While Microsoft has said before that it has no intentions to withhold Call of Duty from PlayStation consoles should its acquisition of Activision Blizzard go through, Xbox boss Phil Spencer doubled down on that today in strong terms during the company’s FTC trial.
During day two of the trial, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley pointedly reminded Spencer that he was under oath and asked him if Microsoft would indeed continue to ship Call of Duty to PlayStation.
“I would raise my hand. I will do whatever it takes,” he said in court. “We have no plan. I’m making a commitment standing here that we will not pull Call of Duty – it is my testimony – from PlayStation.”
“As you said, Sony obviously has to allow us to ship the game on their platform,” he went on. “But absent any of that, my commitment is, and my testimony is that we will continue to ship future versions of Call of Duty on Sony’s PlayStation 5.”
This is in line with Spencer’s previous statements on Call of Duty exclusivity, saying last year that Call of Duty will continue to ship to PlayStation “as long as there is a PlayStation to ship to.” And in an email revealed in court yesterday, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan wrote that “I’m pretty sure we will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for many years to come” in response to the news that Microsoft was intending to acquire Activision Blizzard.
The issue of console exclusivity is one that has come up frequently in the first couple of days in the trial, with the FTC taking aim at Microsoft’s 2021 acquisition of Zenimax yesterday. And today, Spencer claimed that there was no PS5 version of Minecraft because Sony didn’t send dev kits to Microsoft.
For more from the trial, check out our roundup of everything you need to know so far.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
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