If Sony purchases Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has promised to keep Call of Duty available on PlayStation for many more years.
According to a report by The Verge, Microsoft gaming head Phil Spencer promised to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content equalization, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract.
Spencer has already made several public remarks that have the same general impact, noting the importance of the PlayStation community to Call of Duty, and comparing the game to Minecraft, which Microsoft has maintained since its acquisition of Mojang in 2014. However, this is the first such statement to guarantee the availability of Call of Duty on PlayStation beyond the limits of existing agreements, however vague.
Microsoft is keen not to portray its acquisition of Activision Blizzard as anti-competitive, as it is subjected to close scrutiny from governments around the world. So this is one leak Spencer and his team will have been quite pleased to reveal.
Spencer announced for the first time that Call of Duty games would be available on Xbox subscription services, Game Pass, according to Microsoft. Assuming they remain unavailable on competing systems like PlayStation Plus, this might still be a significant advantage for Microsoft as it seeks to broaden the concept of game platforms beyond the hardware used to play games in the home.