Jim Ryan Explains Why Sony Kept Refusing To Sign Xbox's Call Of Duty Offer

Shame Sony users are now screwed out of every other Activision IP but hey, at least Spencer is happy.

“the deal that was offered at a certain point in time may not have been the deal that was actually signed."

I didn’t follow the story as closely as others because I’m not a CoD fan and I don’t get into the whole fanboy console wars. I had heard Microsoft’s deal with PlayStation was to offer Activision games for the next ten years. That PlayStation wanted Zenimax games included with that? Again I didn’t follow this closely so I could be wrong, but if that was the case, PlayStation ended up with a worse deal with just securing CoD for the next ten years?

There are deals and deals. And then there are DEALS. Which he signed I’m guessing.

@ShadowofTwilight There are deals and then there are deals…..

MS putting it's games on PS anyway

The headline here should be changed to Jim Ryan Doesn't Explain Why Sony Kept Refusing To Sign Xbox's Call Of Duty Offer

And, you know, the deal that was offered at a certain point in time may not have been the deal that was actually signed

I have to agree with uncle Jim here, he's clearly a tough negotiator. I mean not only did he get COD for a decade, but he also managed to squeeze in other Microsoft IP'S(entirely unrelated to ABK)that frankly few of us envisaged. Kudos 😄.

@EvilSilentFrame The original deal was for Cod and any sequels to already existing ip's that are already on playstation up until 2027.

Sony signed in 2023 so they got Cod for an extra 6 years or 6 more games providing they stay on their yearly release cycle.

There are deals and then there are FF rebirth deals.

Ok now buy the Socom franchise Microsoft please

@ShadowofTwilight
I thought XBox is third party now and everything comes to ps?
/s

@Murray

I'll believe that Microsoft will do the right thing and keep the publishers they took away fully multiplat when I see it.

I don't trust Spencer as far as I could throw him.

NO! MAKE THE BAD MAN GO AWAY!!

Guess I have to stick to Push to avoid Jim "Matrick" Ryan content now, where he no longer can cause harm. Weird day. May he have a brilliant 3 month future at Zynga in his "retirement."

For those that don't follow PS, remember this is the guy who just spent a day at London Studio celebrating his retirement and being beloved by his subjects, a week before announcing he's shutting them down.

Only 17 Days, 9 hours, 51 minutes left until PlayStation is rescued by Japan.

@AlwaysPlaying @Fenbops
Ryan: "There are deals and there are deals"
Matrick: "Deal with it"

These two really like their deals. Personally, I don't see the big deal.

All very pretty irrelevant now as years down the line probably all xbox games will be multi platform and probably day one.
Unless at some point Microsoft do another U Turn in their long history of U Turns.
You can never tell.

@ShadowofTwilight I'm sure that keeps him up nights.

@taternuggets

Nah, him crying to regulators saying how they can't possibly compete without consolidating the industry has clearly been doing that.

He should do what everyone else does - start up a new AAA company

Absolute dealings.

@OldGamer999 so right you are.

@rustyduck
I try to be right and I was a lot last year 😂😂😂

It makes no difference whatsoever in the long run; all games, ABK and the rest of them will be going to the PlayStation at some point, and sooner or later that will be day one on both consoles. PlayStation gamers won't need to worry about whether they will be getting ABK games, as they will be getting all new Xbox games, not just those made by Activision etc....

Ignoring obvious bias here, Jim is most likely right. For those who don't remember, Phil was very vague about wording of the COD multiplatform deal first time he mentioned it (no feature parity, release dates, or anything really was defined). And every subsequent time he was adding in little breadcrumbs of additional details. I'm sure in the background these were worked into offered contract in parallel..

@ShadowofTwilight dude seriously? Maybe Jimbo should have signed it earlier when the terms were better.

@Fiendish-Beaver I think that's the reason Jim Ryan was very happy with the deal in the end. The Activision acquisition saga caused internal strife at Microsoft resulting in pretty much everything Xbox Game Studios going to PS5.

