Sony worries Microsoft will only give it a “degraded” Call of Duty

Enlarge / Artist’s conception of what Sony thinks the next Call of Duty might look like on the PS5 (and definitely not a screenshot from Call of Duty 2 on Xbox 360. Nope. No way). (credit: Activision)

Late last month, UK regulators said they no longer believed a proposed Microsoft-owned Activision would bar Call of Duty games from PlayStation platforms, a reversal of earlier preliminary findings. Even if you grant that premise, though, Sony says that it’s still worried Microsoft could give PlayStation owners a “degraded” version of new Call of Duty games in an effort to make the Xbox versions look better.

“Simply… making it as good as it could be”

In a newly published response to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, Sony says the regulators’ recent turnaround is “surprising, unprecedented, and irrational.” The company takes specific issue with the regulators’ “lifetime value” modeling, which Sony says heavily undervalues what an Xbox-exclusive Call of Duty would be worth to Microsoft.

Beyond those technical concerns, though, Sony says it worries that Microsoft might subtly undermine PlayStation “simply by not making it as good as it could be.” That could include small changes to the game’s “performance [or] quality of play,” but also secondary moves to “raise [Call of Duty’s] price [on PlayStation], release the game at a later date, or make it available only on Game Pass.” Microsoft would also “have no incentive to make use of the advanced features in PlayStation not found in Xbox,” Sony says, an apparent reference to the PS5 controller’s advanced haptics and built-in audio capabilities.