Microsoft never managed to beat the PlayStation with the Xbox. The closest the company got to Redmond was with the Xbox 360, one of the best consoles in history and also one of the most advanced of its generation, as it was the first to use a unified shader architecture when these were not yet available on PC.

It is true that the battle for victory in the current generation is not over yet, but the advantage that the PlayStation 5 has over the Xbox Series X and Series S is so great that It seems unlikely that Microsoft will be able to turn the tables. However, things may change for future generations, especially thanks to Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

At the revenue level, such a purchase operation would significantly boost the economic results of both companies. As we can see on the graph, the joint results of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard in the first half of 2023 would generate more revenue from the gaming business than Sonyand they would be only behind the giant Tencent.

It goes without saying that income is important, but in this case we have another important key, which is that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard Microsoft will end certain advantages that Sony had with the Call of Duty franchise, as a classic “first on PlayStation” and will also end some optimization controversies where some parts of the said franchise seemed to be less optimized for Xbox.

All consoles will have the same terms as Call of Duty, and of course that will hurt PlayStation It will lose that advantageous position that also gave it some status and a better image compared to Xbox. But that’s not all, Microsoft has an important ace up its sleeve that we shouldn’t overlook, the ability to encourage development new franchises or even new games based on existing Blizzard IPs that could end up exclusive to Xbox and PC.

By buying Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has put itself in a very good position to finally achieve a victory for Xbox over PlayStation. However, it is evident that they have to “work” on this victory and that they have to support a new exclusive development that has enough potential to convince users that they should buy an Xbox instead of a PlayStation.