PlayStation’s Jim Ryan just hates Xbox’s Activision deal, doesn’t care about CoD

PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan has been fighting against Xbox’s acquisition of Call of Duty publisher Activision-Blizzard. In a recent discussion, the CEO reportedly stated that he doesn’t care about making a deal for Call of Duty, he simply wants to block the merger.

Jim Ryan has reportedly stated that he would not be happy with any deal posed by Microsoft for future Activision games. Instead, the PlayStation CEO is dead set on stopping the $68.7 billion deal from going through.

According to Activision Blizzard EVP Corporate Affairs and CCO Lulu Cheng Meservey, Microsoft has offered Sony a ten-year agreement to Call of Duty. However, Ryan has refused every deal that Microsoft has brought to the table.

“Microsoft offered Sony (the dominant console leader for well over a decade, with 80% market share) a 10 year agreement on far better terms than Sony would ever get from us," Meservey explained. "We've also offered Sony guaranteed long-term access to Call of Duty. But they keep refusing. Why?"

Meservey then claimed that Jim Ryan explicitly said he isn’t interested in any deal for Call of Duty.

“I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal," Ryan allegedly said behind closed doors. "I just want to block your merger."

In order to fight multiple acquisition blocks from worldwide governments, Microsoft has attempted to show that it is willing to work with other platforms. For example, the company has signed a ten-year deal to bring new Call of Duty games to Nintendo platforms such as the Nintendo Switch or, more realistically, the Nintendo Switch 2.

Furthermore, Microsoft has signed a second ten-year deal with Nvidia to bring Xbox games to the Nvidia GeForce Now cloud gaming service. This is despite the tech giant’s ownership of its own Xbox Game Pass cloud gaming platform.

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard may see a number of smaller properties become exclusive to Xbox platforms over the generation. Franchises such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro may receive Xbox-only sequels, but huge media empires such as Call of Duty would remain multiplarform, just like Minecraft.