Bethesda were annoyed that CoD got to be multiplatform meanwhile Bethesda games had to be Xbox console exclusive, higher ups at Microsoft weren't happy with Xbox's holiday 2023 sales, etc.

@Grippie

Jimbo shouldn't have to expect the biggest publisher in the industry not to screw over most of the gaming community because Spencer and Team Xbox are incompetent.

I think you are entirely right, @Grumblevolcano...

Maybe they were just waiting to see if CoD showed up on gamepass, so they could get it for their sub fee. That's what I do with a lot of games

Jim coming off very Lionel Hutz there.

"There are deals 😠... and deals 😃"

All I have to say is wow at these comments. So many ill informed takes it is laughable.

"And, you know, the deal that was offered at a certain point in time MAY not have been the deal that was actually signed."...this man is so full of *****. Glad his buggering off from the industry and we won't have to listen to his idiotic comments.

@Fiendish-Beaver the main reason I got an Xbox was because at the time Micro had bought Bethesda,and I couldn't stand not playing future Bethesda games lol.

Now with the ABK stuff, I can see other people doing the same as me

@ShadowofTwilight I mean we can all have our opinions man but saying sony's leadership isn't as "cringe" i mean wtf? I don't think jim ryan has played a video game in his entire life. Sony spends all its time trying to squeeze all of the money out of its fanbase with endless remasters and no new IP's on the horizon. No one is perfect but Phil and the team have done a pretty solid job IMO.

@ShadowofTwilight

don't find Sony leadership as cringe as Saint Spencer
and
Also congrats to Microsoft...none of them look good but congrats to them

Total shocker mate! But, going full fanboy (in your case for Sony) and then doubling down on it when others are pointing it out it's not something to be proud of, some decorum goes a long way 😅...

@somnambulance

Yeah me too, but (sadly) Jim didn't want to be too granular about the details 😄.

Could show us where the future of Xbox exclusives go

To every screen of course😉. If Microsoft sees an opportunity for revenue on PlayStation and Nintendo they will take it, even if its on a case by case basis.

Hardcore playstation fans should be careful what they wish for - who's to say the next CEO will be better? It's just presumption at this point. He might end up looking like the good commercially minded one in the future. Kind of like a Peter Moore before a Don Matrick ( I wouldn't be surprised with another US/EU based executive). I don't take sides on the console fence so I think overall objectively he did okay even if there were communication missteps due to not being a natural presenter.

I agree people would buy an Xbox in order to play ABK games, @Vipor007, but only if that was the only way in which you could play the games. If the games are going to release on the PlayStation too, even if there is a delay of 6 or 12 months before the games hit that platform, people will wait. We all know that games often come out in a terrible state when first released, and so what would then happen is that the Xbox would receive the game in its initial worst state, and the PlayStation would receive the fixed, and best, edition. It would obviously be on the Xbox in that same, fixed, state, but the point is, gamers often wait for a game to be fixed, so waiting for a fixed game, and for it to release on the PlayStation, whilst at the same time benefitting from all the exclusives that Sony has to offer, would be no problem for the majority. Plus, there will come a point when games will release simultaneously on both the Xbox and the PlayStation. At first it will probably be the smaller titles, but over time it will be the big ones, and that will include all ABK, Bethesda and other Xbox Studios games. The writing is on the wall, and I think that only the extremely naïve will fail to see it...

@GrandValkyrie
I know I love how Starfield, Halo and Gears are on my Playstation 5 now

@Fiendish-Beaver
A bulk of a major releases sales are during the initial 6 months, the GOTY edition with all the DLC and patches never outsells they first initial launch of a game

@ShadowofTwilight
I am sure that if Sony wanted to pony up Spiderman, Microsoft would be willing to pony something of Activision/Blizzard

Yeah yeah Im still waiting for CoD to come to gamepass…….

You are absolutely right, @ZuneTattooGuy. The bulk of a games sales are within the first 6 months of its release. So, when a game releases on the PlayStation, it will then sell the most copies within the first 6 months of doing so. It is exactly the same as when a game comes from the PC to the Xbox, or the PlayStation, the games sell well to start with, and then taper off.

