Sony Accidentally Reveals Major PlayStation Game Budgets – SlashGear

It might sound a bit weird that Microsoft’s competition is the reason for this big delay and gear shift. However, it wasn’t filed for no reason. Sony had submitted the paperwork to prove to the FTC that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard would affect it financially. This is specifically due to the popularity of Activision’s “Call of Duty” franchise among PlayStation users. The argument was that Sony and PlayStation would be significantly hit with revenue decreases due to “Call of Duty” becoming an eventual Xbox exclusive.

According to the hastily-redacted paperwork, as analyzed by The Verge, “Call of Duty” games were worth around $800 million for PlayStation in the United States in 2021. While the global number cannot be entirely verified, a close look at the paperwork reveals that it could be worth over $1.5 billion worldwide for PlayStation. To make things even more staggering, the document seems to reveal the value of the franchise itself (for Sony) was $13.9 billion or more.

We know that only one more “Call of Duty” game is currently slated to be cross-released between PlayStation and Xbox, likely adding to the one million players Sony claims only play the franchise’s releases. It is unclear what will happen with the hearing moving forward since the paperwork and related exhibits were removed upon the discovery.