Today Microsoft released a blog post about what they believe the future of app stores should look like.
In this blog post they decided to restate their position on Activision Blizzard games on other platforms after they are able to acquire them:
To be clear, Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision. And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love. We are also interested in taking similar steps to support Nintendo’s successful platform. We believe this is the right thing for the industry, for gamers and for our business.
This is being taken as a final confirmation about Microsoft’s plans. In reality, it is not an update at all (and Microsoft didn’t claim that it was).
Statements by video game companies should always be scrutinized before you start reading what you want to read. Most of the time they are totally noncommittal, and this is one of those times.
“continue to make available”
Many people are taking this to mean “continue to release”. First of all, if you read the full quote they aren’t explicitly talking about new games at all. If they were talking about “releasing” new games in particular, they would have used that word. Saying “available” is purposefully not doing so.
It seems like people are assuming they are talking about new releases since they mentioned “existing agreements” in the statement. Sure, this language has been used in the context of new releases many times. However, that is far from good enough reasoning to say that this is what they are talking about here, especially when nothing else suggests that.
Making something available can be as simple as not making it unavailable. It would be completely normal to say “we will continue to make this game available until March 31st, at which point it will be delisted”. No new game had to be released, and yet something was still made available.
“continue to enjoy the games they love”
This part suggests that they were not even possibly talking new games. How would “Sony fans continue to enjoy” games that aren’t even released yet? Right now PlayStation and Nintendo Switch owners can continue to enjoy the Doom series, but it is far from confirmed that they will get to enjoy whatever the next Doom game is called.
Looking at Microsoft’s track record so far there is basically no chance that they start delisting Activision Blizzard games on other consoles. This statement reads like they are just confirming that this is going to continue to be the case with this acquisition, as it was with many other acquisitions before.
The fact that this statement is so up to interpretation suggests that maybe it wasn’t written to be taken as final confirmation of anything, even though they said “to be clear”. It isn’t even a given that Microsoft is able to say what their plans are at all. Have they already decided what the future of a company that they don’t even own yet is going to be?
So the games will be exclusive to Xbox?
Maybe. Just because this statement doesn’t say they concretely will or won’t has nothing to do with what Microsoft will do. The odds of Microsoft announcing exactly how things will work ahead of time is quite unlikely. We don’t even know exactly how the Bethesda deal works yet almost a year now after it finished.
If current patterns continue, you won’t truly know until the games themselves are announced.
