'The Battlefield franchise cannot keep up' with Call of Duty, says Sony

PlayStation states that Battlefield can't compete with COD

In another news story out of the Competition and Markets Authority filing regarding the potential Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Sony has indirectly fired shots at the Battlefield series. 

If you're not all caught up in the drama, here's what's going down: Microsoft wants to buy Activision Blizzard, along with its IPs, including Call of Duty. Sony is trying to get the deal blocked out of fear of losing access to Call of Duty down the line. Various competition authorities are currently investigating the deal.

Documents pertaining to the investigations are publicly accessible, and each of the companies involved is doing its best to explain why the deal should or shouldn't happen. 

Here's what PlayStation had to say in the latest: 

“Call of Duty is not replicable," Sony says. "Call of Duty is too entrenched for any rival, no matter how well equipped, to catch up. It has been the top-selling game for almost every year in the last decade and, in the first-person shooter (‘FPS’) genre, it is overwhelmingly the top-selling game.

"Other publishers do not have the resources or expertise to match its success. To give a concrete example, Electronic Arts — one of the largest third-party developers after Activision — has tried for many years to produce a rival to Call of Duty with its Battlefield series. Despite the similarities between Call of Duty and Battlefield — and despite EA’s track record in developing other successful triple-A franchises (such as FIFA, Mass Effect, Need for Speed, and Star Wars: Battlefront) — the Battlefield franchise cannot keep up."

Battlefield 2042 launched at the end of last year to mixed reception, and it's struggled to maintain a solid player base, to the point where it just landed on Xbox Game Pass as part of the subscription service.

Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is one of the best-selling games of the year. You can see Sony's point, no matter how you feel about the potential acquisition. On the other side of it, Xbox argues that many PlayStation exclusives are better than Xbox. 

Elsewhere, Microsoft might have revealed the GTA 6 release date.