“Can’t Keep Up”: Battlefield Gets Sold Down the River by Sony Following the Microsoft-Activision Merger Bid

Published 11/25/2022, 10:50 AM EST

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Battlefield and Call of Duty have been two franchises that have always competed with each other. And they have been moderately successful. But in recent times, Call of Duty has been basically ruling the sales charts. And the last Battlefield game, Battlefield 2042, was put down by the fans for its numerous glitches and bugs.

Microsoft has been trying to acquire Activision for its properties. And the main attraction for them has always been the Call of Duty franchise. This acquisition was recently halted in Europe to investigate the Acquisition’s effect on the industry as a whole.

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Sony states the importance of Call of Duty

In a statement to the investigation committee, Sony recently mentioned that even though Battlefield is a big franchise, CoD is the one that wins the hearts of players all around the world.

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As per Sony, “Other publishers do not have the resources or expertise to match its success. To give a concrete example, Electronic Arts (one of the largest thirdparty developers after Activision) has tried for many years to produce a rival to Call of Duty with its Battlefield series.”

It further read, “Despite the similarities between Call of Duty and Battlefield and despite EA’s track record in developing other successful AAA franchises (such as FIFA, Mass Effect, Need for Speed, and Star Wars: Battlefront)—the Battlefield franchise cannot keep up. As of August 2021, more than 400 million Call of Duty games had been sold, while Battlefield had sold just 88.7 million copies.”

And the recent success of CoD Modern Warfare II and the way fans of Battlefield 2042 reacted to its shortcomings simply proves that there might be some truth to this statement.

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Battlefield 2042 was not as successful as Modern Warfare II

The latest CoD game, Modern Warfare II, won various accolades and topped sales charts everywhere, earning over $800 million within three days of its launch. The game itself, if fans are to be believed, is a phenomenon and its success might also be the result of Modern Warfare II’s release on the Steam marketplace recently.

Battlefield 2042, on the other hand, was released to a mixed response from critics and gamers alike. Due to a number of glitches and bugs that came with it, many reviewers were pretty disappointed. Even the players reacted by giving over 30,000 negative reviews to it on its Steam store page.

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So it is understandable why Sony made that statement. The current state of the Battlefield is not very good. Let us hope after Dead Space and the New Star Wars game, EA has something in the works for the Battlefield franchise.

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Written by:

Rohit Sejwal

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Originating from Delhi, Rohit Sejwal is an Esports writer at EssentiallySports who has done MSc in filmmaking. Academics aside, he is an Avid Gamer and has been writing about them every now and then. While RPG games are his forte, Soulsborne games are the ones that he cherishes the most.
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Edited by:

Jito Tenson