(Image Courtesy: Microsoft)
The cold war between Sony and Microsoft continues as the head of the Xbox division at Microsoft, Phil Spencer, said that Sony is looking to maintain its dominance in the console market by making, “Xbox smaller”.
The two companies have been engaged in a war of words over Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. One of the largest deals in gaming history.
Microsoft has been facing stiff resistance from antitrust authorities who fear that the Redmond, US-based technology giant will lock down important franchises like Call of Duty to its own hardware. The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has already filed a lawsuit to stop the merger.
For its part, Microsoft has been saying it does not wish to limit Call of Duty to a single platform, and even signed a 10-year deal with Nintendo to bring the games to their hardware.
Valve Software, owners of the biggest PC platform for game distribution, Steam, also appear to be onboard with Microsoft, with Valve founder Gabe Newell stating that he trusts Microsoft to keep the games on Steam.
Sony, on the other hand, has refused to play ball so far. It has turned down the same 10-year deal given to Nintendo and seems keen on probing antitrust authorities to investigate Microsoft over the deal.
This led to Phil Spencer stating that Sony is, “spending more time with the regulators than they are with us to try and get this deal done”.
Now, the Xbox boss has hit out at Sony again. As reported in Video Games Chronicle, Spencer appeared on the Second Request podcast recently, where he did not mince words and said that, “Sony is trying to protect its dominance on the console. The way they grow is by making Xbox smaller”.
Spencer added that Sony has a very different view of the gaming ecosystem and that, “they don’t ship their games day and date on PC, they do not put their games into their subscription when they launch their games”.
He said that Sony appears to be leading the dialogue against Microsoft and, “the largest console maker in the world raising an objection about the one franchise that we’ve said will continue to ship on the platform. It’s a deal that benefits customers through choice and access.”
Call of Duty is one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world and is routinely the biggest selling franchise. The recent entry in the series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, managed to accumulate sales of over $1 billion in just 10 days from launch.