Short answer: Sony said Microsoft offered to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for only three years after the existing Activision–Sony agreement. Microsoft Gaming chief Phil Spencer publicly described the offer as five years beyond that agreement. The record proves a dispute over how an offer was described—not that a court or regulator established intentional lying.
The disagreement, reported on September 7, 2022, became important because Call of Duty was central to regulators’ assessment of whether Microsoft’s proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition could weaken PlayStation competition.
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What Sony said in September 2022
Sony Interactive Entertainment chief executive Jim Ryan challenged Microsoft’s public account of its proposed Call of Duty arrangement. In a statement reproduced by Thurrott, Ryan said Microsoft had offered only three additional years after the existing agreement between Activision and Sony.
Ryan also said the proposal was inadequate on more than duration. Sony wanted protection for the PlayStation version’s competitive position, including matters such as content, features, launch timing, technical quality and commercial treatment. Keeping the title available in name would not necessarily guarantee equivalent functionality or player experience.
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Ryan said he was responding because Spencer had made what Sony understood to be a private business discussion public. The word “lied” therefore describes Sony’s allegation and the headline framing of the contemporary report; it is not a proven finding of deliberate deception.
Sony’s account versus Microsoft’s public account
| Issue | Sony’s account | Microsoft’s public account |
|---|---|---|
| Length beyond the existing agreement | Three additional years, according to Ryan’s description of the offer Sony received. | Five years beyond the current agreement, as Spencer described it publicly. |
| Availability | Duration alone did not adequately protect PlayStation’s position. | Microsoft said it intended to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation and honor existing agreements. |
| Parity | Sony was concerned about disadvantages short of outright removal. | Microsoft later described a written proposal with feature and content parity for “at least several more years.” |
| Later commitment | Does not establish what the September 2022 proposal contained. | Microsoft subsequently referred to a legally binding 10-year offer to Sony. |
Microsoft’s compilation of statements is available in its public-commitments document. Its account to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) described the written parity proposal in its response to the CMA’s issues statement. The later 10-year claim appears on Microsoft’s fiscal 2023 annual-shareholders-meeting page.
Why three years and five years could both appear in public statements
The available material does not disclose every underlying contract and negotiation document, so the figures cannot be reconciled with certainty. Several explanations are consistent with the record:
Different versions of the proposal
Negotiations can produce successive written and verbal offers. Ryan may have been describing the proposal Sony had received, while Spencer may have been referring to a later, broader or differently worded version.
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Different reference points
“Five years” may have meant five years after the existing agreement expired. Sony’s “three years” may have referred to a particular written extension or term under discussion. The remaining life of the original agreement should not be added or subtracted without seeing the contract language.
Different forums and remedies
A private commercial offer to Sony is not necessarily the same as a formal commitment presented to a regulator. Public statements also shifted from honoring existing agreements, to keeping the game for “several more years,” to a later 10-year offer.
Confidential negotiations
Because the negotiations were private and some regulatory materials were redacted, the public could not perform a complete side-by-side comparison of the terms. Duration was only one part of the bargain; parity, quality, timing and pricing could change its practical value.
What the existing Activision–Sony agreement covered
The contemporary report characterized the existing arrangement as covering multiple upcoming Call of Duty releases, including Modern Warfare 2 in 2022 and the next two games. The precise commercial terms were not fully public. Marketing rights, launch content, downloadable content, timing and platform features may have been governed by provisions that were not disclosed.
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That is why “three years after the current agreement” is not the same as saying the game would disappear from PlayStation three years after the acquisition. It describes a proposed extension measured from an existing contract whose complete end date and conditions were not publicly available.
Why regulators treated Call of Duty as a competition issue
The CMA identified Call of Duty as an important Activision franchise with the potential to affect competition between Xbox and PlayStation. Its issues statement said the series was important to PlayStation and had few obvious substitutes with comparable popularity and brand recognition. See the CMA issues statement.
The regulator examined several possible forms of foreclosure, not just an Xbox-only release:
- withholding the game from PlayStation;
- providing a lower-quality or less functional version;
- withholding features, upgrades or content;
- giving Xbox an earlier release or other timing advantage; and
- raising the wholesale price charged to rival platforms.
On September 1, 2022, the CMA said the transaction could raise competition concerns, and it later said the deal could harm UK gamers. Its initial announcements are at the CMA’s competition-concerns notice and its provisional findings announcement.
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Did the CMA ultimately agree with Sony?
Not on the final console theory. In March 2023, the CMA said new evidence indicated Microsoft would not have a commercial incentive to make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox: the lost PlayStation sales would likely outweigh the gains from exclusivity. The regulator’s updated view is described in its March announcement.
On April 26, 2023, the CMA blocked the original transaction primarily because of cloud-gaming concerns. It said the console concerns had been resolved or no longer justified prohibition on that basis. The final announcement is at the CMA’s decision notice.
That distinction matters. Sony’s complaint was that a proposed PlayStation protection was too short and insufficiently robust. The CMA’s later question was whether the merger would substantially lessen console competition overall. Those are related, but they are not the same legal or economic test.
What happened to the broader transaction
The CMA’s inquiry timeline records the major stages: competition concerns on September 1, 2022; an in-depth investigation on September 15; provisional findings on February 8, 2023; and the April 26 prohibition. The timeline is available on the CMA merger-inquiry page.
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On September 22, 2023, the CMA accepted a restructured transaction after Ubisoft received cloud-streaming rights to current and future Activision games for 15 years outside the European Economic Area. That remedy addressed cloud rights, not the original three-versus-five-year PlayStation dispute. See the CMA’s restructuring decision.
So, did Microsoft lie?
What is documented: Sony and Microsoft publicly gave different descriptions of the duration of a proposed Call of Duty arrangement—three years in Ryan’s account and five years in Spencer’s.
What remains possible: They may have been discussing different proposals, dates, documents or reference points. The later “several more years” and 10-year formulations show that Microsoft’s public commitments evolved during the regulatory process.
What is not established: The available record does not prove that Microsoft intentionally deceived Sony or the public. A later 10-year offer cannot be used retroactively to prove what the September 2022 offer contained, and continued availability would not by itself guarantee parity in every feature or commercial term.
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The narrow, supportable conclusion is that Sony made a serious allegation about how Microsoft characterized its offer. The public evidence establishes a contradiction over an evolving negotiation, not an adjudicated finding that Microsoft lied.
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