Microsoft has confirmed its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion, which will in turn bring the massive company and its studios under the Xbox umbrella. The finer details of what this deal will mean for the gaming industry at large have yet to be revealed. For example, it's unclear if the Call of Duty games and other Activision titles will become Xbox console exclusives, but regardless, Xbox will have control over some of the world's biggest franchises.

Not only will the Microsoft Activision acquisition give Xbox control over franchises like Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, and Warcraft, but it will also give it control over two franchises that were once married to the PlayStation brand. While it's been decades since they were PlayStation exclusives, there's no denying that Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon are forever linked to the PS1, and so it's notable that they will soon be Xbox-owned.

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The original Crash Bandicoot trilogy was developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony, and the same holds true for Crash Team Racing as well. The party game Crash Bash had a different developer, but it was also published by Sony, making all the games PlayStation 1 exclusives in the process. Sony even went as far as to push Crash Bandicoot as the PS1's mascot for a time, positioning the character as a rival to Nintendo's Mario and Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog.

However, Sony didn't outright own the rights to the Crash Bandicoot games. Universal Interactive did, with the Crash Bandicoot games only being PlayStation exclusives through a deal that was forged between the two companies. Once that deal was up, Universal Interactive decided to make Crash Bandicoot multi-platform, delivering the once-PlayStation exclusive franchise to competing consoles.

Universal Interactive would eventually merge with Vivendi, which would then merge with Activision, ultimately bringing the Crash Bandicoot franchise under the Activision umbrella. And the same story pretty much goes for Spyro the Dragon as well. The original Spyro the Dragon trilogy was developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony, though Universal Interactive owned the rights to the franchise. After the Spyro trilogy released as PS1 exclusive games, Universal started releasing future Spyro games on other platforms.

And just like with Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon wound up an Activision-owned franchise due to the merger between Universal and Vivendi, which was then followed by the merger between Activision and Vivendi. But despite Activision's resources and proven capability of putting out high-quality games, the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon franchises floundered under its watch. The once critically-acclaimed franchises started to earn middle of the road review scores, and while Spyro's life was artificially extended by the character's association with the toys to life Skylanders series, both became dormant.

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Activision went seven years without releasing a new Crash Bandicoot game before finally releasing Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy as a timed-PlayStation exclusive. Developed by Vicarious Visions, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remastered the original Crash Bandicoot games with eye-popping graphics and kicked off a resurgence for the franchise. It was followed by Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled in 2019, developed by Beenox, and Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time in 2020, developed by Toys for Bob.

Fans had to wait even longer to get their hands on a new Spyro the Dragon game, as there was 10 years between the release of The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon in 2008 and Spyro Reignited Trilogy in 2018 (not counting the Skylanders games, of course). Similar to Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Spyro Reignited Trilogy remastered the original Spyro the Dragon trilogy of games, vastly improving the graphics and modernizing the experience.

Despite the success developers Vicarious Visions, Beenox, and Toys for Bob have had with bringing these classic platformer franchises back to life, Activision seemingly decided to put them on the shelf. Beenox and Toys for Bob are now working on the Call of Duty franchise, serving as support studios for developers like Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, and Treyarch. Vicarious Visions, meanwhile, has been moved from the Activision wing of the company to the Blizzard side, set to work on titles like Diablo 2: Resurrected and the like.

Crash Bandicoot rail grinding in a jungle

So even though the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon games haven't been PlayStation exclusives for decades, they were both once key to the brand, and are both still largely associated with it. But assuming Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through, they will become Xbox-owned, so it's quite possible that any future Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon games will be Xbox console exclusives and never see release on PlayStation at all.

One has to imagine that Microsoft would want to take advantage of the Activision Blizzard IP it's acquired, and even though Activision itself didn't seem interested in pursuing more Crash and Spyro games, maybe now fans will get new entries in these franchises. It may be strange to see them released as Xbox exclusives, if that does indeed happen, but perhaps even hardcore PlayStation fans will agree that's better than not getting any new Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon titles at all.

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