While its ongoing battle to acquire Activision Blizzard continues to rage, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, has reiterated Xbox’s planned stance on platform parity for the Call of Duty franchise going forward.
Speaking in an interview with Xbox On, Spencer responded to a line of questioning around Call of Duty and his understanding of “exclusivity” with the reassurance that Xbox wasn’t interested in keeping players on other platforms from having the full and complete COD experience.
“We want to increase the places where people can play Call of Duty,” Spencer begins.
“With Call of Duty, I think we’ve made some specific agreements with Nintendo and with Nvidia to ensure the game can show up in more places and you obviously don’t make the game bigger by taking it away from anybody.”
The CEO stressed that, as in the past with franchises the company has acquired like DOOM or Fallout, the goal is to ensure that games in its portfolio that release on PlayStation, PC or Nintendo are to the level of quality that players on those platforms expect.
“And so when we say available everywhere or not exclusive, we want to make absolutely the best version of Call of Duty for any player on any of those platforms.”
“Because, like, I sit here today with a great game that’s come out in the last couple of weeks, Hogwarts Legacy. And yes, there is a quest that’s available on PlayStation. It’s not available on Xbox. And I know this is part of the industry,” Spencer admits.
“That’s not the game we’re trying to play here, either. It’s not about a skin on a gun. It’s not about a certain kind of mode in the game. The same version of the game will be available on all platforms, which is really what we do today.”
