That's not true. If that's the case, Halo would have reached the same level as Call of Duty when they were the ones making it.
The fact of the matter is, NOBODY was been able to come close to Call of Duty's mainstream appeal in the 15 plus years COD has been dominant. So what makes you think it can be done in 10 when multiple companies have tried?
"Sony should yank Destiny from other platforms in a few years because they should be able to make alternatives"
Probably not a good idea, not sure why you would want them to do that? Why would you think Sony should pull Destiny from other platforms??
Pretty grim to see that the general consensus here on N4G is that Sony is nowhere near up to the task of creating a good series even if they were given an entire decade.
"Pretty grim to see that the general consensus here on N4G is that Sony is nowhere near up to the task of creating a good series even if they were given an entire decade. "
That's not the consensus, that's your own personal take.
The Consensus is that NOBODY in the industry has been able to replicate the level COD has in all the years companies have tried, including Microsoft among them. Sony has good series already. Hell, EVERY company has or has had at least one good serious. But NONE of them reach COD levels of mainstream appeal.
"That's not the consensus, that's your own personal take."
Love how you say this and instantly go on to say you don't believe Sony can accomplish it 😅 Just look at my comment saying I think Sony and Bungie can pull it off given 10 years, look at the downvotes. This proves it is general consensus and not just a personal take.
"Love how you say this and instantly go on to say you don't believe Sony can accomplish it 😅 Just look at my comment saying I think Sony and Bungie can pull it off given 10 years, look at the downvotes. It's not my personal take, those downvotes show it is general concensus, fact. "
I'm not saying anything. FACTUAL HISTORY shows it. How many series have tried to replicate COD success? I'll name some. Halo (even when Bungie made it), Homefront, Medal of Honor, Resistance, Killzone, Battlefield, etc. And those are ones off the top of my head. These are all things that have come within the past 16 years. So again, tell me how it's expected that COD can be replicated in 10 years when nobody (including Bungie that you like to bring up) could not?
And for the record, maybe people are downvoting you because they just believe you're wrong like I do? That doesn't speak to the consensus
Nope but they can block whatever Bungie builds from Microsoft to where as right now they are intended to be a multi plat studio for Sony and it's live service ambitions
@ old: “ Sony have Bungie now, given 10 years they could more than match Call of Duty I'm sure.” I agree that they can have a match from bungie and surpass CoD in quality but not on revenue and yearly developers burned out 🤷🏿. Remember killZone was better than CoD and it didn’t panned out Warhawk was better and didn’t take off Starhawk was better and same thing happened again MAG was better you get the point those that like CoD will follow it wherever it goes and that’s what Microsoft is banking on to take revenue and players from PlayStation
No, Halo was popular sure, but it was NEVER where COD is even at its height. The best Halo ever did was with Halo 3 at around 12 million. Call of Duty hits the 30 millions now. Even with Bungie, Halo was starting to lose it power. Think I'm Bsing, go look at the sales for Halo ODST and Halo Reach.
COD on the other is on the rise in sales on every platform. Again, Halo was popular, but it started losing draw power LONG before 343 took over. And the numbers back that up
TBH, I had more fun playing games like MAG on PS3, or Warhawk, than I ever did COD... though COD was never really my thing. I liked Modern Warfare, but after they kept milking that cash cow year after year, I got bored of it.
I honestly don't think COD is going to be very popular a decade from now, something else will come along that blows it out of the water. At this point, brand recognition is pretty much the only reason nobody else has been able to dethrone it. It isn't bringing anything revolutionary to the table anymore, just the same old game, over and over again.
I genuinely want to see how well ms does having COD as an exclusive. Very curious to see how much of an increase in sales their console will be, and will these sales be higher than the PlayStation 6??
@Eonjay - nobody that signed the 10 year deal is worried about losing access to CoD. Sony the one that didn't sign is the only one worried about their future. Microsoft is simply voicing to Sony's own concern and claims of inability to compete while still leading the market. lol
And nobody is talking exclusivity at all except Sony. Microsoft has continued to claim CoD is going nowhere and the only people that imagine it is was Sony. The deals made were for Microsoft to show in writing their intentions to seek other areas to expand even with CoD. Steam even refused said deal because they said they don't need it in writing and are happy with acknowledgement from Microsoft of intentions.
