LogInIn a new filing to the UK's competition regulator, Microsoft stated that Sony has been preventing the Call of Duty franchise from being added to Xbox Games Pass for "a number of years."
In August, it became known that in a filing to Brazilian regulator CADE, which was investigating Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard and became one of the first competition watchdogs that approved the deal, Microsoft claimed that Sony has paid "blocking rights" to developers to prevent their games from being added to Xbox Game Pass.
And now in a filing to the UK's regulator CMA, the company clarified that this specifically applies to the Call of Duty series. The tech giant claims that as part of PlayStation's current deal with Activision for the Call of Duty series, Sony prevents the shooter franchise from being put on Xbox Game Pass saying that the company has been doing it "for a number of years."
Given that there haven't been any Call of Duty games on Xbox Game Pass so far, this was quite predictable, but Microsoft is seemingly using this against Sony and its issues with the Microsoft-Activision deal.
It is expected that Sony's agreement with Activision will last until 2024. According to PlayStation head Jim Ryan, Microsoft approached Sony offering to extend the agreement for three more years. However, Ryan called this offer "inadequate on many levels."
In the document, Microsoft also confirmed that it had offered Sony to keep releasing games in the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation consoles until at least the end of 2027, although the company allegedly refused the deal.
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