Sony's concerned Call of Duty will be worse on PlayStation if Microsoft buys Activision

Joystiq

Joystiq News
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
has laid out more concerns about Microsoft's planned takeover of
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
in its latest response to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Sony has opposed the deal from the start. Now, it's suggesting that Microsoft could (perhaps unintentionally) kneecap the performance and quality of Call of Duty on PlayStation, which might result in fans switching to Xbox.

"
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
might release a PlayStation version of Call of Duty where bugs and errors emerge only on the game’s final level or after later updates," the letter (
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
) reads. "Even if such degradations could be swiftly detected, any remedy would likely come too late, by which time the gaming community would have lost confidence in PlayStation as a go-to venue to play Call of Duty. Indeed,
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, Call of Duty is most often purchased in just the first few weeks of release. If it became known that the game’s performance on PlayStation was worse than on Xbox, Call of Duty gamers could decide to switch to Xbox, for fear of playing their favourite game at a second-class or less competitive venue."


Sony claims there wouldn't be a viable way for it or the CMA to assess how "Microsoft chooses to allocate its resources and the quality/quantity of engineers it devotes to the PlayStation version of Call of Duty to ensure that SIE would be treated fairly and equally." Degrading the quality of Call of Duty on PlayStation, intentionally or not, perhaps wouldn't be the wisest course of action, as
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
points out. A buggy Call of Duty release on PlayStation would probably lead to a bigger backlash against Microsoft and Activision than Sony.

In any case, Microsoft noted in its latest response to the CMA (
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
) that it has offered to "provide Sony with parity on release date, content, features, upgrades, quality and playability with the Xbox platform." That is, if Sony accepts Microsoft's proposed 10-year agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Microsoft would be willing to agree to a third-party assessor to oversee the platform parity.

Sony's letter reiterates its concern that Microsoft would make Call of Duty a Game Pass exclusive and away from PlayStation. Again, that's something Microsoft has refuted. “As we have said all along: it makes zero business sense to take Call of Duty off of PlayStation,” Microsoft Competition Law Group corporate vice president Rima Alaily recently told
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
.

It will be a while yet before we know for sure whether Microsoft will be allowed to buy Activision Blizzard. The CMA is set to make a final ruling on the deal by April 26th. It has millions of Microsoft and Activision documents, and thousands of emails from the public to take into account, according to Sony. The CMA
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
about the deal in February, suggesting it could "harm UK gamers" and lead to a "substantial lessening of competition in gaming consoles."

Other major regulators have yet to rubberstamp the takeover, including in the US, where the Federal Trade Commission has
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
. However, reports suggest the European Union is set to
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
following news that Microsoft will bring Call of Duty and other games to
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
and
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
.

In case you're wondering, Microsoft's letter details how Activision would get Call of Duty games to run on Nintendo Switch, which is much less powerful than PlayStation and Xbox consoles. It would do so "by optimizing the display resolution, in-game texture resolution, reducing the rendering speed (i.e., frames per second) and simplifying advanced rendering techniques (e.g., raytracing, shadow, lighting and antialiasing techniques)." In other words, it'd make the game look and run worse than on other systems.

In the meantime, it seems Call of Duty fans have
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
coming their way soon. A
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
posted on the series' Twitter account shows Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a date of March 21st.

A new evil will rise ⚔️
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty)
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


This article originally appeared on Engadget at
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


Console Bang News!
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top