Microsoft intends to honor existing Activision/Blizzard agreements with other platforms

Microsoft’s Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has reassured once again that they intend to honor any existing Activision/Blizzard agreements with other platforms and even mentioned that they intend to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. 

In a statement issued by a Sony representative to the Wall Street Journal: "We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform."

The head of Xbox Phil Spencer also recently tweeted that they just had a “good call” with PlayStation and confirmed that they do intend to honor existing agreements with Activision Blizzard games. He even mentioned Call of Duty being available on PlayStation. 

Had good calls this week with leaders at Sony. I confirmed our intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Sony is an important part of our industry, and we value our relationship.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) January 20, 2022

This isn’t the first time Microsoft and Xbox honoring existing agreements. When Microsoft acquired Bethesda in 2020, the company quickly expressed that they will honor exclusivity deals already in place, like the PS5 exclusivity for Arkane’s Deathloop and Tango Gameworks’ Ghostwire: Tokyo. Of course, these are timed exclusive deals. 

For other franchises from Activision Blizzard, we’ll see how it goes. It’s still unknown how games like Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, and Tony Hawk will be handled in the future. There’s even Blizzard games such as Overwatch, Diablo, StarCraft, and World of Warcraft. 

This is a massive acquisition so there’s a lot to unpack, but it’s unlikely that Microsoft would close the doors to franchises they’ve just acquired. It just doesn’t work that way. Hopefully more details on each franchise will come to light as the acquisition will be finalized sometime in 2023. For now, Activision Blizzard and Microsoft will resume the usual operations while preparing for when the deal becomes official.

If you haven’t heard – which is pretty hard as that’s what everyone is talking about this week – Microsoft has acquired Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion and is considered one of the biggest deals to go down in the video game industry.

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