For nearly a decade, the Call of Duty brand has been synonymous and associated with the Xbox brand- it was an association brought on by many things, one of which was the fact that new content for Call of Duty would always launch on Xbox platforms first. That was how it had been for many years, and how many assumed it would continue to be. But this E3, that changed, when Sony announced that all DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 would be coming to PlayStation first- and that this deal would stick for Call of Duty games going forward.
Speaking to Gamespot, Adam Boyes explained the generalities of how this all came about.
“Well, I think the first thing was we’ve had a great relationship with Activision around Destiny,” Boyes said. “And I’m a huge fan of that.”
“We fell in love with [Black Ops 3] instantly… As soon as I started playing it, I said, ‘This feels incredible! You can wallride!’ It’s just so smooth; it’s almost like poetic. And so obviously, we just continued talking with our partners at Activision and worked something out. And now we’ve got I think a great benefit to all the gamers.”
So essentially, it sounds the newfound closeness that Activision and Sony have fostered over Destiny was important in making the Call of Duty transition happen. Now whether or not that leads to PlayStation being perceived as the default platform for the games remains yet to be seen.