Sony believes Call of Duty can inspire consumers to switch to Xbox following Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
That’s according to the company’s official response to questions from the Brazilian regulator (first spotted by Resetera), which like many regions is currently reviewing the proposed deal for approval.
Along with other companies such as Ubisoft, Amazon and Google, Sony’s responses to several questions about the proposed acquisition were released in full by the Brazilian government.
Sony’s response – read by VGC – mostly outlines the current state of triple play development for the Brazilian regulator. However, large parts emphasize the importance that the PlayStation company places on Call of Duty, a franchise that it claims is “influencing consumers’ choice of console.”
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In its responses to the questionnaire, Sony called Call of Duty “an important game: a blockbuster, AAA game that has no rival.”
“According to a 2019 study, ‘Call of Duty’s importance to entertainment as a whole is indescribable,'” the company said. “The brand was the only video game intellectual property to make the top 10 of all entertainment brands among fans, joining powerhouses such as Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
“Call of Duty is so popular that it influences consumer 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 couldn’t compete.”
Sony went on to explain how the massive 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 release of Call of Duty 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,” the company explained.
“Approximately 1,200 people work on each release and another 1,500 are involved in publishing and distribution. Thus, Call of Duty alone has more developers than most game companies employ across their entire development portfolio, even AAA studios.
“Furthermore, given its plans to hire 2,000 additional developers by 2021, Activision likely expects Call of Duty to become even more successful in the future.”
Sony says it believes owning Xbox Call of Duty ‘could influence consumers’ console choice’
“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 – however relevant – can catch up.”
Sony went on to note that Call of Duty has been the best-selling game for nearly every year in the last decade, and for its genre “is by far the best-selling game.”
“It’s synonymous with first-person shooters and essentially defines the category,” it said. “This is also demonstrated by player engagement on social media: Call of Duty has over 24 million Facebook followers versus 7 million for Battlefield; and over 12 million followers on Instagram versus 2 million for Battlefield.”
He adds: “At the very least, players are unlikely to switch to alternative games as they will lose that familiarity, those skills and even the friends they’ve made playing the game.
“Even in weaker years like 2021, Call of Duty still managed to outperform most other games by a significant margin. Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021), for example, was widely considered to be weaker than previous years’ titles, but was still one of the best-selling games of 2021. In other words, even in a bad year, players remain loyal of the brand and continue to buy 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 multi-platform due to “contractual agreements.”
The head of Microsoft’s games division also subsequently confirmed his intention to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation platforms once Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is complete.
However, it was later claimed that Activision Blizzard had made a contractual commitment 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 PlayStation games. Last year, the series was both the first (Vanguard) and third (Black Ops Cold War) best-selling PlayStation games in the US, according to NPD.
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