If you hadn't heard, Microsoft is trying to purchase Activision-Blizzard, while Sony, on the other hand, has been opposing this sale. On Microsoft's side, the company promises to make Activision-Blizzard games, like Call of Duty, exclusive, while Sony claims that this sale will inhibit competition, cost Sony dollars, and hurt gamers.

So, in this article, we'll tell you what's really going on with Microsoft, Sony, and Activision.

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Microsoft's Side of the Case

Credit: Microsoft

Gamers already know that Activision-Blizzard is a terrible company. Whether it's the slow decline in quality of games coming from the publisher over the course of the last decade or the litany of scandals surrounding employee mistreatment, sexual harassment, and all-around awful working conditions, Activision-Blizzard is a well-known bad actor.

On the other hand, Microsoft has a pretty good reputation in gaming. Game Pass is a great service that brings tons of games to the masses for a low price, while Microsoft has continuously been investing in the creation of games people want. So, in a sense, many are excited for Microsoft to purchase Activision-Blizzard because Microsoft seems like the better company.

However, there is more to the story. Microsoft has also on gone record promising that Activision-Blizzard games won't become exclusive to Xbox in the future, pledging to keep popular games like Call of Duty available on all platforms if the acquisition was to go through.

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For Microsoft, being able to reap the profits of these massively popular franchises as well as, perhaps more importantly, being able to add Activision-Blizzard games to Game Pass is enough for the company. This makes a lot of sense considering Microsoft's laser focus on getting as many Game Pass subscribers as is humanly possible.

Of course, though, there's another side to the story.

Sony's Side of the Case

Credit: Sony

While Microsoft getting to be in charge of a company that doesn't seem to be able to make good decisions for itself as well as the value in getting Activision-Blizzard games into Game Pass without needing to make anything exclusive sounds great from a Microsoft point-of-view, the story is different for Sony.

Microsoft has been gobbling up major publishers and developers for years now, making the gaming industry smaller and smaller with each acquisition. Activision-Blizzard is a massive company with a ton of IP, so Microsoft acquiring them is, in many ways, an existential threat to the competition there is in the gaming industry.

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Outside of that, though, Sony worried about things that go beyond mere exclusivity. Call of Duty, for example, would likely make too much money for Microsoft on PlayStation to warrant taking it off that platform, but Microsoft doesn't really need to stop supporting PlayStation to pull people away from playing Activision-Blizzard games on PlayStation.

Take Call of Duty, for example. Many folks who play CoD play it as a franchise rather than as individual games. It's very common for CoD fans to hop between different CoD games and pick up the latest one even if they aren't particularly excited about the next one. If all of those games were available on Game Pass, especially at day one when a new game comes out, just for a couple bucks a month, there's no doubt many CoD fans would prefer playing on Xbox.

Be it on PC or PlayStation, CoD is an expensive franchise. Games launch at high prices, and sales don't come too often, so if there was an option to get access to all of the CoD games, or at least most, for a low monthly price, CoD fans are likely to use that en masse over playing on PlayStation, which is certainly a concern for Sony.

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