Microsoft has signed a retention agreement call of Duty At PlayStation after taking over Activision Blizzardsaid Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, in one tweet on Sunday.
A deal to keep Call of Duty on Playstation could further allay concerns about the acquisition’s impact on competition.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement about the agreement tweet“Even after we reach the finish line for approving this deal, we will remain focused on ensuring Call of Duty remains available on more platforms and to more consumers than ever before.”
The FTC had argued that the deal would hurt consumers, whether they played video games on consoles or had subscriptions, because Microsoft would have an incentive to shut out competitors like these Sony group.
To address the FTC’s concerns, Microsoft previously agreed to license Call of Duty to competitors, including a 10-year deal with Nintendodepending on the completion of the merger.
Microsoft initially announced the Activision offering in January 2022. The internet giant wanted to take on the competition Tencent And Sony with the takeover. Previously, both companies had signed a 10-year license deal that will bring Call of Duty to their gaming platform, subject to the Activision deal being approved. However, Microsoft has now decided to keep Call of Duty on the PlayStation. In fact, Spanish company Nware has also signed a 10-year deal to bring Xbox and Activision Blizzard games to the Spanish cloud gaming platform.
It should be noted that Brazil, Chile, Serbia and Saudi Arabia have already unreservedly approved the deal.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
