Microsoft and Call of Duty...am I missing something?

Ignoring the obvious, lots of money for something would put anyone on alert, and it has.

This question is more about the sudden shift in fanboys on the opposite end. The type that used to call every Call of Duty each year a rinse repeat below average game...now those same people are crying that Call of Duty should be on all platforms and this is anti consumer...I thought you weren't even playing it.

All of a sudden Call of Duty which does good sales, but nothing like say minecraft which I believe is the highest seller in history or one of them, and people flip. Heck, souls games and god of war do great numbers for Sony...

Why is the sudden hate from Sony fans against Microsoft, of course this assumes you ignore the monopoly idea and business aspects but focus on the basics of what system gets the better games library. Please explain.

It doesn't matter if I like COD or not, this still would set a terrible precedent. I can't speak to why brand cheerleaders would be mad on behalf of their brand because it will forever be the dumbest thing in the world, but in general it would be terrible for the industry for this sale to go through, for reasons like this.

Having said all that, it feels like we're pretty fucking doomed anyway, and this will probably limp through regardless, so...*shrug*

I don't really know, i know Call of Duty is big but like... "normal big", it's not Fortnite and requires a lot more budget and teams of developers, composers, voice actors, motion capture and tech to produce, so why is this acquisition such a challenge?

I think Sony are causing a fuss just because they can, doesn't cost them anything, MS have to scramble and make changes and deals and sacrifices to try and make this happen, it doesn't matter what Sony do either way COD is still going to come to the Playstation, Warzone as a free to play product benefits from as many players having access as possible.

I can't comment on Playstation fans, like i said it would be silly to cut off that audience from buying mtx in Warzone and for what it's worth MS even said it would still release on PS, it's also worth remembering Sony had exclusive early content with COD for years so it's not the first time there's been division with the franchise, it's not even the only third party shooter on the platform with Battlefield and the aforementioned Fortnite.

The lack of a popular first party shooter on Playstation is their own fault, maybe they should put their money where their mouth is instead of relying on third party, Nintendo even has one with Splatoon.

They're not just buying Call of Duty, though. It's also World of Warcraft. It's also Fallout. It's also Skyrim. It's also King. It's also Doom. It's also Quake. It's also Wolfenstein. And whatever they've worked on in past, present and future.

That is a terrifying conglomerate.

Some of the arguments from both Sony and Microsoft have been absolutely hilarious, at least. In the end, the rich at Microsoft and Activision will get richer, and the rich at Sony will...continue getting rich at a slightly reduced rate, I guess.

My electric bill still fucking doubled this month, so I don't really give a shit that some multi-millionaires are gonna be slightly more or less multi than they were before this deal.

Every game I don't like should be widely available.

Here's a question: In an effort to get this over the line, would Microsoft get out of hardware?

@bladeofcreation: yeah, the hot takes and psudo lawyer takes from sony or xbox fans have been weird. Every article that mentions it comes down to some people just mad cause ...something has to be going on...

Besides that point, my issue is, where did all this love for Call of Duty come from. People are so mad they can't play it even though no one said they couldn't yet. Its one game, and if you really need it that bad, you can just stream it with a dollar game pass sub. Microsoft gives subs away, with rewards, for goodness’s sake. Plenty of ps and nintendo games exist that do gangbusters more sales than COD overall. I guess COD is consistant every year so i see the reasoning. But if Minecraft all a sudden made Minecraft 2, electric bugaloo or whatever, Mario Kart infinite etc...I'm just confused why COD went from the bane of all the niche gamers to this juggernaut they all must play. The joke used to be COD is the same every year and gets good scores pass, to know people realizing COD isn't the same every year, and it's popular because it's a decently fun shooter...IDK. wiki for the highest selling games and COD is there but so are a lot of others above them which have some that ...are exclusives.

@topcyclist: I don't think there's a lot of love for COD particularly on forums but people would like the franchise on game pass so they wouldn't have to directly pay for them, also COD is the sticking point for the other games Warcraft & Diablo etc.

Most people only play a few games each year and COD is one of those games, it's a massive driver of hardware sales, Oct, Nov and Dec will shift more consoles than the rest of months combined. Both parties give COD a better split than the usual 70/30, it's clear they see the franchise a little different from the rest.

Looking at forums is often a very poor indicator on whats popular.

Hi-Fi Rush made a big splash a few weeks ago but only landed 20th on Xbox's most played charts then a few weeks later it was barely in the top 50, SteamDB has it's est sales at 250K, it was pretty much ignored by everyone else.

