Call of Duty is one of, if not the biggest franchises in gaming history. It is quite simply iconic and pretty much anyone with mild interest in video games could list of games in the franchise and the famous development teams, such as Infinity Ward, that worked on them.
It comes as somewhat of a surprise then, to learn that the manufacturer on one of the leading consoles on which Call of Duty can be played on has no knowledge of the game at all. None. Not even when the first game came out, or the fact that there has been a CoD almost every year since then. This was revealed when Microsoft responded to documents in the legal case brought against it by the FTC in the United States.
The FTC stated a number of details in regards to the franchise to which Microsoft responded with the following:
Microsoft avers that it lacks the knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to to the truth of the allegations concerning the industry perceptions of Call of Duty and Call of Duty’s original release date; or as to the truth of the allegations concerning Call of Duty’s launch and typical release schedule and the resources and budget Activision allocates to Call of Duty, including the number of studios that work on Call of Duty.
It appears no one at Microsoft can use Google to find out when Call of Duty launched. Maybe they’re all still using Bing.
Microsoft go one to deny all knowledge of Call of Duty’s revenues, sales and active uses. Given that Microsoft are trying to buy Activision and their most famous franchise you would have thought they may have asked for those sort of details before offering $68.7 billion in cash. There’s also the small matter than the game is played on their consoles so will at least have data on how many players there are on Xbox.
The FTC claimed Call of Duty is a popular, profitable, and successful video game franchise. Microsoft’s response is that it has no knowledge of Call of Duty revenues and demands all sourcing. Extremely nasty and petty. pic.twitter.com/ISZFv7bs9K
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 23, 2022
Microsoft go on to claim the FTC itself is unconstitutional and therefore all their claims are invalid. I wonder how well that will go down in the courts.
Source: Twitter