According to a recent survey, more PlayStation gamers choose to purchase a PS5 in order to play Call of Duty, rather than any Sony exclusive title. The rampant sustained popularity of Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles brings into question the morality of Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
This survey was conducted by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in order to garner how significantly Sony’s future will be impacted by Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. This was part of a larger report arguing against the prospect of Microsoft being able to take over Activision and its respective IPs. A significant majority of gamers who took part in the survey (89%) stated that they opted for purchasing the PlayStation 5 due to the availability of one or more games. Of that 89%, almost three quarters (73%) stated that they bought their PlayStation 5 unit in order to play Call of Duty.
Given that Call of Duty has always been a multi-platform release, there is no real reason to play it specifically on a Sony console. With that being said, Sony has had a marketing deal struck with the COD publisher for a number of years, meaning that the PlayStation logo has immediately followed any COD trailer dropped at a big event for the past few years. This, in combination with the exclusive in-game Call of Duty content offered to PlayStation players, has strongly tied Call of Duty with PlayStation for a fairly long time in the eyes of most gamers.
In comparison to the 73% of players who purchased a PlayStation 5 for COD, 69% bought the console to play exclusive games. Percentages were also given for specific exclusive titles, with 41% buying it for God of War, 39% for The Last of Us, 37% for Marvel’s Spider-Man, and 25.5% for Ghost of Tsushima. Outside of exclusive titles, it was also noted that 45% of surveyed players picked up the Sony console for Grand Theft Auto 5 specifically. Assassin’s Creed, Fortnite, and Star Wars were also all popular reasons for acquiring the machine, but all of those percentages paled in comparison to that of Call of Duty.
CMS claims that the proposed Activision acquisition will create an unfair advantage in the video game market, upsetting the balance in such a way that could lead to potential overall net losses across the industry. It also proposes that the consequence of this change in the marketplace would be a negative effect on the consumer.
On the contrary, the CMA report conceded that, due to its target demographic, the survey potentially overstates the significance of Call of Duty when it comes to consumers choosing which console to purchase. Although there has been a 10-year deal offered to keep COD titles on Sony platforms, there have been subsequent claims that the COD franchise could be made exempt from the Microsoft/Activision deal.
Source: PlayStation LifeStyle