Microsoft recently announced its acquisition of embattled publisher Activision-Blizzard which will see the latter become part of the Xbox family. The deal is expected to close in fiscal year 2023 for $68.7 billion and the obvious question that many have is: How will this affect exclusivity for certain titles?
According to Bloomberg’s sources, specifically “person familiar with the company’s thinking,” “Microsoft plans to keep making some of Activision’s games for PlayStation consoles but will also keep some content exclusive to Xbox.” This could be interpreted in much the same way as the Bethesda acquisition – titles announced for PlayStation platforms will still be releasing for the same. So fans likely won’t have to worry about Overwatch 2 or Diablo 4 skipping PS4 or Call of Duty: Warzone suddenly being exclusive to Xbox.
However, since neither title was announced for PS5, Microsoft could very well decide to have them available on Xbox Series X/S and not PS5. This, of course, doesn’t include Xbox Game Pass availability, content exclusive to the Xbox versions and so on. It’s also possible that Sony’s marketing and content-exclusivity deal with the Call of Duty franchise could come to an end following this acquisition.
Time will tell but it wouldn’t be surprising to Microsoft announce a new Activision-Blizzard title as exclusive to Xbox in the future. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months – this year is already off to a spicy start.