Microsoft recently acquired Activision Blizzard for almost $70 billion, though many wondered how this might impact the exclusivity of several IPs such as Call of Duty. However, the company has now assured players that their games will release on PlayStation and other platforms beyond existing agreements.

In a lengthy blog post from President and Vice Chair Brad Smith, Activision Blizzard stated that their games will continue to exist outside of Xbox even after existing agreements are completed. This means IPs like Call of Duty, Diablo and Overwatch will still release on PlayStation (and possibly even Nintendo) despite the Xbox acquisition.

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This comes in light of Microsoft potentially facing legal scrutiny in a number of countries including the US, where the Federal Trade Commission has harsher guidelines towards such massive, industry-shifting deals. To appease regulators, Microsoft has assured that their acquisition of Activision Blizzard won’t harm the competition.

However, there are some ulterior motives to this deal. While Microsoft stated that all “popular” Activision Blizzard games such as Call of Duty will continue existing on other platforms, Xbox can still invest in new IPs from the various studios under Activision Blizzard and make them exclusive to their platform.

Additionally, Microsoft can still use this as an opportunity to make new Call of Duty games and several other Activision Blizzard games day one launches on Xbox Game Pass, essentially offering a cheaper alternative to the premium pricing of the games on other consoles like PlayStation. We believe it will certainly be one of the major driving factors behind the purpose of the acquisition.

Until the deal is actually finalized, though, we won’t know the exact terms of these exclusives and how they might affect the games industry as a whole going forward.

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Source: PlayStation Lifestyle