Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 leak shows beta hitting PlayStation first despite Microsoft Activision purchase

A new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 leak seems to show the game's open beta launching on PlayStation platforms ahead of Xbox and PC, despite Xbox parent company Microsoft buying Call of Duty publisher Activision for $68 billion.

Charlie Intel was the first to report on the leak, which seems to reveal key details about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's various pre-order bundles. Like previous pre-order bundles, the standard edition, "Vault" edition, and now the cross-gen bundle include various goodies along with the base game. But most importantly, each pre-order grants early access to the upcoming open beta, and once again it looks like PlayStation players are able to get in ahead of everyone else.

If you'll remember, the betas for Vanguard, Black Ops Cold War, and 2019's Modern Warfare offered exclusive access to PlayStation users as part of an ongoing deal between the publisher and console maker, so this isn't anything unusual. What makes this year's release different, of course, is that the rights to the franchise are now tentatively in the hands of PlayStation's biggest rival, Xbox.

Though Xbox boss Phil Spencer has made it clear that Call of Duty will stay on PlayStation following the Activision purchase, it was unclear how long existing agreements like timed beta exclusivity would stick around. Even so, Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal isn't expected to close for several months, so it's not a huge shocker that there's still some PlayStation exclusive content on the way.