Xbox boss Phil Spencer has reiterated that future Call of Duty games—a franchise that now falls under the Microsoft umbrella thanks to its recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard—will have 100 percent parity when it comes to content on all platforms.
In a recent official Xbox podcast, Spencer stated that Microsoft has no plans to try and get players to buy Xbox consoles through Call of Duty, something Microsoft stressed on multiple occasions during the drawn-out process of getting the acquisition approved by the authorities. According to Spencer, this means that the Xbox release of Call of Duty will not see any exclusive maps, skins, or other content.
“For Call of Duty players on PlayStation, and in the future Nintendo, I want you to feel 100% a part of the community,” Spencer said (transcription via VGC). “I don’t want you to feel like there’s content you’re missing out, skins you’re missing out, there’s timing that you’re missing out on… that’s not the goal.
“The goal is 100% parity across all platforms as much as we can for launch and content. I say ‘as much as we can’ on parity because clearly some platforms have resolution and framerate differences, just based on performance, but there’s nothing else.”
“We have no goal of somehow trying to use Call of Duty to get you to buy an Xbox console,” Spencer continued. “I want the Call of Duty nation to feel supported across all platforms. We’ve been on the other side of some of those skin [deals] and even this [Modern Warfare 3] beta wasn’t on Xbox the first week… I don’t think that helps the community, I don’t think that helps the game.
“So it’s the focus if you’re a PlayStation player, a Nintendo player, a PC player, or an Xbox console player, I want you to feel 100% part of the Call of Duty nation.”
Microsoft has, of course, also signed “legally binding” agreements that will see the company bringing all Call of Duty titles to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles with full content and feature parity for the next ten years.
Meanwhile, during the same podcast episode, Spencer also stated that, despite the merger between the two companies being complete, Activision Blizzard games won’t be coming to Game Pass until 2024.
While Activision Blizzard now falls inside the greater Microsoft umbrella, the company’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, will be staying in his current position until the end of 2023 for “helping with the transition”. Kotick will report directly to Spencer.