On this week's episode of Podcast Beyond, IGN's PlayStation Podcast, host Jonathon Dornbush is joined by Jada Griffin, Mark Medina, and Matt Kim to dive into the big news of the week, and, unsurprisingly, we dig into the Activision-Xbox deal. On a PlayStation show, you say? Well, we discuss what this potential deal means for PlayStation players - should Activision and Blizzard games, perhaps most notably, Call of Duty, go exclusive to Xbox consoles and subscription services on console and PC, where does that leave PlayStation? After all, Call of Duty is always one of the industry's best-selling games, and one of the biggest games, with timed exclusives as part of nearly every recent entry, a major factor for PlayStation players. Should future Call of Duty games go away from PlayStation, we discuss what that means for Call of Duty Warzone and more broadly the first-person shooter and multiplayer landscapes on PS4 and PS5. We discuss what PlayStation's recent moves to acquire teams and exclusive games from third-parties means for its future (and why we think multiplayer experiences will be a big part of the PS5's lifecycle), and whether bringing back old franchises like Killzone or Resistance makes sense versus new games. for the PS4 and PS5 player base. We examine PlayStation's recent first-party multiplayer efforts, multiplayer hits on PlayStation Plus, and more as we discuss this, as well as whether the Xbox-Activision deal, and the obvious focus on Xbox Game Pass, will cause any shifts to PlayStation's upcoming alleged subscription plans. Our PlayStation podcast also digs into the new Horizon Forbidden West trailer, as well as God of War's success on PC. Plus, we dive into all the games we've been playing, including Jonathon finally beating Horizon Zero Dawn's The Frozen Wilds DLC, Matt beating Death Stranding, Mark continuing to work through Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and Jada's Demon's Souls trophy hunting. And, for those looking forward to the release of Windjammers 2, Jonathon also speaks to the CEO of DotEmu, Cyrille Imbert, about the series' surprising success on PlayStation a few years ago, their goals with the sequel, and more.

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