“Call of Duty gamers are neither ‘special’ nor ‘unique’,” says Microsoft

There is an ongoing battle of attrition between game station Y xbox about the long-running deal to acquire Activision Blizzard from Microsoft. Sony is quite unhappy with the way everything is being handled, and has made several comments about how Obligations sits in the middle of the mess.

So now, it seems that Microsoft is trying to minimize the importance of the series and the impact it has on the Xbox ecosystem in general.

“Call of Duty players are not ‘special’ or ‘unique’ in terms of user spending or engagement compared to players who prefer other popular franchises,” Microsoft says in recently published documents made public by the Call of Duty Competition. United Kingdom. and Market Authority.

Why is Microsoft making that kind of comment? Because it’s trying to persuade the Competition and Markets Authority that its ownership of the series would not be detrimental to the overall health of the UK video game market, and that PlayStation would be at a disadvantage by not having CoD titles to attract fans. new users. to its ecosystem.

“Call of Duty does not drive adoption of the platform,” the document continues. “Xbox data shows that between 2016 and 2022, [XX]% of new Xbox players have never played or purchased Call of Duty content and only [XX]% of gamers played Call of Duty as their first game on their new Xbox console. These numbers are inconsistent with the idea that Call of Duty drives adoption of the platform.” We have inserted the XX to indicate content that has been written by the CMA.

“Figure 12 shows [XX] is the game most gamers play first after purchasing an Xbox console in the period 2016-2022 [XX] and many others are first played in a similar way.”

So does the TL; dr? Call of Duty players are not special or unique in the way they interact with Xbox games or in terms of how they spend money.

Previously, Sony had complained about Xbox’s “inadequate” Call of Duty offer, in which Xbox reportedly “only offered Call of Duty to stay on PlayStation for three years after the current agreement between Activision and Sony. That comment comes from the very top of Sony, by way of PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan.

It’s clear that Sony wants to keep the series on its platforms and that it values ​​the appeal of Call of Duty in terms of new player acquisition and established player retention. Will this be resolved peacefully and with a minimum of disorder? It doesn’t seem like it, especially when Microsoft is even willing to sell its own games short to make a point.