That's not accurate. Halo 3 was the most popular shooter on the Xbox console at the time it released. The only reason it didn't reach CoD numbers was because it wasn't cross platform. It was a console selling power house, and it helped to make the Xbox 360 the most popular console of that time. That was the last true Halo, others were just gap filler, until Halo 4 (343 Industries). It proves other companies can produce Call of Duty alternatives. They won't sell as much as CoD now but when CoD is only on one platform, it won't either.
It's not about matching call of duty.... you can more than match it but that doesn't mean it will take off or take COD's player base. It isn't one of those rational things. People don't buy COD because its the best shooter - they buy COD because its COD. You could produce a carbon copy and people still wouldn't buy it because it's not COD. 10 years is a long time maybe things will change but fifa games have been going strong year in year out for far, far longer so I can't see it. Unless ofc Microsoft mismanaged the hell out of it. So much for "we couldn't make it exclusive if we wanted to- it wouldn't make economic sense and has no benefits "blah, blah, blah" at the first 8oppertunity that is exactly what they want todo- they are thinking long term and they are all in on spending alot of money to Tey and monopolise the game subscription and streaming market to then jack up prices and make it all back and far more in years to come.
I remember back then it was Goldeneye that was the best shooter of all time, and Sony can easily make a Call of Duty competitor! And offer the same battle pass! They always wanted games as a service for online, so why not make an annual game accessible like Microsoft is going to do with Gamepass for Call Of Duty?
Call of Duty has been the same exact game for years now! An we barely see any destructible event tech in those games man! Red Faction Guerrilla has one of the best destructible tech, and it should have been the standard in shooters like this! We all want a truly next Gen shooter with movement like Mirror Edge or Dying Light 2! Don’t have to be parkour though. Microsoft is already going to do this with Perfect Dark Remake, and I miss those games being the standards.
The fact of the matter is, NOBODY was been able to come close to Call of Duty's mainstream appeal in the 15 plus years COD has been dominant. So what makes you think it can be done in 10 when multiple companies have tried?
Because many of those companies was still copying the gun play style of Call of Duty in their games to catch attention, instead of innovating! Even that Goldeneye Remake with Daniel Craig as Bond, was a glorified Call of Duty spy game! Similar in gameplay. Battlefield for EA would have been that game, but they screw themselves up making FIFA game the priority, and development for the new Battlefield was a hit and miss with bugs!!! Battlefield 2042. A lot of companies were either playing it safe, or don’t want to lose quality pushing their games to come out every year like Call Of Duty, Assassin Creed, Madden, and so many annual games done to death 💀 Ubisoft games all have the same open world formula and gameplay with a new skin to them.
Bungie right now can truly be the one to challenge Activision with a better shooter! Halo 2 to this day was their best before 343 took over! So I won’t say all developers have tried, when many of them were playing it safe for those 15 years. Not everyone wanted quantity over quality like Activision does!
They want Bungie to remain independent and develop for multiple platforms. That's what they say, anyway, but we'll see.
I feel like I don't need to comment on these articles anymore and I don't like FPS titles, but can we pause for a moment and take in the potential madness of Microsoft owning Doom, Quake, Overwatch, Fallout, Call of Duty, Wolfenstein, Prey, Dishonored, and Halo? Not a single one of those is an original Xbox IP and were all bought. That's honestly bizarre to me.
As far as competition goes, I do hope the regulators are knowledgeable enough about the industry to understand that in itself is a budding monopoly.
I don't know what decision they'll make, but I certainly hope that is taken into account.
@tbagmonster And Sony doesnt owe microsoft to agree with the purchase of these studios. MS had over 20 years to develop great studios and exclusive games... but they are too incompetent to do so. So this give them a right to buy all the successful studios?
No that is not what MS is saying - they just say they will not comit to a longer contract. That is not the same as they would not make a new deal when the time comes.
