As regulators across the globe continue to scrutinize the Microsoft-Activision deal, Microsoft has signed a new 10-year binding legal agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty games to the Japanese gaming giant’s consoles with full feature, content, and release date parity. Both companies had previously committed to such an arrangement back in December, but the deal now being set in stone all but ensures that gamers will be able to fully enjoy the Call of Duty franchise on Nintendo hardware should the acquisition go through.
- Related Reading: A Significant Percentage of PlayStation Gamers Bought a Sony Console Because of Call of Duty, According to CMA Survey
We’ve now signed a binding 10-year contract to bring Xbox games to Nintendo’s gamers. This is just part of our commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles like Call of Duty to more players on more platforms. pic.twitter.com/JmO0hzw1BO
— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) February 21, 2023
As announced by Vice Chairman and President of Microsoft Brad Smith, Microsoft has now signed a decade-long contract with Nintendo to bring Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty franchise to Nintendo consoles. Microsoft Gaming CEO and Xbox head Phil Spencer revealed in December that both companies had entered an agreement for this purpose, but the new legal contract apparently also stipulates that all Call of Duty titles that come to Nintendo’s consoles must release simultaneously with the Xbox editions, and must include all the features and content present in other editions of the games.
Microsoft and Nintendo have now negotiated and signed a binding 10-year legal agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players – the same day as Xbox, with full feature and content parity – so they can experience Call of Duty just as Xbox and PlayStation gamers enjoy Call of Duty. We are committed to providing long term equal access to Call of Duty to other gaming platforms, bringing more choice to more players and more competition to the gaming market.
The new agreement may well help Microsoft’s case in front of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which provisionally found that the acquisition was likely to result in two substantial lessening of competition scenarios (SLCs) in the console hardware and cloud gaming markets. Stay tuned here at MP1st for all new information and updates concerning Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.