What you have to consider is that if you only have a PlayStation, then your only option is to purchase a game on that console. So, even if a game has released elsewhere first, it will still sell at its best when it first releases on whatever platform it subsequently releases on.

You only need to look at the situation with Sea of Thieves on the PlayStation to see that just because a game has been on another platform first, does not mean it will not sell well on a different console, even years after its initial release...

@ZuneTattooGuy they're coming be patient 🙏

@Darylb88 It's not just poor communication. He sandboxed Shaun Layden when he was warning about the trouble they were headed into long ago, forcing Layden out after a lifetime at the company, and replacing him with Hulst, a fellow traveler with which they could ignore Layden's warnings, and continue burning money on trend chasing at record pace, including burning money trying to sabotage Xbox, because destroying one platform wasn't enough for him, rather than focusing on their own product. And the end result is the closure of studios, the virtual abandonment of their VR platform before launch, 8% of the company gone and most of the projects he was burning money on were cancelled in his wake because, surprise to no one but him, Layden's warnings were accurate. They've had no major releases multiple years due to studios tied up on cancelled projects, no more than one major release other years, relying almost entirely on third party exclusivity purchases (the Matrick plan!) and remasters of remasters and PC ports. The #1 preorder on Playstation is an Xbox ONE game.

How can the next guy be worse? He's Matrick's clone who left PS in a similar state to how Matrick left XB but without MS's billions to bail them out. They'll be fine with new management due to their sheer market dominance and brand cache to tap, but if they didn't have that dominance they'd probably be ruined after him. Jim is no Peter Moore. But the PS brand still sells itself, so they'll be able to recover with better direction.

It's funny thinking back to when the hardcore "PS can do no wrong" stans would attack those of us who called Jim out years ago. Zealots will destroy their own church if their high priest commands it.

Devil's advocate, though, Sony's corporate culture tends to lead to leaders like him and it has damaged many of their divisions over the decades. And the problem was not entirely him. Kodera laid some groundwork in front of him toward this problem, and Ken Yoshida (SGC CEO) has very much been of similar mindset and aiding him, however now that he's dealing with the fallout, he's smart enough to trust someone else's different view. Right now their main focus seems to be to stop lighting piles of money on fire, which isn't a bad place to start.

They need to get Hulst out of the chair too, though, he's a symptom of Ryan's plague. They can't get rid of both of them at once and leave a power vacuum, but he has to go once they find the next president. Totoki's just a bean counter temporarily to prune back the Ryan years and get budgets under control. They need a gaming or at least entertainment exec, not a media exec in charge, or worse, a marketing guy like Jim. Really, they just need to pull Hirai out of retirement. He's the only reason PS and Sony Pictures still exists at all. He offered to advise when he retired. They really need to make use of that....

The rest of PS just ought to be lucky that Xbox is SUCH an unpopular brand that it just can't sell, even when it has exclusives (SoT) that clearly loads of people want, they still don't buy the box to play it. A lot like WiiU really, but the whole brand. If Xbox were stronger competition in mindshare they'd be in a really brink of disaster place after him. If Nintendo were competing in the same marketspace as them they'd have been finished 2 years ago.

@NEStalgia Wow I wasn't expecting an essay reply! I was talking objectively more about his commercial performance as a VP in Europes SIE growth phase and then the sales indicators as president/CEO. I don't think his output was particularly great and there were questionable consumer decisions but his success comes out of keeping shareholders happy which is sadly what props up the gaming industry. The next CEO needs to look at better budget regulation and higher profits margins. Herman Hulst should definitely go.

"We were absolutely thrilled to be able to negotiate a deal with Microsoft"
this is false
"Jim Ryan said “I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger,” according to Activision executive Lulu Cheng Meservey. The comment was made on February 21st, the day behind closed doors meetings were held with the EU"

MS also offered a 15 year deal plus all ABK games according to FTC files
sony/jim had to accept a 10 year deal possibly without future ABK games
which is possibly one reason of the many reasons sony got rid of him and didnt actually retire

@Murray amazingly even sony 3rd party games and first party games also came to xbox

the only one with REAL exclusives is nintendo

That picture makes Jim Ryan look like Jim Davidson!

