call of Duty will remain available on Playstation And sony is using bad faith arguments for the sole purpose of manipulate antitrust: this is the accusation made by the journalist Jez Corden during a long and detailed editorial.
A few hours after the news of the Call of Duty Next event, which reaffirmed the centrality of the famous shooter within the videogame market, Corden reasoned on the strategy of the Japanese company aimed at blocking the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
“Sony’s tactics have long revolved around the idea of eliminating Xbox, but in recent years the company has pushed further in this direction, implementing more or less subtle strategies in order to obscure the Microsoft platform and raise doubts about its operated,” wrote Corden.
“Games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake were classified as time exclusives at the time of the announcement, but their arrival on Xbox remains blocked, to the detriment of the users who have been waiting until now.”
“Other games, like the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy, will boast PlayStation-exclusive content, and we all remember the well-known situation in Destiny, which had entire quests excluded from the Xbox version, diminishing their value.”
“Sony also monopolized the entire fighting game genre with exclusivity deals related to Street Fighter V, while limiting cross-play for titles it didn’t have exclusivity on. How are these practices good for the industry , Exactly?”
“Of course, this is business and Microsoft has done something similar in the past too, especially during the Xbox 360 era. The media outcry over the Rise of the Tomb Raider exclusivity deal has been vehement and it’s not a It’s no coincidence that Microsoft has since largely shelved this type of operation in favor of PlayStation. But this is where the truth about Sony’s fears in relation to Call of Duty emerges.
“Sony is not afraid of losing Call of Duty, nor of being without some game content. What they fear is that users will perceive the value of Xbox Game Pass, they fear losing the ability to dictate the rules of the video game market. “
Then Corden gave the example of cross-play. “Nintendo doesn’t block cross-play, nor do Steam or Xbox: only Sony blocks this feature, and it does so with the aim of making it more difficult for users to choose any platform that is not the most popular. And in effect limit the choice of consumers is what antitrust should prevent.”
“The hard truth is the acquisition of Activision Blizzard is not only good for Xbox, in fact it is the opposite of what Sony claims: the deal will benefit all users and the industry as a whole.”
