The news was announced on Sunday by Microsoftâs gaming head Phil Spencer. âWe are pleased to announce that Microsoft and â PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard,â Spencer â tweeted. âWe look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favorite games.â
A Microsoft spokesperson â subsequently confirmed to The Verge that the deal would last for a term of 10 years, and covers Call of â Duty only â not any other Activision Blizzard games. That puts it on a par with agreements Microsoft had previously â signed with Nintendo, Nvidia, and others.
Microsoft president Brad Smith also commented, saying, âFrom Day One of this acquisition, weâve been â committed to addressing the concerns of regulators, platform and game developers, and consumers. Even after we cross the finish line â for this dealâs approval, we will remain focused on ensuring that Call of Duty remains available on more platforms and â for more consumers than ever before.â
The signing of the deal marks the end of a long stalemate, during which Microsoft â made repeated public offers to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, while Sony dismissed these and instead attempted to use â its leverage with regulators to sink MicrosoftâsR$68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard completely. âI donât want a new Call of â Duty deal. I just want to block your merger,â PlayStation boss Jim Ryan reportedly told Activision executives on the day â of a meeting with European Union regulators in February.
PlayStationâs strategy was to use Call of Duty to convince regulators the â merger would kill competition in the console market, because Microsoft would withhold the games from PlayStation or release inferior versions â there. But this strategy was none too successful. EU regulators were satisfied with the assurances offered by Microsoft, while the â U.K.âs Competition and Markets Authority eventually conceded it was in Microsoftâs interest to keep Call of Duty available to PlayStationâs â huge audience, and switched tack in its opposition of the deal to concerns around cloud gaming.
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