More importantly is the fact that Call of Duty will be on Xbox GamePass on Day 1 at no additional cost.

@ShadowofTwilight Shame Microsoft users are now screwed out of every other insomniac IP but hey, at least Ryan is happy

@Player_1_Ready so, when will that happen?

Edit: Lol, Johnny is that you? 😂

@ShadowofTwilight
You've got Ryan to blame for that.

@rizangle Link to that 15 year deal? Are you sure you're not thinking of Ubisoft and the 15 year cloud streaming rights?

@ShadowofTwilight
LoL I can't help but get a nice laugh out of all of the ponies who are still puffin their chests out thinking they are hot sh*t.
Yeah Xbox put a few of its old games on PlayStation... And guess what? A MF Xbox One game is beating out the games Sony paid exclusivity for to 3rd party studios!! LoL!
No one thought that SoT would be out here getting the pony crowd this hyped, but when I saw it was beating out Rise of the Ronin, Dragons Dogma 2, and Steller Cheeks on the most pre ordered page! I see that as a giant win for Xbox, not for Ponies.

Xbox just sucked away sales and a ton of energy away from the only exclusives you have on the calendar this year with a live service game that is 6 years old!
Exactly the kind of game that Sony is praying they can squeeze out of one of their studios.

You seem like the kind of guy who is still sitting there saying that Xbox is going under any day now and thinks everything is just peachy at PlayStation...
Yeahhhh, about that... hahaha.
PlayStation is in it deep right now. Being sued internationally for billions, canceling multiple games including the main game its fans have been looking forward to for years (Factions 2). Closing down multiple studios and firing developers from every studio, including Insomniac, the only studio who has actually been producing games this generation for them haha.
Xbox is not sitting on cloud 9, but compared to PlayStation...
Oh and lets not forget how PlayStation has been hacked like 3 times within a year, and has actually taken content out of its user bases library instead of signing new contracts with publishers.

@Stoned_Patrol The fact you used the phrase ‘pony’s’ to open your comment already let us know what was coming but my god, you really went for the high bar with that nonsense didn’t you.

@MrMagic mostly remember it from memory as much of the documents have been deleted

heres some of it but not all also many people on sony and xbox side talked about it on youtube

lucky me i found some of the info but not all that i remember

https://exputer.com/news/industry/microsoft-call-of-duty-sony/

"Microsoft put forward an offer that would license Call of Duty to Sony for 15 years. This agreement would first last for five years, and then it would go on for another ten years. Hence, bringing the total period of this proposal to a remarkable 15 years."

many of the original documents from reddit are gone

@rizangle You shouldn't believe everything you read online. That website is just clickbaiting people. It reminds me of another website that claimed gamepass had over 50 million gamepass subscribers before we found out the real number. There's a reason it is the only article out of countless others to ever mention 15 years instead of 10. It's because they made it up and that's why it doesn't link any sources for that claim but it has a link for everything else.

You could Google for days and you'll never find any other mention of it because it wasn't real. It wouldn't suprise me if it was just a twitter comment from a fanboy who desperately wanted the deal to go through and that site just used it for a headline.

@MrMagic
https://twitter.com/IdleSloth84_/status/1626255567411970049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1626255567411970049%7Ctwgr%5E8a21231325ba3fc22e21ea3806dd8c01e0186ebd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fexputer.com%2Fnews%2Findustry%2Fmicrosoft-call-of-duty-sony%2F

What if ur proof this info is incorret? Along with the source? For example is the source link incorrect or fake?

@rizangle Ubisoft getting the cloud streaming rights to appease the CMA at the very last minute is just a coincidence.

Where exactly does it say that they were offered 15 years? The word repeatedly implies that it was more than 1 deal that they were offered, there's nothing there that states they were consecutive.

Yeah, and the last two games are still two of the laziest endeavors in gaming history. How wonderful for all.