The Call of Duty franchise is not going away from PlayStation consoles.
Xbox head Phil Spencer mentioned in a recent Same Brain podcast that Microsoft wants to keep Call of Duty games playable on PlayStation consoles as long as there is one out there to shop to.
The company assured PlayStation gamers in early September that the popular first-person shooter franchise would remain on the console. However, Sony found Microsoft's offer "inadequate" as it reduces player experience.
Phil Spencer's Promise To Gamers
Spencer stated in the podcast that Microsoft has no intention of turning the Call of Duty franchise into an Xbox exclusive and that he is confident the company's acquisition of Activision Blizzard will close before Microsoft's fiscal year ends.
According to PC Gamer, Microsoft's 2022 fiscal year will end on June 2023.
The Xbox head also made what seems to be an open-ended promise to PlayStation gamers. He said that "as long as there's a PlayStation out there to ship to, [Microsoft's] intent is that we'd continue to ship Call of Duty on PlayStation, similar to what [the company's] done with Minecraft since [it's] owned that."
You may remember that Microsoft acquired Minecraft and the studio that made it, Mojang Studios, in 2014. According to Spencer's statement in September, the game continues to be available on all platforms, including PlayStation, despite Microsoft owning it.
Minecraft has also enjoyed various successes since Microsoft acquired it. According to Business of Apps, the game has millions of players flocking to it every year, especially since Mojang, through Microsoft's leadership, keeps expanding the game's universe.
As of 2021, the game has over 130 million people playing it and has generated $380 million in revenue.
Spencer wants the same thing to happen to the Call of Duty franchise once its acquisition of Activision Blizzard is complete, saying that he wants to do the same as he and his team think about where the franchise can go over time.
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - The Record Breaker
Microsoft has good reasons to keep the franchise's various games on PlayStation. Sony, through its official PlayStation Twitter account, reported that the newly released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 now has the biggest PlayStation launch ever for a Call of Duty game.
Gamespot has also reported similar achievements in other platforms, particularly on the Xbox and the PC via Steam.
These achievements support Spencer's previous statement that prohibiting Activision Blizzard from distributing Call of Duty games to rival console stores "would simply not be profitable" for both companies.
Microsoft-Activision Acquisition Deal Status
As of the writing of this article, The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) still has Microsoft's acquisition deal with Activision under an "in-depth investigation," since mid-September.
Spencer mentioned in the podcast that Microsoft is still talking to regulators, such as the UK's CMA, to keep the ball rolling on its acquisition deal.
