Xbox head Phil Spencer has responded to the recent controversy surrounding Call of Duty’s Xbox exclusivity by revealing that the studio plans to treat the series “like Minecraft”, implying that it will continue to be released on PlayStation for the foreseeable future.
One of the biggest ongoing stories over the past two months has been PlayStation’s backlash to Call of Duty owner Microsoft, with the former clearly worried about Call of Duty becoming platform exclusive. Xbox. PlayStation head Jim Ryan has released several statements about this, calling Microsoft’s offers to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation “inadequate”.
As reported by Tom Warren of The Verge, Phil Spencer recently spoke about Call of Duty Xbox exclusivity during WSJ Tech Live 2022, where he confirmed that Call of Duty “specifically” will continue to be on PlayStation, and that he would also like to see it pass to the Switch at some point in the future. Spencer compared his plans for Call of Duty to how he currently treats Minecraft, which seems to confirm that he will remain cross-platform for quite some time.
Spencer said: “Call of Duty will be available on PlayStation specifically. I would love to see it on Switch, I would love to see the game playable on many different screens. Our intention is to treat CoD like Minecraft. This opportunity is really a question mobile for us. When you think about 3 billion people playing video games, there are only about 200 million console households.
By treating “CoD like Minecraft”, Spencer just seems to be confirming that Call of Duty will be available on PlayStation for some time, referencing how Xbox has owned Minecraft since 2014 after buying both the game and Mojang itself for $2.5 billion. Since then, although Microsoft has full rights to make Minecraft exclusive, it has continued to update the original Minecraft on PlayStation with new content updates and DLC.
Not only that, but he also released Minecraft Dungeons on PlayStation consoles, while confirming that the next Minecraft Legends will not be exclusive to Xbox and will also release on PlayStation. Spencer also specifically mentions that he’d like to see Call of Duty on the Switch in the future, which makes sense with the Minecraft comparison once again, as everything from the base game to Dungeons has also appeared on the Switch. switch.
Given recent back and forth between Microsoft and Sony revealed the former offered the latter three more and more years of the current deal before Call of Duty becomes Xbox exclusive, suggesting it will eventually at one point, it’s surprising that Spencer didn’t mention any type of delay in her interview. His words give the impression that Call of Duty will still be available on PlayStation, but talks between Sony and Microsoft give the impression that he will indeed leave the system at some point.