How often do you see Roblox & FIFA news or covarage two of the biggest games the past decade yet the core doesn't care, enthusiasts are often driven by incredibly niche franchises most of the time.

I don't have the charts in front of me but I believe that every year COD is either the biggest, or at least in the top three highest selling games of the year. Every single year. Every year you hear news stories about a game that makes a company defining fortune, COD is making that (or more) every single year.

So yeah, COD makes A LOT of money.

The discussion about why MS owning ActiBlizz is larger than simply one video game. There are a lot of knock on effects down the line. Just like MS had a Don Mattrick before Phil Spencer, MS most likely won't always have someone at the helm like him. I don't even feel good giving Phil Spencer that much credit since it's easy to be the good guy when playing from behind.

NPD had Modern Warfare 2 as the best-selling game of last year. At that point it'd only been out, what two months?

2021 had Vanguard and Black Ops: Cold War occupying the first two spots.

@thepanzini: I think this was the best answer. You deciphered what i wanted to learn. I get that my question is fairly weird and most are into the debate one way or another, but it comes down to your answer that fixes my issue. Plenty of games exist that sell better than COD, but not as consistent each year. Minecraft for example is a bestseller, but you're right, no average joe who buys one system to play one game will do it for minecraft for the most part. Still think the reaction showcases, minority voices on how bad a series is...speak loudly. Cause most popular things turn out not as bad as people claim online. Most people who enjoy a thing...just don't converse about how bad or good it is. So you're left with hard to please online fans who never rated a series 9 or 10 since they were a child. lol. Age-old Mind blowing unique game =/= good and generic game executed well = can be good.

CoD is tremendously popular, and this is a thing that people in our community need to be reminded of on occasion. We are people who chose to make accounts on a gaming website, and we're still posting on forums in 2023. We represent an incredibly small and insular part of the overall crowd that plays video games. To use just one example, most of the staff on this site wrote off Fortnite until just last year.

Sony fans suddenly hating on Microsoft is like a plot twist nobody saw coming. But hey, let's not ignore the basic fact that everyone just wants the best games library. Monopoly and business stuff aside, it's all about the games, dude. Oh, and if you're into the whole https://trainocate.com.my/courses/aps-sd-applying-professional-scrum-for-software-development/ thing, check out this course: "Applying Professional Scrum for Software Development." It could level up your skills big time. Happy gaming, my friend!

With the deals ensuring COD keeps releasing on the Playstation and also now appearing on Nintendo platforms, and the hope that Microsoft unearths some of the franchises Activision has left buried since becoming COD centric, and the better treatment of their employees, on the surface the aquisition is positive for consumers, the industry and the people working in it, as a bonus we could see the end of Kotick, what's to dislike?

They haven't done anything yet. They've said stuff but until they actually have an influence on Activision, there's nothing to really say.

Shit, this could be a monkey's paw scenario where the change of leadership doesn't really provide much of a departure from the packaged goods approach. CoD makes daft money. As an annualised product it requires half a dozen studios to get them over the line every single year.

WoW makes daft money. Do you really want to change much around how that's doing it's thing? Do you really want to tinker with King?

They'd be scared to derail any of those trains, right?

@shindig: Yeah they could just leave them to carry on as they have been i just think MS is hungry for games to promote their platform, they can't have COD exclusively for a long time and as an mtx gold mine they wouldn't lock it down anyway, but they could leverage other Activision IP... what if Crash Bandicoot becomes Xbox's mascot :P, those games don't have to be worked on internally they can be shopped out.

On the employee side considering the costs i'd expect layoffs to some degree despite how profitable they are, this industry generally isn't pleasant, but MS have their own probably very large and involved HR departments that could consume whatever broken thing Activision had going, they didn't seem to mind controversy but i feel like MS is very interested in maintaining a decent image.

I'm pro-exclusive and think that Microsoft has every right to make Call of Duty one. Obviously some judges don't believe that to be the case, but if anything I think Microsoft making all of Activision's library exclusive would benefit the industry far more than hurt it.

Competition is good. Sony having to push the envelope instead of coasting on the same two game design philosophies over and over again because they are the only non-nintendo company with exclusive games is a good thing.

You may as well say Nintendo has a monopoly because only they have the Mario Franchise.

It's okay when Sony has exclusives, but not when Microsoft do, apparently

While I do not believe MS will make COD exclusive anytime soon (it prints money on PS and there is no guarantee MS making it exclusive would be able to make PS user switch to Xbox/PC en masse), I do hope the fear that it might makes Sony push the envelope, as you say.