100%. They just admited all their talk of “wanting games to be everywhere” is all bullshit. But I mean, we all knew that. They did and said the exact same stuff when they bought zenimax. That didn’t even get a parity deal though.
1) Sony already has a COD competitor now. They own Destiny which is CODs biggest competitor and the second largest FPS franchise. It's interesting that none of the regulators have even mentioned this.
2) With everything Sony's devs have learned to do, and the advancements in their in-house engines, Sony could certainly make another competitor. It doesn't have to sell as much as COD either. Sony only gets 20% from COD sales vs 100% from their own IP.
They also own Bungie now, so Bungie could collab with a studio. Imagine Guerilla using everything they learned from crafting Horizon, plus Bungie's expertise with Halo and Destiny. If those two got together and revisited Killzone we could see something really cool.
And? It doesn't matter if it's multiplatform. It rakes in tons of money and has a massive playerbase. That's now Sony's IP. It's their game. Whether it's multiplat or not is irrelevant because they're making tons of cash from it.
So destiny 2 sold a few million copies, literally a fraction of COD's yearly sales. Since going free to play with destiny 2 they apparently have a total of 37 million players but that's over like 7 years. They claim about 700k daily users and the title brings in about 200 million dollars a year.
Meanwhile call of duty last year was fastest title in gaming history to reach 1 billion dollars in sales. In it'd first 5 days warzone 2 hit more than 28 million players with a peak of half a million consecutive players on pc alone.It sold most on PlayStation and is suspected to have higher player counts on PlayStation.
Destiny 2 is the second bestselling game/franchise bar COD but the gulf is still massive and that is rather the point.
@Extermin8or3_ COD makes all those billions for Activision, not for Sony. This is about Sony not having a competitor to replace the lost revenue. Based on how much Activision made on PS in 2021, and considering Sony only takes a 20% cut from Activision games, Sony's cut in 2021 would have been $330M. That's for all Activision games, including popular games like Overwatch that still pull in considerable cash. But even if we say COD accounts for 80%, that's $264M from COD. That $200M per year from Destiny would almost entirely cover Sony's lost revenue from COD. So my point stands.
and there it is.... all those 10 year deals were smoke and mirrors. Like I said when MS started offering 10 year deals to Nintendo, etc. Once those deals expire expect full exclusivity. Those deals were nothing more than to appease regulators short term because they're thinking long term.
Also, idk if anyone remembers, but it was well established over a decade ago that no one could compete with CoD, that it was a juggernaut no publisher, developer or game could touch. Even MS understood this which is why they were the first to sign a [5 year] CoD deal for early access to map packs. There is no competition and there will likely never be one. CoD is tried and true and even those who bemoan it annually still buy and it play each and every year.
Every time I think this can't get any worse, MS opens their mouths.
I don't necessarily agree that Socom would overtake COD, but that's not a fair comparison. Socom: Confrontation was made by a completely different dev and wasn't a good game. Socom 4 had pretty decent reviews but launched the day before the PS Network hack in 2011. PSN was offline for a month and no one was buying any online games on PS at that point. The game was DOA as a result.
@lodo Strictly from a gameplay standpoint. Let's be honest. Cod won't stay on top forever but if you have no choice, then stop crying and make socom again. Or killzone
10 years wasn't enough for Microsoft to develop a Call of Duty alternative... or anything notable really. They were like "F--- this. We'll buy it."
The irony in this statement.
I think what annoys me more than anything about this is that Microsoft doesn't really try hard to build anything anymore. I liked and admired the old Microsoft that took risks and attempted new IPs on a regular basis. I loved my 360 actually. I'm not a big fan of Sea of Thieves, but at least it was something. I admire that more than just this attempt at nothing. Sea of Thieves turns 5 years old this week. The last notable new game was half a decade ago. Let that sink in.
You are just forgetting the small detail that MS is buying a company for 68 billion USD - SONY IS NOT!!!
There is no real reason for putting this burden os MS it is up to them to decide what to do with the franchise - 10 years is much more than SONY would ever give the other way around.
