Call Of Duty games are more expensive to make than GTA 5, says Sony

Sony is not too pleased about Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision. I mean, there’s not really any reason why the company would be - one of its biggest rivals is set to get so much bigger, and own even more giant franchises like Overwatch, Spyro the Dragon and, of course, Call of Duty.

Call of Duty has basically been at the epicentre of Sony’s entire argument against the buyout - the company hasn’t been afraid to admit that it’s pretty concerned about what would happen if Microsoft decided to make it an Xbox exclusive. Earlier this year, Sony said: “Call of Duty is so popular that it influences users’ choice of console, and its network of loyal users is so entrenched that even if a competitor had the budget to develop a similar product, it would not be able to rival it.”

Take a look at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II’s take on the All Ghillied Up mission below.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has continually reassured both Sony and the CoD fanbase that the series won’t be leaving PlayStation any time soon. He recently revealed that he has “no issue” making a “longer term commitment that Sony would be comfortable with”, adding that: “We think Call of Duty will be on PlayStation as long as players want to play Call of Duty on PlayStation.”

Even so, it continues to be a hot talking point during the acquisition discussion, and now, as Charlie INTEL reports, Sony’s argument to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on why it believes Microsoft’s deal should be stopped has been published. Here, the company claims that each Call of Duty title has a budget over $300 million, with every one taking around three to five years to make.

Just to put it into perspective, it’s said that GTA V had a budget of around $265 million. This was, and still is, huge - it’s up there with some of the most expensive video games ever made. Meanwhile, if it’s true that significantly more than that is being spent on CoD every year, the amount of money going into the series is absolutely astronomical. It’s genuinely quite hard to fathom.