Microsoft and Sony won't seal "forever" Call of Duty deal says Spencer

Microsoft, Sony, and Call of Duty are in the news again after Head of Xbox Phil Spencer said he would be reluctant to sign a "forever" deal allowing the FPS on PlayStation. The deal being tabled is to alleviate regulator pressure.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is out, but that Microsoft deal for Activision Blizzard won't ever go away. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has new words on the Call of Duty deal between Microsoft and Sony.

Call of Duty 'forever' deal ain't happening

Call of Duty won't be fully committed to PlayStation forever

Phil Spencer has been speaking to The Verge and has been much clearer about the issue of potentially buying the rights to a juggernaut like the Call of Duty series. “It’s not about at some point I pull the rug underneath PlayStation 7’s legs and it’s ‘ahaha you just didn’t write the contract long enough.' There’s no contract that could be written that says forever.”

“This idea that we would write a contract that says the word ‘forever’ in it, I think, is a little bit silly,” Spencer expands. “To make a longer-term commitment that Sony would be comfortable with, [that] regulators would be comfortable with, I have no issue with that at all.” Indeed, this makes fiscal sense from both sides, probably, and is a statement that helps alleviate some of the pressure from UK government and the EU investigation. Sony has argued against the deal in the past, with Jim Ryan unhappy that news of the deal even made it into the public sphere. This is despite numerous statements that PlayStation is a vital cog from Microsoft.

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Spencer continues by saying, “We think Call of Duty will be on PlayStation as long as players want to play Call of Duty on PlayStation. And that’s not a competitive threat against PlayStation, that’s just a pragmatic way of looking at it.” This was followed up with Spencer closing loopholes by saying he's talking about “Native Call of Duty on PlayStation, not linked to them having to carry Game Pass." Sony has blocked Game Pass before.

“If they want a streaming version of Call of Duty we could do that as well, just like we do on our own consoles. There is nothing behind my back," Spencer claims. “Sony does not have to take Game Pass on their platform to make that happen. There’s nothing hidden. We want to continue to ship Call of Duty on PlayStation, without any kind of weird ‘aha, I figured out the gotcha’.”

So, no forever deal, but perhaps an eternal series of contracts for PlayStation. The series has an entry on our best FPS games on PlayStation list and you can catch up on more acquisition rumours with us if you so fancy. In the meantime, see you in the comments.

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Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and Sony news. He writes about PS5 games like LEGO Horizon Adventures, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Concord, and Death Stranding 2 using experience from years of PlayStation gaming. He also covers PS Plus news, as well as his favorite games — The Witcher 3, God of War, and The Last of Us — before an evening swim.