Phil Spencer shares intent to honour all previous agreements and desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation

[Suspiciousmind]

@Biggzy

I am just the messenger here and telling you what Microsoft is thinking lol.

I know but does it make sense to you?

[Deus (Encyclopaedia Ludica)]

[Staffy]

@Deus

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Lol, someone actually edited in their faces now.

[TeamAndromeda]

If MS wanted to keep all future COD games on the PS, they’ll come and it say it, period. These are all nice words to get the deal done and over the line and then in 2023 COD will only be on Xbox/PC & Cloud.

[Staffy]

@TeamAndromeda

If MS wanted to keep all future COD games on the PS, they’ll come and it say it, period. These are all nice words to get the deal done and over the line and then in 2023 COD will only be on Xbox/PC & Cloud.

But can he make such definitive statements, is he allowed to when the deal is not finalized yet?

[Proven]

@TeamAndromeda

If MS wanted to keep all future COD games on the PS, they’ll come and it say it, period. These are all nice words to get the deal done and over the line and then in 2023 COD will only be on Xbox/PC & Cloud.

He legally can’t say anything definitive

[Staffy]

I definitely think people might be hanging on the words desire and intend a little too much. What else could he have said without making a definitive statement?

[Searsy82]

“Our desire is to extend accommodating platitudes and to keep these platitudes in the public, and government’s eyes, until the deal crosses the finish line”

[Biggzy (Hassan)]

@Staffy

I definitely think people might be hanging on the words desire and intend a little too much. What else could he have said without making a definitive statement?

It’s because he was actually more definitive with Zenimax when it came to the existing contracts. He specifically said Microsoft would honour them from what I can recall. Compare it to now where it is "intent. " It doesn’t sound as certain don’t you think?

[javycane (Javier Ruiz)]

I said it last night and Ill say it again

Why must xbox always give something it doesnt NEED to do or have to do?

[Biggzy (Hassan)]

@javycane

I said it last night and Ill say it again

Why must xbox always give something it doesnt NEED to do or have to do?

And I am still right there with you . What the fuck has Sony done for me lately?

[Cortana117]

@OneBadMutha

I won’t disagree with the second statement. If Sony had the capabilities to put Xbox into the ground they would. They were trying. They were attempting to replicate the PS2 era where they locked exclusives long enough to bury everyone else. I believe Sony wanted to kill Xbox and if they had CoD…bye, bye.

I’m just saying Microsoft doing what they’ll do isn’t because they’re trying to be nice. It’s strategic. Their insane investment into gaming is focused on a much bigger industry than console only. Console will be included…but their 10 year plan includes more than I think we can comprehend right now. They’ll never make up these investments within the console space alone. Not in 10 years. Maybe not ever.

OBM I respect your POV but I disagree about the exclusivity part knowing full well you might be right. The one part I agree with you is the risk of making future CODs exclusive to your platform. That’s a major risk/reward prospect. The risk being it might kill the popularity of the massive franchise. The reward however is that it doesn’t kill the brand but brings in millions of new customers and makes your platform bigger than your competitor. I don’t think MS is a nice guy, no company is. They do what’s best for them. Some companies are just more ruthless than others (cough Sony). Phil is great at making it look like Sony is their best friend but it’s all PR meaningless fluff, if they could do anything to surpass Sony they would. Their competitors after all.

But MS’ goal isn’t to sell the most copies right? We can all agree their main goal is to have the most amount of gamepass subscribers. Otherwise future Bethesda games would be all on PlayStation as well. I mean Skyrim might not be as big as COD but it still sold what almost 50m copies yet the new ES will most likely not be on PS.

My point is this. Why help your competitor? You think a COD only playstation player would join gamepass for 120-180 a year when he can just stay at PS and only pay 69 a year? Of which a big chunk will go to Sonys pockets. This doesn’t make sense to me financially. If new CODs would be exclusive that Sony COD player WILL join your ecosystem and he will most likely not even buy the gane but sign up to gamepass to get all the COD perks and pay you 120-180 a year and you own all of that without giving up a cut to Sony. 3 CoD PS customers is worth just 1 gamepass ultimate customer. Regardless how big COD is. The only way I see this work is if MS locks COD content away for years AND releases COD games a year later. That’s the only way you cqn stay multiplatform but still gain loads of the COD only PS audience imo.

