Gaming
Sony was worried Call of Duty on PlayStation could be ruined by Microsoft, whether they know it or not
It’s time to talk about everyone’s favorite ongoing story in games: the war of words between Microsoft and Sony over Microsoft’s plan to buy publisher Activision Blizzard. In the latest turn of events, Sony has said that it is worried that, if the acquisition goes through, Microsoft could break future Call of Duty games for PlayStation, either on purpose or by accident. This could make players lose faith in the PlayStation as a place to play Call of Duty.
Eurogamer said that in a new document, Sony listed several ways it thinks Microsoft could hurt Call of Duty or “harm PlayStation’s competitiveness.” These ideas came from the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK.
Sony says that Microsoft’s options include raising the price of Call of Duty on PlayStation, lowering its quality and performance (including by ignoring DualSense-specific features), limiting or not prioritizing investment in multiplayer on PS5 or PS4, or just making the game a Game Pass exclusive.
But Sony’s accusations about technical performance parity are the worst. They say that, “For example, Microsoft could make a PlayStation version of Call of Duty where bugs and errors only show up on the last level or after later updates. Even if these problems could be found quickly, it’s likely that any fix would come too late. By then, gamers would have lost faith in the PlayStation as a place to play Call of Duty.”
Sony goes on to say that any kind of “behavioral commitment” from Microsoft “would be hard,” and it also says that Microsoft “has moved slowly, only gotten involved when they thought the regulatory outlook was getting worse, and preferred to negotiate in the media over working with SIE.”
In a statement given to Eurogamer, Microsoft answered Sony’s claims: “Since the CMA released its provisional findings, we have offered solutions that address its concerns and make the deal better for UK players and game developers. These include a promise that access to Call of Duty will be the same on both Xbox and PlayStation and a promise that Call of Duty will be available to at least 150 million more players on other consoles and cloud streaming platforms once the deal is done. Now it’s up to the CMA to decide if it will block this deal to protect Sony, which is the market leader, or if it will look for ways to get more games to more players.”
How do you feel about Sony’s fears? Would you believe that the PlayStation version of Call of Duty would be just as good as the Xbox version if Microsoft paid for it?
Since the excellent Baldur’s Gate 3 has been out in the wild for a while, interesting data can be gleaned, such as how players choose to play an innovative new RPG from home. Stats from developer Larian Studios and posted on the PlayStation Blog show that most people want to play as a stealthy archer like in Skyrim when given nearly limitless options.
According to a fascinating graph, Rogue/Ranger is the most popular multiclass build, with over 175,000 players using it to snipe unsuspecting enemies from range. The next two builds reveal similarly. 150,000 played Barbarian/Fighter because they loved pummeling things, and 109,00 played Barbarian/Paladin, which lets players talk to their victims before beatings.
More sense emerges as you descend. If the Paladin/Warlock/Sorcerer/Bard has high Charisma, any combination can be interesting. Charisma helps these classes cast spells and abilities and interact with NPCs outside of combat.
Playing a single class through Baldur’s Gate 3 feels great, which is what most players do. A pure Fighter or Wizard becomes so powerful by game’s end that we don’t blame you for not mixing things up!
Play as a Tiefling Oathbreaker Paladin, Dark Urge Origin (which you must resist), or Bard for real moral dilemmas. You could also play pseudo-Aragorn again.
Techland is continuing to release Dying Light 2 content as part of its long-term support. This is surprising since the meaty Good Night, Good Luck update was released a few months ago. It’s nice to know what’s coming, but no timeline was given.
IGN-exclusive roadmap trailers reveal more co-op missions, board quests, a tower raid, and replayable GRE anomalies. Executions and finishers may be added to the April Gut Feeling update, which overhauled melee mechanics. Graphical options, weapon repair, gear, and mod dismantling are always welcome.
Knives, polearms, and more enemy variants are coming, including a Nightmare difficulty. Changes to NG+ include firearms. Players can finally dress to their hearts’ content with new cosmetic options.
Has Techland’s Dying Light 2 support lured you back? Would you rather focus on something new?
Epic Games expanded the Fortnite V-Buck “pricing alignment” after laying off almost 900 employees, citing “inflation and currency fluctuations”. Fortnite’s premium currency will rise in international markets, including the largest.
Epic Games will raise the price of V-Bucks and real money content packs in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Eurozone countries, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, and the US (including all US Dollar storefronts) on October 27.
Raising the price of this fictitious currency was successful when the company trialed it in the UK, Canada, and Mexico, so it was decided to announce it worldwide now. These USD increases range from $1 (1000 V-Bucks, previous $7.99) to $10 (13,500 V-Bucks, previous $79.99).
How do you view Epic’s timing and pricing increase?
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