Forums / Media / Video Games

Source

So for those not keeping up with all the Sony vs Microsoft drama where Sony's biggest concern is that they believe they'll lose Call of Duty, an IP that's been selling best on PlayStation since the PS4 (and still makes billions of dollars yearly), Sony made a rather odd argument recently where they claimed that they believe that Microsoft wants to "take away Call of Duty in an attempt to make Sony like Nintendo." This statement alone is already an odd one as Nintendo has been doing pretty fine without Call of Duty on the Switch, but also really odd when you remember most of Sony's first party games over the past decade have been focusing more on the 13 and older crowd as they don't really put out as many "all ages" games like they did back in the PS1 and 2 days (with Ratchet and Clank being one of the only old Sony IPs to last in to the PS5, as franchises like Jak and Daxter and Sly Cooper have been dormant for more than a decade, and Astro Bot really only exists as a "tech demo IP" right now). I guess Microsoft similarly found this "make Sony become more like Nintendo" argument equally strange as I guess in an attempt to gain better leverage in their favor regarding legal proceedings, Microsoft has now entered an agreement with Nintendo that they'll bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms for at least 10 years, likely either starting with CoD's 2023 game or the 2024 game (or at least doing a port of the free-to-play Warzone battle royale game to Switch soon and then a mainline game to the Switch's successor at some point).

In addition to this Microsoft has also confirmed they'll keep bringing CoD games to Steam as well, something that did recently occur with the Modern Warfare reboot sequel after half a decade of CoD on PC being exclusive to Battle net, which also puts a major dent in Sony's argument that Microsoft would make CoD exclusive to their PC gaming storefront.

Fact one of the heads of Microsoft even basically taunted Sony shows Microsoft is doing everything in their power to make sure Sony loses whatever arguments they can make and ensure the Activision-Blizzard deal goes through.

Seeing the deal make some waves from people I follow on Twitter and apparently, Sony tried to respond with saying how the Switch is for kids so having COD on the system would be inappropriate. I will say that regardless of whether that's true or not in the Switch being for kids, COD has been on previous Nintendo systems before, not to mention the Switch having DOOM 2016 and the fact previous consoles for Nintendo have had M rated games such as Conker's Bad Fur Day, Doom 64, and a few Resident Evil titles, including the fourth Resident Evil game.

Given how Sony killed their Japanese development studios and censors many things that Nintendo does not. I would say that Sony becoming more like Nintendo would be a good thing. Sony lost sight of its roots as it became more Californian. As much as I have my issues with Nintendo, they at least make good games (usually).
Sony doesn't do what Nintendoes.