Following the purchase of Activision Blizzard, CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer has said that it “remains committed” to keeping these games on PlayStation.
According to a report by Bloomberg, sources familiar with the company believe that while some content will be exclusive to Xbox, major gaming publisher Activision Blizzard will continue to make games for PlayStation, despite the consoles being in competition. Microsoft enacted a similar strategy in 2014, when it purchased Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5billion (approximately £1.85million today).
In an interview, Phil Spencer, who was promoted to CEO of Microsoft Gaming along with the announcement of the acquisition, appeared to support these claims. Spencer commented that Microsoft does not intend to “pull communities away” from Sony‘s platform.
“I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that.”
While it appears that Activision Blizzard games, which are currently available on PlayStation, will remain available on Sony’s consoles, the console exclusivity of as yet unreleased franchises remains unknown. Future games could be released as Xbox and PC exclusives, timed-exclusive for its platforms or available on all platforms. Though according to these sources the latter is unlikely.
With the numerous allegations of sexual harassment currently held against Activision Blizzard, Spencer has also said that Microsoft looks forward to making sure the developers and studios currently under the publisher “feel safe, supported and engaged in every aspect of their work going forward.”
