these consoles. They can probably convince enough people they won't be losing any games.
 
Poldino

Poldino

Member
Oct 27, 2020
3,334
I mean, for what we know Sony might have secured a multi-year partnership for Call of Duty titles, it wouldn't be that strange actually. I guess we'll see, but some replies here already jumping to "hahaha no lol lmao" are a bit strange, we're talking about billion dollars contracts here, we just don't know anything
 
modiz

modiz

Member
Oct 8, 2018
17,845
I guess the implication is that sony will use this year to sign a deal with activision to ensure the next x years of CoD releases will be multiplatform before the deal completes and ownership is transferred.
 
Yankee Ruin X

Yankee Ruin X

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,686
Sony will probably be looking to lock up some exclusive alternative to COD 2023 as that will most likely be the first to be exclusive to Xbox if not that one then definitely COD 2024
 
Izanagi89

Izanagi89

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,609
Headline doesn't quite match the article. But it'll be interesting to see what contractual agreements are in place. They wouldn't say this for shits and giggles. Wonder if they've ensured CoD stays multiplat for X years perhaps
 
You must log in or register to reply here.