Sony has outlined Call of Duty’s vital importance to PlayStation as part of its ongoing efforts to derail Microsoft’s $68.7bn Activision Blizzard buyout bid.
“SIE [Sony Interactive Entertainment] cannot protect against the loss of Call of Duty,” Sony wrote in a document published today by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority regulator, which is currently scrutinising the deal.
Simply put, Sony says it cannot compete with a Microsoft-owned and Xbox-exclusive Call of Duty via its own blockbuster first-party franchises: not in terms of gameplay hours, revenue, or in the budget it has to spend on building its own exclusives.
