117 million gamers won't be able to play new Call of Duty following shock announcement

Few games sell more than the latest Call of Duty title every year, yet the next release in the series appears to be closing off access to up to 117 million gamers according to a shocking new announcement.

Call of Duty has always been one of the industry's biggest hitters but it really kicked off following the release of Modern Warfare in 2007, thrusting the series into its now iconic modern setting.

Each subsequent title has dominated the gaming world from a sales perspective, and part of that comes from the fact that it's available on more consoles than most releases of its caliber.

Unlike many of the biggest AAA games, Call of Duty tends to continue releases on the previous generation of consoles years after the newest platforms are launched, significantly increasing the potential player count and sales for each entry.

That appears to be coming to an end for the eighth console generation, however, as a new official announcement puts an end to rumors about the next Call of Duty game's development.

"Not sure where this one started, but it's not true," proclaimed the official Call of Duty account on X in response to recent speculation, clarifying that "the next Call of Duty is not being developed for PS4."

While there were over 117 million PS4 consoles sold across its lifespan, it's safe to assume that the majority of these have already upgraded to the PlayStation 5 and therefore won't be affected by this change.

That still leaves potentially millions who have been relying on previous gen support that will no longer receive it — although many would argue that this has been coming for a number of years now.

After all, Microsoft has already officially revealed the early stages of its next generation console, so it was a considerable achievement for the Call of Duty series to still offer support for a platform that was released over a decade ago.

Many fans have even received the news positively, as it has long been speculated that the need to optimize for the PS4's inferior hardware has been holding the game back from its full potential.

"Actually glad to hear this," wrote one user in response to the announcement, adding that "it's been time to leave last gen for a while now."

Another claimed that "this means Modern Warfare 4 will have the best graphics in Call of Duty history," with another celebrating that "we are finally past the PS4 generation."