It’s been over a year since Microsoft first initiated the purchase of Activision Blizzard and Sony has not let up in its objections since. It seems that Xbox is willing to make new concessions to its longtime rival, though, offering it the option to list new Call of Duty titles on day one on PlayStation Plus. But Sony still isn’t satisfied with the deal.
According to reporting from Video Games Chronicle, it seems that Sony still has concerns about licensing costs that could cause it to raise prices on new Activision Blizzard games. In response to the concerns, Microsoft reiterated the previous decade-long agreement was still on the table as well as offering Sony the chance to host it on PlayStation Plus on the same day and duration as Game Pass.
This is a huge concession to Sony, who only recently launched the PlayStation Plus program as a competitor to the seemingly successful Xbox Game Pass. If Microsoft had managed to keep the games exclusively on Game Pass, it would have served as a huge draw to the platform for the only series of games that some players will engage with.
It’s unclear if this will be enough for Sony, who has recently raised concerns about the potential for Xbox to make new CoD titles run poorly on PlayStation software the further out from launch it gets, according to VGC. This is seemingly unfounded and doesn’t give a lot of credit to the Activision Blizzard developers that will be the ones working on the game.
Sony also raised concerns that Microsoft will be able to drive up the price of Call of Duty, but offering the PlayStation opportunity to put the game on its subscription service at launch means the company can largely decide what price they want players to pay for it.
This is likely far from the last we will hear about the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard deal, which seems to have some new development each week.
