It seems like Xbox Game Pass is taking the lead on gaming consoles, leaving PlayStation Plus in the dust. But Sony fears more than just this. If Microsoft seals the deal with Activision blizzard, it might just have the Call of duty series to itself. And that is putting Sony in a frantic mood.
Microsoft is in the middle of what might be the sell-out of Activision blizzard, a company that made various games including the famed Candy crush and Call of duty series. If the $68.7 billion merger deal is successful, Sony might be looking at a horizon of making next-generation consoles without the call of duty, depending on which side Microsoft leans.
So far, Microsoft has offered Sony to keep Call of duty on its consoles for the next seven to ten years, although from then onwards, it is unclear as to whether they will be granted another offer or not.
This comes amidst the confessions of Sony that it’s PS Plus is losing against the Xbox Game Pass. Xbox has reportedly 29 million monthly subscribers, both on PC and consoles. These numbers were reported in January of 2022, which shows that in under a year, Microsoft’s Xbox has amassed a whopping 4 million subscribers. Impressive work, but worrying for Sony.
Interestingly, Xbox admitted to the fact that its consoles were not performing well against PlayStation’s earlier consoles. Later on, Sony came in with the admission of PlayStation plus not doing well as Xbox Game Pass.
This statement was released by the Competition and Markets Authority (UK) and Microsoft has since said that this is valid and good criticism for them, adding that they are confident that Activision blizzard will be operating under them come June 2023.
Differences between PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass
The PlayStation Plus extra and premium are the types of consoles that are lagging behind Xbox because PlayStation essential has held its own and is leading against Game Pass with 4.5 million subscribers. Essential is built just like the older consoles, while Extra and Premium offer new games every month. The two, Extra and Premium were released earlier this year, but gamers weren’t enthusiastic about them as they were about the Xbox Game Pass.
Even if it is lagging behind Xbox, PlayStation Plus boasts over 700 games, making it the biggest library, while Xbox has 300 games. PlayStation has that big of a collection because it features fillers from PlayStations 1-5 as part of the Ubisoft+ Classic and Classic catalogs respectively.
Some of PlayStation’s top titles are Celeste, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Final Fantasy VII remake intergrade, Dead by Daylight, Marvel’s Spiderman, Bloodborne, Batman: Arkhan Knight, Returnal, and Miles Molares.
Some of the top titles of Xbox Game Pass are Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Far cry 5, Dead by Daylight, Doom eternal, Watch dogs 2, and F1 2021.
The Extra tier came with all the PlayStation classics but the premium tier didn’t have many classic titles like Assassin’s Creed and Stray, which does not compute, considering its hefty price.
Xbox Game Pass was released in 2017 and is available on Xbox One and Xbox S&X for the consoles while on PC it is named PC Game Pass and has its game catalog.
Subscription for this is split into three, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass for console, and Game Pass for PC. Two of these are for consoles and subscribers have access to hundreds of high-quality games.
The reason for this could be that Game Pass has many titles to choose from and it’s also affordable when it comes to its monthly rates. When you pay for Xbox, you get access to the whole library, with basic pay. Of course, it comes except EA play. While with PlayStation Plus, you do not get access to the whole catalog, it only gives you two games per month and this is an entry-level subscription. Its top-tier subscription is also more expensive than that of the Xbox Game Pass.
Xbox also offers streaming without the need for consoles. With Xbox Cloud Gaming, you can play anywhere on your PC and mobile while PlayStation Plus offers to stream only when you connect to your console and there are limited terms of devices you can connect to the console.
This has been why it is considered one of the best gaming deals for quite some time now. Another difference between the two is that Xbox releases titles at the same time it does its new tiers, while PlayStation takes time to do so. For instance, Halo infinite and Forza horizon was made available on the very same day they launched the tier. While on PlayStation Plus fan favorites like God of War: Ragnarok was not available on the launch day.
However, Sony feels that the addition of the call of duty to the Xbox will tip the scales greatly in Xbox’s favor, harming the business, bringing unfair competition, and affecting the gaming industry as a whole.
CMA is yet to determine if Sony is right about this or not. In any case, these allegations explain why Sony is trying hard to block the deal between Microsoft and Activision blizzard.
Sony hasn’t been open with accurate figures of the PlayStation Plus that show they’re behind Xbox, but the Japanese firm stressed the word “considerable lagging”, and that might mean that it’s a bit far from the numbers Xbox is sporting.
It is a truly concerning matter as PlayStation has the Call of duty title still on their consoles but it’s reporting on being left behind on subscription numbers.
If Call of duty gets removed from their consoles, and they bring out a console without many classics as they did with the Premium tier, PlayStation will no longer enjoy a massive following as it is right now.
Even if they created a franchise similar to call of duty, it will take billions of dollars and many years to create a formidable competition for Call of duty. There has been an effort to create one before, like EA’s battlefield, but that was unsuccessful.
