Will Call of Duty be Xbox exclusive? Microsoft CoD exclusivity, explained

Call of Duty is one of the best-known franchises in gaming. Not only has the behemoth FPS series released an endless parade of best-selling entries, it has scooped up some of the biggest names in entertainment to play a rogues gallery of characters. For PlayStation players, the ongoing saga of Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard led to an entirely different kind of drama outside of Cold War shenanigans and futuristic doomsaying.

Will Call of Duty be Xbox exclusive?

After Microsoft made a $69 billion offer to purchase Activision Blizzard, the publisher of some of the world’s biggest games, worry started to swirl through the PlayStation community. Surely Microsoft would pull Call of Duty, one of the world’s biggest entertainment properties, from their rival, right?

Well, no. After what has felt like an eternity of back and forth, a protracted Federal Trade Commission case, and much courtroom testimony, Microsoft has won the case and can follow through with its proposed purchase. Well, as long as the FTC appeal doesn’t interfere with anything.

The good news is that Sony and Microsoft have now signed a binding deal that guarantees 10 years of Call of Duty on PlayStation. It’s as if all the legal jousting was just being done for fun, I swear. So, if you were worried that Call of Duty was going to be an Xbox exclusive, that is currently off the table.

This deal was originally sent to regulators in the UK, US, and EU, which dictate whether a company has a monopoly on a certain segment of an industry or not. They also decide whether future business deals will impact the order of the industry.

Microsoft will take control of all Activision Blizzard titles if the purchase goes through successfully, which seems increasingly likely. This features an incredibly long list of insanely popular titles like:

• Overwatch
• Call of Duty
• Crash Bandicoot
• Diablo
• Starcraft
• Candy Crush (everybody’s favorite)

This would grant Microsoft exclusivity over all these titles, leaving all Sony console owners on the other side of the glass, looking in on all the Warzone players if Microsoft were to decide to pull the games from PlayStation.

Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard has been met with both praise and criticism. Fairness commissions have torn the deal apart, leading Microsoft to change its approach. Fortunately for them, the judge in the FTC didn’t buy into the idea that they would pull Call of Duty from their competition. Sure enough, shortly after the case concluded, the deal was signed.  

Microsoft certainly adopted interesting tactics during the case. According to their team, one of the reasons the deal is fair is because of their lack of worthy exclusives attached to the Xbox brand.

To continue their self-burn, they’ve also trashed the CoD series, saying it was “consistently outranked” in gaming reviews and by its popularity on social media.

Ultimately, what won out is that the gaming division in Microsoft is beholden to the rest of the company. Cutting off the billions and billions of dollars from Sony customers would make little sense to the rest of Microsoft, which still dwarfs the gaming section of the company when it comes to revenue.