Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzardofficially closed in October, thus making it a first-party publisher forXbox. This is the second time Xbox has made a successful swing for a major publisher, as the Xbox manufacturer acquired Bethesda Softworks in March 2021. Once the Bethesda deal went through, several major titles were made exclusively available on Xbox, such as Bethesda Game Studios’ long-awaited titleStarfield.
With the Activision merger completed, questions now turn to which of their catalog titles will potentially go exclusive. Much like the Bethesda deal, it’s been said that exclusive titles will come on a case-by-case basis, but Activision might have a tough time making some cases for exclusivity. Looking at their lineup of IPs, it already appears their most frequently released franchises would be hurt by console exclusivity, and frankly need to remain multiplatform to achieve strong success. Thus, in a case-by-case battle, it’s starting to look like few titles will be able to make a strong case.
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Call Of Duty Is Staying Put
By far, Activision’s biggest franchise isCall of Duty, a series with a near-yearly stranglehold on the top of the gaming sales charts. Almost as soon as this deal was first announced, speculation arose that Call of Duty was set to hit Xbox as an exclusive title. This wasa major sticking point for Sonyin its attempt to stop the deal from going forward, as the PlayStation publisher didn’t want to lose out on one of its highest-selling franchises.
Simply put, though, it didn’t really make sense for Call of Duty to go the route of exclusivity. After all, much of the appeal of the franchise comes from its multiplayer gameplay, and multiplayer games benefit from being available on the most devices possible. Furthermore, the franchise recently added cross-platform play, allowing gamers to enjoy their experience with friends regardless of what system they are playing on.
The only way Call of Duty being exclusively on Xbox could’ve made sense is if Activision moved forward with a new title focused on the single-player experience. A title such as that would probably have given Microsoft a little more leeway to make a game available only on Xbox. Even so, given Call of Duty’s extreme multiplayer popularity, it doesn’t seem likely that a publisher like Activision would want to focus on something like that. In fact, they’d probably prefer to do the opposite and expand on their multiplayer efforts, as they’ve done with the multiplayer-onlyCall of Duty: Warzone, which received its 2.0 release in late 2022.
It seems Microsoft was also not in the business of trying to take Call of Duty away from other consoles. While the Activision deal was still being worked out in court, Microsoft expressed an interest in bringing Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms, somewhere the franchise hasn’t been since 2013’s Call of Duty: Ghosts released on the Wii U. Prior to the official closure of the deal, Microsoft would later ink 10-year binding agreements with both Nintendo and Sony to ensure that Call of Duty would remain on competing platforms. Thus, Activision’s biggest franchise has been shot down as far as exclusivity, which will force gamers to look elsewhere for potential exclusives.
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Blizzard Games Are Going Nowhere
Naturally, beyond acquiring Activision’s library of IPs, Microsoft has also acquired the library of Blizzard Entertainment. This means that Microsoft now has access to franchises such asWarcraft,Diablo,Starcraft, andOverwatch. These are all massive franchises, and Xbox would have all the leeway in the world to take these games exclusively to Xbox.
But let’s hold our horses for a second; would they really make Blizzard’s games exclusive? I mean, sure, PlayStation only seemed to be bothered by Call of Duty going exclusive, so perhaps Xbox could sneak a few Blizzard games by and not cause a massive ruckus. But how much sense would it make for Xbox to make some of these titles exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem, given the kinds of games Bethesda makes?
Previously, when Xbox purchased Bethesda, they confirmed that online-focused games such asFallout 76andThe Elder Scrolls Onlinewould remain multiplatform. Once again, this makes business sense, given that games centered around online multiplayer rely on having a larger number of players, typically achieved through a release on multiple platforms. This, however, shoots a lot of Blizzard’s games down for potential exclusivity.
With Overwatch being a multiplayer-focused shooter, that has to stay on multiple platforms, and with the latest Diablo being always online and moving in something of a live-service direction, it wouldn’t make sense to pull it from other consoles. Warcraft and Starcraft are two PC-focused games in their current form, which already means they make very little sense to be console exclusives, but even if they were brought to consoles, theirheavy focus on multiplayerwould probably necessitate a multiplatform release. Thus, when digging through the Blizzard library, there’s not a whole lot that jumps out as being “exclusive” material.
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So…What Now?
So, if all of Activision’s biggest franchises make so little sense to release exclusively on Xbox…what in the world COULD be Xbox exclusive? Sure, one could say “new IPs,” but Activision has shown no reason to want to build new IPs, especially given how well their established IPs have done up to this point. And withXbox’s recent closure of several Bethesda studios, including Tango Gameworks, the developer of the acclaimed 2023 gemHi-Fi Rush, Activision probably has even less incentive to take risks on new IPs out of fear of what it will do to their own studios.
Thus, what we’re left with are franchises in which Activision has shown less of a willingness to develop new entries.Crash Bandicoot,Spyro the Dragon, andTony Hawkhave gotten new games in recent years, but the developers of these titles have largely been spun off or absorbed into other Activision-Blizzard studios. So where does Activision go from there? Yes, there are franchises likeKing’s Quest, Hexen,Prototype,Guitar Hero, andSkylandersthat could receive revivals, but would Activision even be willing to go there? Especially in the case of the latter two, who have both appeared to be nothing more than “fads” at this point?
Honestly, it wouldn’t be surprising if the answer to “what Activision-Blizzard games will be exclusive to Xbox?” is, quite simply, “none.” Xbox may not even be thinking about exclusivity when it comes to splurging on a company like this. Perhaps more of the focus will be on driving overall revenue on the back of the acquisition of Call of Duty (along with Candy Crush mobile developerKing), and potentially creating more interest in Xbox Game Pass. Especially given that Xbox has already shown a willingness to bring some of its first-party titles to competing platforms, exclusivity may be the last thing on its mind at this current moment.
It makes the deal a little more confusing in that regard, especially given just how much money Microsoft spent to bring Activision home, but it’s looking more and more like a revenue-growing model. And in Xbox’s eyes, it may just be that console exclusivity is no longer a key to growth, especially for a company that is clearly more interested in selling Xbox as a “brand,” and not a “console.” It’s still early to tell, andperhaps the upcoming Xbox Games Showcasewill paint a different picture, but don’t be surprised if Xbox doesn’t even flinch at the idea of bringing games exclusively to Xbox.
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