{"id":626468,"date":"2023-04-06T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T19:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/06\/sony-worries-microsoft-will-only-give-it-a-degraded-call-of-duty\/"},"modified":"2023-04-06T14:49:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T19:49:00","slug":"sony-worries-microsoft-will-only-give-it-a-degraded-call-of-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/06\/sony-worries-microsoft-will-only-give-it-a-degraded-call-of-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony worries Microsoft will only give it a \u201cdegraded\u201d Call of Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n A lack of trust \u2014
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“Our business would never recover,” Sony exec says of potential substandard version.<\/h2>\n
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\n Kyle Orland<\/span><\/a>
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\n \"Artist's
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Enlarge<\/a> \/<\/span> Artist’s conception of what Sony thinks the next Call of Duty might look like on the PS5 (and definitely not a screenshot from Call of Duty 2 on Xbox 360. Nope. No way).<\/p>\n

Activision<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Late last month, UK regulators said<\/a> they no longer believed a proposed Microsoft-owned Activision<\/a> would bar Call of Duty games from PlayStation platforms, a reversal of earlier preliminary findings<\/a>. Even if you grant that premise, though, Sony says that it’s still<\/em> worried Microsoft could give PlayStation owners a “degraded” version of new Call of Duty games in an effort to make the Xbox versions look better.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply… making it as good as it could be\u201d<\/h2>\n

In a newly published response<\/a> to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, Sony says the regulators’ recent turnaround is “surprising, unprecedented, and irrational.” The company takes specific issue with the regulators’ “lifetime value” modeling, which Sony says heavily undervalues what an Xbox-exclusive Call of Duty would be worth to Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Beyond those technical concerns, though, Sony says it worries that Microsoft might subtly undermine PlayStation “simply by not making it as good as it could be.” That could include small changes to the game’s “performance [or] quality of play,” but also secondary moves to “raise [Call of Duty’s] price [on PlayStation], release the game at a later date, or make it available only on Game Pass.” Microsoft would also “have no incentive to make use of the advanced features in PlayStation not found in Xbox,” Sony says, an apparent reference to the PS5 controller’s advanced haptics and built-in audio capabilities.<\/p>\n

In its own newly filed response<\/a>, Microsoft reiterated that it has “no intention to withhold or degrade access to Call of Duty or any other Activision content on PlayStation.” That follows on a March filing<\/a> where Microsoft promised Sony parity on Call of Duty’s “release date, content, features, upgrades, quality, and playability.”<\/p>\n

But Sony’s response reflects a continued lack of trust<\/a> in such promises. The company cites detailed analyses from the likes of Digital Foundry<\/a> in saying that “the technical quality of Modern Warfare II<\/em> was similar across platforms” in today’s market. After a merger, though, Sony argues that “Microsoft would have different incentives because degrading the experience on PlayStation would benefit Xbox, PlayStation\u2019s ‘closest rival.'”\n<\/p>\n

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