Sony Says EA's 'Battlefield' Can't Match 'Call of Duty'

Trisha Kae Andrada, Tech Times 24 November 2022, 10:11 am

Sony has included the Battlefield series, owned by Electonic Arts (EA), in its recent arguments against Xbox's purchase of Activision Blizzard, claiming that the first-person shooter cannot compete with Call of Duty.

According to an article by IGN SEA, which PC Gamer first reported, Sony claimed that Call of Duty had achieved the unprecedented success that no other shooter, not even Battlefield, could compete with it.

This was said during the inquiry into the merger that was conducted by the UK government.

Sony's Argument

"Call of Duty is not replicable," said the company.

It went on to say, "Call of Duty is too entrenched for any rival, no matter how well equipped, to catch up. It has been the top-selling game for almost every year in the last decade and, in the first-person shooter genre, it is overwhelmingly the top-selling game."

"Other publishers do not have the resources or expertise to match its success," Sony added.

"To give a concrete example, Electronic Arts - one of the largest third-party developers after Activision - has tried for many years to produce a rival to Call of Duty with its Battlefield series."

Sony was firm in saying that Battlefield cannot compete despite the resemblance with Call of Duty. To add to its argument, it also mentioned EA's history of generating other popular AAA brands, including FIFA, Mass Effect, Need for Speed, and Star Wars: Battlefront.

Sony said that with over 400 million copies of Call of Duty sold as of August 2021, Battlefield has only sold 88.7 million copies, on the other hand.

Launch Comparison

Battlefield 2042, EA's most recent entry, has had a rough first year on the market. The publisher has even admitted that the game has fallen short of expectations, as per IGN SEA's report.

After acknowledging that it understood the "walking simulator" objections, developer DICE was ultimately obliged to recreate its maps, delaying several upgrades and improvements within the game.

Meanwhile, the most recent installment of the Call of Duty series had the best opening weekend in the franchise's history. It also broke many records for revenue and made $1 billion in its first ten days of sales.

Potential Impact

The Call of Duty series has traditionally been made available on both the Xbox and the PlayStation. However, Sony is presently alleging that Microsoft is free to break its promise not to make the franchise exclusive to the Xbox by exploiting a legal loophole that allows it to do so.

Even while the Activision merger has been given the go-light in several areas, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority is now looking into the acquisition to ensure it would not hurt competition.

Conversely, EA views the arrangement with Microsoft as a significant business potential.

When asked about this, EA's current CEO, Andrew Wilson, said, "Being platform-agnostic and completely cross-platform with Battlefield I think is a tremendous opportunity."

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Written by Trisha Kae Andrada