Xbox reportedly intends to keep making ‘some’ Activision games for PlayStation

Microsoft plans to keep making “some” of Activision Blizzard’s games for PlayStation consoles, following the completion of its $68.7bn acquisition.

That’s according to a new report from Bloomberg, citing “a person familiar with the company’s thinking.”

The publication also put the exclusivity question to Microsoft’s head of gaming Phil Spencer, who said: “I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that.”

It’s worth noting that Spencer made similar comments prior to the completion of its $7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda parent Zenimax.

However, while existing games such as The Elder Scrolls Online continue to be supported on PlayStation platforms, and existing exclusivity deals for Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo have been honoured, Microsoft has since confirmed Bethesda’s big future games such as Starfield, Redfall and The Elder Scrolls 6 will be exclusive to Xbox and PC.

Spencer said in March 2021 that delivering exclusive games for platforms that support Xbox Game Pass was the primary reason Microsoft acquired Bethesda.

Following an E3 showcase event, two senior Bethesda figures spoke candidly about the Microsoft acquisition and Xbox exclusivity, both in terms of the impact it has on players and on the quality of the studio’s output.

Pete Hines, SVP of global marketing and communications at Bethesda, said he understood if some PlayStation players were “pissed” about the situation, while the studio’s most senior development figure, Todd Howard, admitted to harbouring some reservations about cutting out owners of Sony consoles.

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However, both of them said that focusing on fewer platforms results in better quality games – be they Starfield, or the PS5 exclusives Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo, which Sony signed prior to the Microsoft acquisition.

And they also said that Microsoft’s bid to expand the “Xbox ecosystem” to as many devices as possible ultimately meant more people will end up playing Bethesda’s games than would have been the case if the company had remained a third-party developer.