
In the never ending litigation of the Xbox acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, Playstation CEO Jim Ryan has responded to comments by Phil Spencer in which he said he had offered to keep Call of Duty on Playstation for several more years after existing marketing agreements between Playstation and Call of Duty.
Ryan has responded to the offer, saying it is “inadequate on many levels”. He goes on to say “I hadn’t intended to comment on what I understood to be a private business discussion, but I feel the need to set the record straight because Phil Spencer brought this into the public forum.”
“Microsoft has only offered for Call of Duty to remain on PlayStation for three years after the current agreement between Activision and Sony ends. After almost 20 years of Call of Duty on PlayStation, their proposal was inadequate on many levels and failed to take account of the impact on our gamers. We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality Call of Duty experience, and Microsoft’s proposal undermines this principle.”
Sony has been making it well known in public and to regulators how important the Call of Duty brand is to their business. Jim Ryan and Playstation clearly do not agree with Xbox’s proposals if the claims are true. We will have to wait and see if Xbox has any response to these latest comments.