Okay Microsoft. And yet 10 years wasn't enough time for you to make another decent Halo game, despite owning the IP and the code from the - now ancient - good games. Strange take.
Microsoft is also ignoring the brand pull of COD with this snarky suggestion. How many devs and games have tried and failed at taking on COD over the years? "Just make a COD clone", yeah, good idea, nobody's ever thought of that one...
All the halo games are decent... unless you have a different definition of decent than everyone else. Personally i don't get the allure of CoD. I much prefer fiction of things like resistance, killzone, and halo.
Of course I have a different definition to everybody else - so do you, right? That's what an opinion is. 343i have missed every try, for me, and Halo lost it's magic. COD's not my bag either, so I guess we both differ from the masses on that one.
Okay okay hold on... Can Sony make a legit Call of Duty alternative in 10 years? Of course not! But that's not even what's shocking about this article, what's really shocking is that they are pretty much admitting now that they plan to remove Call of Duty from Playstation after 10 years.
EDIT: I don't even know if Microsoft is helping their case at all with this. I figured they would try to lie more and come up with some excuse as to why they won't extend it past 10 years. But to me, them saying that Sony should be able to come up with a replacement by 10 years, pretty much sounds like they're admitting their true intentions.
Bingo! Which is what Sony have claimed they would do all along. The only responses to such suggestions from the MS mouthpiece skirted around the issue, flipped and flopped, leaving the interviewers either bamboozled, exhausted or plain past caring.
Basically yeah, 10 years they taking CoD off every platform cause everyone should have a alt by then apparently. Thats what i got from it and was obvious from the beginning. They probably wanna cap on the $ coming in for the 10year to recoup the cost of buying them. Afterwards everyone is on there own.
Absolutely agreed. This site alone swears by the talents of Sony's first party studios, why can't it be possible for them to make an equivalent or above alternative to CoD for Playstation gamers?
People are mistaken that a game has to beat CoD to be relevant, you just have to make a game that is just as popular and draws in as many players as CoD does. That is not impossible to do.
No one is saying that they have to beat CoDs numbers.... making a game that is even in the ballpark is very difficult to do. If it was easy each company would have one by now.
CoD has such a foothold, that even if it was a fantastic shooter/multiplayer game (example: titanfall 2) it isn't enough to pull people away from what they are already invested in (CoD).
"...making a game that is even in the ballpark is very difficult to do."
That can be applied to everything and anything and it definitely doesn't mean it's impossible. Furthermore it shouldn't stop Sony from still coming up with a game on par with CoD
There are games today that are in that ballpark, Fortnight instantly comes to mind as a game that has the players, makes just as much money and is just as popular as CoD.
"...it isn't enough to pull people away from what they are already invested in (CoD)"
The goal shouldn't be to pull players away from CoD, as we both stated you don't have to beat CoD numbers. Both games can be just as popular as one another and could exist together on the Playstation console.
Stop it. You can't be the "they make the best exclusives" "MS is trash" crowd and when the time really comes where it matters for you to ball up you get scared. Lean into the challenge head up and do what you do best then.
Call of Duty has been building its brand and iterating on its gameplay for 19yrs to get to where it is today, and also has countless thousands of devs involved making each one. Are you saying Sony can devote several thousand devs and condense 19yrs into 10 or less?
EA, Ubisoft, Sony, and Microsoft themselves have tried to match call of duty. So that statement rings hollow.
Okay Microsoft. And yet 10 years wasn't enough time for you to make another decent Halo game, despite owning the IP and the code from the - now ancient - good games. Strange take.
Microsoft is also ignoring the brand pull of COD with this snarky suggestion. How many devs and games have tried and failed at taking on COD over the years? "Just make a COD clone", yeah, good idea, nobody's ever thought of that one...
Absolutely agreed. This site alone swears by the talents of Sony's first party studios, why can't it be possible for them to make an equivalent or above alternative to CoD for Playstation gamers?
People are mistaken that a game has to beat CoD to be relevant, you just have to make a game that is just as popular and draws in as many players as CoD does. That is not impossible to do.