How Sony Yanked Call Of Duty DLC Dibs Away From Microsoft

For years, it’s been known that if you want Call of Duty DLC content, it’d be best to buy an XBox console, due to their exclusivity deals with Activision. This year that law was broken as Activision went to the other side and announced their DLC would be hitting Sony’s Playstation first, starting with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. Given how aggressive Microsoft can be in pursuing the Western gamer market, how did a Japanese company trip them up?
Gamespot went looking for the answer and got in touch with Adam Boyes, VP of Publisher & Developer Relations for Sony Playstation. Boyes didn’t give away exactly what went down (because he couldn’t for legal reasons), but he told a specific-enough story that we can piece together what happened.
What initially pulled Activision toward Sony was Destiny. Sony has been very good to the property, self-promoting it at every opportunity, Representatives from Sony have even gone on record stating they treat Destiny like a first-party game. Flattery got them everywhere; Activision responded with DLC in Sony’s favor.
It was because of their relationship that formed over Destiny that Activision invited Sony execs to check out early test footage of Black Ops 3. Boyes responded enthusiastically to the gameplay and immediately struck up a conversation. “As soon as I started playing it, I said, ‘This feels incredible! You can wallride!’ It’s just so smooth; it’s almost like poetic. And so obviously, we just continued talking with our partners at Activision and worked something out. And now we’ve got I think a great benefit to all the gamers.”
Well, not quite. Nothing that excludes gamers for any period of time is a “great benefit” to anyone but the companies those deals favor, be it Microsoft or Sony. But there will be more exclusivity deals coming between Sony and other third-party developers soon. Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House said earlier in the year such deals would form a core part of their new strategy. War’s a brewin’!