The war of words continues between Microsoft and Sony. Phil Spencer, the boss of the Xbox division, accuses his rival of wanting to maintain its dominance in the video game market by wanting to “shrink Xbox”.
Since the beginning of the year, Microsoft has been struggling to get the green light from competition authorities, which will allow it to pocket Activision Blizzard, a $69 billion operation. American and European regulators are already scalded by this kind of huge transactions, but another obstacle stands in the way of the manufacturer of Xbox: It is, of course, Sony.
Sony gets bigger, Xbox shrinks
The Japanese group looks very dimly at a merger that could overshadow PlayStation. On the one hand, there is the thorny question of call of duty : Sony fears Microsoft will abandon the PlayStation platform, despite assurances that it won’t. Microsoft has even announced that, in the event of an acquisition by Activision, the Switch will benefit from a ten-year warranty on call of duty. An agreement that could extend to Sony if the company wanted.
During the podcast Second request, Phil Spencer had harsh words for his direct competitor. ” Sony is trying to protect its dominance in the console market “, he attacks. ” Their way to grow is to shrink the Xbox “. In the cave, we understand that the boss of Xbox criticizes his rival for not playing the competitive game. Another complaint: we would have on the one hand an open Microsoft, and on the other hand a closed Sony.
” Sony has a very different view of the industry. They do not offer their games on PC [en même temps que sur consoles]they don’t offer their games in their subscriptions at launch “, Spencer describes. It’s true that Microsoft is struggling to get games out of the console (both call of duty the latest ones are already on Steam), although Sony is increasingly interested in the PC platform.
Finally, Spencer laments Sony’s stance on Call of Duty: The world’s largest console manufacturer objects to the only franchise that will continue to be developed for [la PlayStation] “.