The on-going saga of Xbox’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard has been central news segment across the gaming industry in 2022. We’ve covered repeatedly on our weekly Bitcasts (Bitcast panelist Rick Hoeg also covers it in excellent detail on his channel which you can find here) and it continues to be front and center in discussions around the community.
The latest surprise in Microsoft’s efforts is to declare that they have signed a 10-year agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms. The details were announced by Microsoft’s CEO of Gaming Phil Spencer late yesterday evening.
Microsoft has entered into a 10-year commitment to bring Call of Duty to @Nintendo following the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King. Microsoft is committed to helping bring more games to more people – however they choose to play. @ATVI_AB
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) December 7, 2022
While details are of course not understood at this time, this is a very big announcement by Xbox and as they have stated clearly many times over, will result in Call of Duty (and other AB titles) being playable by more gamers, on more platforms, than ever before.
If you’d like to understand how Xbox/Call of Duty on the Switch (or future Nintendo platforms) would work conceptually, we recommend this article by our EiC Ainsley Bowden that he wrote back in 2019.
This was then doubled-down upon with a “shot across the bow” towards PlayStation by Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President, Brad Smith, who stated that they are willing to hammer out a deal with Sony/PlayStation any time Sony wants to.
Our acquisition will bring Call of Duty to more gamers and more platforms than ever before. That's good for competition and good for consumers. Thank you @Nintendo. Any day @Sony wants to sit down and talk, we'll be happy to hammer out a 10-year deal for PlayStation as well. https://t.co/m1IQxdeo6n
— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) December 7, 2022
Our Take
This is an ever-evolving agreement and has faced a lot of scrutiny. But based upon the conversations we’ve had with experts in this space, it’s clear that Microsoft and Xbox feel they are in a very strong position. And it’s becoming more clear by the day as they begin to be more aggressive in their approach.
As always, we’ll continue to update you on this topic every Sunday during The Bitcast with only the facts and what you need to know. You can find our latest show below where we discuss the latest.
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