Microsoft’s ‘Call of Duty’ deal wasn’t just about Xbox exclusives but higher revenue as well

Between the FTC, petitions on Change.org, and ongoing debate, the week surrounding Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard has been a busy one. At the moment, the transaction has not been completed, and it is that Redmond has many pitfalls to overcome. However, today there is some extremely curious and equally important news in which Bobby Kotick threatened to remove Call of Duty from Xbox if his percentage of revenue did not increase.

Kotick, one of the protagonists in most of the debates back in 2021, continues to give people something to talk about, although Activision is trying not to make so many headlines. The CEO of the Activision Blizzard business team, according to reports, was determined not to bring Call of Duty to Xbox consoles “if we didn’t go beyond the standard revenue share.” A few words come to us from the vice president of Xbox, Sarah Bond, in the framework of the first day of testimony of the Activision Blizzard trial. “We had players whose expectations we wanted to meet, so we finally made the decision that accepting was the best thing for business,” Bond added yesterday to the jury.

Call of Duty on Game Pass is “vetoed” until 2025

During questions from Microsoft’s lawyer, Bond teased that negotiations with Activision were “lively” first and foremost, and confirmed that there is currently an agreement not to bring Call of Duty to Game Pass before 2025. Regardless of this financial split and the importance of Bobby Kotick, Bond went on to state that Activision gave ” very clear limits ” on what Xbox could and could not say about Call of Duty.

Also Read: Call of Duty League Champs 2023: Schedule, Matches and Results

“A year ago we wanted to advertise that Call of Duty: Vanguard was coming to Xbox, we were told we couldn’t say it on YouTube or anywhere else customers other than our players could see it, and we had to wait for a while.” period,” added the vice president.

In fact, and speaking of marketing, Bond herself discovered Sony and Nintendo as ” competitors and partners “, although she also stated that bringing Call of Duty to Nintendo Switch is currently unfeasible. She did not disclose information on whether this is due to other types of agreements or the hardware of the Japanese laptop.