Microsoft Says It Will Reach More Call of Duty Deals in the Coming Weeks - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 14 March 2023 / 3,188 Views
Microsoft today announced it had signed a 10-year agreement with cloud streaming service Boosteroid to release Xbox games on PC to the platform. This includes Activision Blizzard games on PC if Microsoft's acquisition of the company is approved.
Microsoft President Brad Smith speaking with The Wall Street Journal said Microsoft expects to reach more deals in the coming weeks to bring Call of Duty to more platforms.
"If the only argument is that Microsoft is going to withhold Call of Duty from other platforms, and we’ve now entered into contracts that are going to bring this to many more devices and many more platforms, that is a pretty hard case to make to a court," said Smith.
He added, "More [deals] will follow."
Smith said the reason Microsoft wants to acquire Activision Blizzard is to round out its library of titles and to grow its mobile presence.
"The reason we want to buy Activision Blizzard is to round out our titles to have a fuller library, especially to have more mobile titles where we don’t have a strong presence, and build a stronger gaming business," said Smith.
Microsoft has also entered a 10-year commitment with Nintendo in December 2022 to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms if Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition is approved.
"Microsoft has entered into a 10-year commitment to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo following the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King," said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer at the time. "Microsoft is committed to helping bring more games to more people – however they choose to play."
Microsoft has offered Sony a similar 10-year agreement as it did Nintendo, however, Sony has not signed any deal. The deal would make each new Call of Duty game for the next 10 years available on PlayStation consoles on the same day they launch for Xbox consoles and PC with full content and feature parity.
Microsoft and Nvidia also announced last month the two companies have signed a 10-year partnership to bring Xbox games on PC to the Nvidia GeForce Now cloud gaming service. The agreement will enable gamers to stream Xbox games on PC from GeForce Now to PCs, macOS, Chromebooks, smartphones, and more.
If Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal is approved it will bring games from Activision Blizzard to GeForce Now, including Call of Duty.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Epic Games Store and GOG I imagine would be logical choices next. Along with any smaller independent cloud streaming services as well.
Everyone is going to end up with a 10 year COD deal except Sony if they don't sign the deal and acquisition goes through.
Not that it really matters whether Sony signs a 10 year deal or not, CoD isn't going to go anywhere. It would only tarnish the CoD brand. At worst, Sony just looks petty and desperate to guard their walled garden whereas Xbox games are going everywhere lol. Well, except when it comes to Nintendo. They're just getting CoD since Blizzard games, and most other Activision franchises, are already on Nintendo platforms. But with Xbox making deals to bring their games to different platforms left and right, it really mutes Sony's complaints that MS owning ActiBlizz would harm the industry.
Yea but this is only happening because Sony made a big fuss about the whole deal. Now MS is trying to do whatever they can to get this deal to go through. MS would not be making all these deals if this merger was allowed to happen without anyone trying to stop it.
On top of that this is just for 10 years. What happens after that no one knows. MS could pull up the walled garden all over again and force everyone who was enjoying COD multiplat to sign up for GP or buy an xbox. I know how in love everyone is with all the great consumer stuff Xbox is doing but lets not forget the full history of this company. They have done very anti consumer stuff in the past there's no reason to believe they will never do it again.
Sony has no reason to accept a deal that, make no mistake, regulators will impose on MS anyway.
Regulator may block or force MS to divest, they cannot impose contracts between 2 entity. MS may propose a contract to Sony as a resolution to regulator concern but whether or not Sony accept it should be irrelevant if the contract is considered fair. With all those deals MS is proving the deal to be fair and Sony position to be unreasonable and motivated solely by self conservation.
It would be funny if Sony refuses to sign, then after the deal closes Microsoft says "Well, now that we have Call of duty on just about every system and service, releasing on PlayStation is no longer as important. So we'll skip it."
Would it be ironic if the merger gets approved... And Microsoft only releases Call of Duty to those who signed an agreement...
If sony didn't make a fuss, xbox would't be coming out with these deals. This is all done to aid with the court case
Like any company would do anything unless being forced to. Get over yourself man lol. Sony and Nintendo would be pulling similar moves if that meant getting regulatory approval.
They probably would. My point is they just care about the $, not the people. There is no love for the consumer.
With ABK under the Umbrella you can see the goal of them wanting 200m GP subscribers instead of 25m. That would generate $2b a month! Thats insane forecasting.
Long way to go but they are building.
Who is talking about 200 million game pass subscribers? I don't see that in the cards, at least not for a couple of decades
Its forecasting the End Game. They see protential of growth and ABK is a good kick starter. To become the biggest publisher you have to own the biggest publisher. GP can grow beyond the console market.
These contracts seem to be possible even without the merger having been concluded, so I guess who needs the merger?
Yet they didn’t happen until now. You think ABK would do these deals on their own? That's funny.
Xbox wants to be the Netflix of gaming. I hope people are starting to understand that now.
Cheaper priced access to games that relies on a subscription, to make it more accessible to as many people as possible.
Only self-destructive clowns are against this model.
Since we know how "profitable" these flatrate services like Netflix or Spotify are I wonder who is the self-destructive clown here...