Btw you might be one of the nicest guys out there. You’re always very respectful and kind even at times when most of us could not. +1 for that. This is why you’re one of my fav podcast guests when it comes to Xbox.

[Staffy]

@Biggzy

It’s because he was actually more definitive with Zenimax when it came to the existing contracts. He specifically said Microsoft would honour them from what I can recall. Compare it to now where it is "intent. " It doesn’t sound as certain don’t you think?

Hmmm, I see your point. Intent to honor contractual obligations is indeed way less definitive than outright saying they will honor them. In fact kinda shedding doubt on even the contractual obligations if anything.

[SheepDip]

Phil Spencer so mean and cutthroat! What a snake! Exclusives hurt everyone! Why can’t we all just get along?

goes back to playing Final Fantasy VII, Forspoken, and KOTOR on PlayStation

[Staffy]

@Biggzy

And I am still right there with you . What the fuck has Sony done for me lately?

They were kind enough to not make you play RE8 for free. With that Sony shows they care about your wellbeing, all them jump scares are not good for one’s health.

[Biggzy (Hassan)]

@Staffy

Hmmm, I see your point. Intent to honor contractual obligations is indeed way less definitive than outright saying they will honor them. In fact kinda shedding doubt on even the contractual obligations if anything.

Exactly. I am not sure what is going to happen with CoD in terms of exclusivity, but I am confident in saying that things are in flux and the ball is very much in Sony’s court as to how things play out.

[SheepDip]

It’s funny to me to see even folks like Jeff Grubb and Greg Miller come up with these schemes for Call of Duty to remain on PlayStation through some deal or loophole or whatever. And maybe they’re right. But they’re still starting from the premise that Call of Duty has to remain on PS no matter what. So we have to wargame a way for that to happen. Because the alternative breaks our brain. The funny part is that we did this exact thing word for word already with Starfield and Elder Scrolls. “But Call of Duty is different.” BGS was different too, until it wasn’t.

[nofriendo (Dave)]

@OneBadMutha

I won’t disagree with the second statement. If Sony had the capabilities to put Xbox into the ground they would. They were trying. They were attempting to replicate the PS2 era where they locked exclusives long enough to bury everyone else. I believe Sony wanted to kill Xbox and if they had CoD…bye, bye.

I’m just saying Microsoft doing what they’ll do isn’t because they’re trying to be nice. It’s strategic. Their insane investment into gaming is focused on a much bigger industry than console only. Console will be included…but their 10 year plan includes more than I think we can comprehend right now. They’ll never make up these investments within the console space alone. Not in 10 years. Maybe not ever.

Exactly, MS are already looking towards a post console future. Phil has already said that Google and Amazon are their main rivals. That is not because of their gaming division but because they are MS biggest competitors in the cloud & hyperscaler space. If either of them bought ABK then they already have the infrastructure in place to push heavily into cloud and streaming. MS are looking a future where latency comes down massively and most gaming is done on mobile or via small devices attached to TV.

MS are purely being strategic and their eyes are always on increasing profits and market share. If they are really looking far ahead then it doesn’t matter if GP is on Playstation because a chuck of Playstations audience will eventually move away from high end consoles. MS will already have them in the GP ecosystem.

Not me though…I will stick with the XSX

[GamepadX]

@OneBadMutha

I really believe making crossplay better benefits them from a business standpoint more now that they own CoD.

I considered using cross play as a demand as well but after I thought about it more I think Microsoft should leave that alone. Sony is only hurting themselves with their cross play demands. Roblox one of the world’s biggest games skips PlayStation (presumably because of cross play demands). If Xbox strong arms PlayStation to add cross play it would be like saving Sony from themselves. PlayStation is about to become the 3rd place console, none of their old tactics of cross play or cheap timed exclusives will work going forward. Sony will abandon those out of necessity, not because Xbox needs to ask them to. Let them find out too late and on their own.

[Weaam]

@javycane

I said it last night and Ill say it again

Why must xbox always give something it doesnt NEED to do or have to do?

what MS benefit from this ?

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1484330579277484033