Sony believes Call of Duty could inspire users to switch to Xbox following Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
That’s according to the company’s official response to questions from Brazil’s regulatory body (first discovered by Resetera), which like many regions, is currently studying the proposed deal for approval.
Along with other companies such as Ubisoft, Amazon and Google, Sony’s responses to various questions about the proposed acquisition have been released in full by the Brazilian government.
Sony’s response, read by VGC, mainly outlines the current state of triple-A game development for the Brazilian regulator. However, large portions highlight the importance the PlayStation company places on Call of Duty, a franchise that it claims “influences users’ choice of console.”
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In its responses to the questionnaire, Sony calls Call of Duty “an essential game: a blockbuster, AAA game that has no rival.”
“According to a 2019 study, ‘Call of Duty’s importance to entertainment, in general, is indescribable,'” the company said. “The brand was the only video game IP to break into the top 10 of all entertainment brands among fans, joining powerhouses like Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.
“Call of Duty is so popular that it influences users’ choice of console, and its network of loyal users is so entrenched that even if a competitor had the budget to develop a similar product, it could not compete with him”.
Sony went on to explain how the huge resources Activision is putting behind Call of Duty is the main reason it believes the FPS series is unlikely to be rivaled by a competitor.
“Each annual Call of Duty release takes approximately 3-5 years to develop. Since Activision releases one Call of Duty game per year, this equates to an annual investment of hundreds of millions of dollars,” he to explain
“Approximately 1,200 people work on each version and 1,500 more participate in editing and distribution. So Call of Duty alone has more developers than most game companies employ across their entire development portfolio, even AAA studios.
“Also, given their plans to hire an additional 2,000 developers by 2021, Activision likely expects Call of Duty to be even more successful in the future.
Sony says it believes Xbox Call of Duty ownership “could influence users’ choice of console.”
“No other developer can devote the same level of resources and expertise to game development. Even if they could, Call of Duty is too entrenched, so no rival, no matter how relevant, can catch up.
Sony went on to point out that Call of Duty has been the best-selling game for nearly every year in the past decade, and for its genre, “is overwhelmingly the best-selling game.”
“It’s synonymous with first-person shooters and essentially defines that category,” he said. “This is also demonstrated by player engagement on social media: Call of Duty has over 24 million followers on Facebook compared to Battlefield’s 7 million; and over 12 million followers on Instagram compared to Battlefield’s 2 million” .
He added: “At the very least, players are unlikely to switch to alternative games as they would lose that familiarity, those skills and even the friends they made playing the game.
“Even in weaker years like 2021, Call of Duty still managed to outperform most other games by a considerable margin. Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021), for example, was widely considered weaker than the titles from previous years, but it was still one of the best-selling games of 2021. In other words, even in a bad year, players stay loyal to the brand and keep buying the game.”
In its first response to Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard published in January, Sony said it expects Call of Duty games to remain cross-platform due to “contractual arrangements.”
Microsoft’s gaming chief also later confirmed his intention to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation platforms after Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is complete.
However, it was later claimed that Activision Blizzard is contractually obligated to release only the next three Call of Duty games for PlayStation consoles, including this year’s Modern Warfare 2.
The Call of Duty series is regularly among the most popular games on PlayStation. Last year, the series was the first (Vanguard) and third (Black Ops Cold War) best-selling games on PlayStation in the United States, according to NPD.