The video game industry is still reeling over the announcement that Microsoft had purchased Activision Blizzard for roughly $68 billion. Since then everyone in the video game community has had plethora of questions in relation to this earth shattering event. Perhaps the most prevalent question has to do with a company that had nothing to do with this transaction; Sony. The PlayStation company has been quiet for the past couple of days in regards to the acquisition, until now. Sony recently gave a statement to The Wall Street Journal in which they mention that they are fully expecting, at the very least, Activision’s titles to remain “multiplatform.”
“We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform.” The statement itself is rather short, but the message is loud and clear. This is essentially a follow up to what Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said on the blog post when the acquisition was announced; that a plethora of titles in the Activision Blizzard library are played on a number of platforms, and that they plan on continuing to support them moving forward. Spencer also reiterated this with Bloomberg, stating that “It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that.”
Perhaps the most important IP that lingers here is Call of Duty, which is an Activision franchise that continuously makes a profit each and every year. Now that Microsoft essentially owns that IP, Sony more than likely feels slightly worried about the prospect of that series becoming exclusive to the Xbox and PC. Sony currently has contract with Activision to receive new content for each Call of Duty title before anyone else, including PC. The real question now is, what happens once that deal expires?
In the day following the announcement of the acquisition, Sony’s stock on the Japan Stock Market plummeted by 13% which is the single largest drop for the company since 2008. This resulted in a massive $20 billion loss of value for Sony, which is a potential reason as to why Sony made a response to the buyout. Keep in mind that it’s only been a little more than 48 hours since the announcement. We expect even more news to come trickling out over the next several days as well as weeks, and months in regards to this monumental event.